How CHG Healthcare Uses Event Technology to Put People First

As one of the largest healthcare staffing providers in the U.S., CHG Healthcare works to put people first.  Manager of Corporate Events Annie Gingrich needed to find a technology solution without sacrificing culture. “One of the things we battled was choosing technology in lieu of another really engaged employee. That was something that we had to sell to our stakeholders, because CHG feels very strongly about taking care of their people,” she explains.

Balancing Culture and Technology at CHG Healthcare

With an astounding 33% growth across eight offices in just two years, CHG needed a single platform that could handle all of their events. They also needed seamless travel integrations with the ability to better manage spend. “Before Cvent, we were spreadsheet-y. There’s really no other way to describe it,” Annie admits. “There weren’t clear metrics. That’s one thing we really wanted to define...how could we benchmark? How could we show value for the event planning profession?” Like many organizations struggling with unexpected growth, Annies' team lost valuable time, revenue, and trust from other teams in using manual processes. “We were planning over 250 events a year, and we knew that we needed a technology partner we could grow with. Cvent was the answer,” explains Annie. Discovering Cvent allowed her team to streamline and scale with unexpected success. In the first 10 months, her team managed more than 30 events through Cvent. “We started off with a small package. In our first year, we've added on a PNR integration. We're adding on Cvent payment services, we're moving to a Concur integration, and we have done 7,500 registrations within less than a year,” she explains.

"We were planning over 250 events a year, and we knew that we needed a technology partner we could grow with. Cvent was the answer."

Empowering the Presidents Club Experience

The annual Presidents Club incentive trip became the first event entirely managed on the Cvent platform.  “From the get-go, we created an event that had seven different registrations paths, a PNR integration, and the CrowdCompass mobile app," explains Annie. Cvent’s automated email capabilities helped target specific attendees. She adds, “In order to get the right message at the right time, we had to know what our people were doing. There are a lot of ways to do that through Cvent. We could see how they were responding to HTML clicks within an email or when we had peak registrations. We could learn their behaviors to really tailor and customize." To ensure a longstanding solution, integrations were key. "It doesn’t make sense to bring in a new system every few years," Annie explains. "If we can have our existing systems integrate with Cvent, it’s a cost-savings and ultimately a convenience." The PNR integration alone has saved the Travel team hundreds of hours in not having to manually enter thousands of itineraries for the incentive trip. Mobile was also key to their success. Using the CrowdCompass mobile app for their events, Annie’s team was able to leverage Live Polling, push notifications, Q&A, and session feedback to keep users engaged. CrowdCompass also helped the team save on printing costs and labor. “It was new to our attendees, and it was completely new to our team. It was an absolute massive success. Our post-event survey results were very clear that it was the best President’s Club that they had ever been to,” adds Annie.

"It doesn’t make sense to bring in a new system every few years. If we can have our existing systems integrate with Cvent, it’s a cost-savings and ultimately a convenience."

Using Event Technology for Good

“One of CHG’s core values is putting people first. Our people are very passionate about giving back to the communities in which they live and work," adds Annie. For the annual “Making a Difference” volunteer week, the team was able to leverage Cvent to gauge the voice of the community. “Engagement is a metric that we track at CHG, and it directly correlates with our growth in business. The higher our engagement scores are, the higher our revenues have been,” she adds. Using Cvent’s Event Management platform and CrowdCompass, Annie’s team was able to connect with employees to create a powerful giving experience. Ultimately, CHG was able to donate an incredible $647,000 directly back to the community as a result.

Ensuring People Stay at the Forefront of CHG Healthcare

Not only did implementing Cvent create a successful process for their events program, but it also elevated the team’s profile within the organization. “One of the things that our stakeholders really liked was that it wasn’t just for the Events team. It bridged all of these different areas, including our Corporation Communications, Training, Learning and Development, and our Culture teams,” says Annie. For example, CHG's annual humanitarian trips bring together highly-engaged employees to build schools in Kenya. However, the Culture team struggled with overwhelming logistics. “We went through a full day workshop where they mapped out of all of the pain points. Four hours in, I finally had to blurt out, ‘Cvent can solve all these problems!’” laughs Annie. Want to hear CHG's story in Annie's own words? Check out the video below!

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