How Ather Energy created a lively workplace with Workvivo
Discover how Ather Energy used Workvivo to boost engagement, connection, and recognition across its diverse workforce.
98-99%
user activation via Single Sign-On
Increasing
mobile app downloads
100%
platform rollout
In its early days, Ather Energy’s team would fit on a single-floor, where you didn’t need a platform to access company news. When the CEO dropped an update, and you weren’t there, you could catch up by asking your colleague over lunch. Simple, right?
But growth has a way of making things complicated. Ather grew into a company of 3,500 people spread across factories, testing sites, sales centers, and offices. Suddenly, catching up on updates was no longer so simple.
Rohith Hariharan, Ather’s Head of People Communications and Employer Branding, tells us how the organization’s early years were focused on product design and development.
Electrifying the two-wheeler market requires a larger, more dispersed team. This presents the next major challenge: how to keep this widespread workforce connected regardless of their location.
We trace Ather’s communication evolution and show how Workvivo unified the company’s distributed workforce.
People
~3,500
Industry
Automotive
Location
India
Category
Enterprise
The predictability that Workvivo provides trumps every other thing. When everyone knew there would always be something new at a regular time, checking Workvivo became a habit.
Rohith Hariharan
Head of People Communications and Employer Branding
Ather’s comms before Workvivo
As the company grew beyond its initial single-floor team, Ather launched a native intranet it called Interstellar, using a simple web page – it helped maintain employee contact lists, departments, and documents. It was useful, but more was needed.
Over time, Ather added improved analytics, engagement metrics, and other new features. By 2020, with town hall meetings halted by the pandemic, the intranet introduced video uploads and richer content. For a while, it worked well. But – the intranet was still a one-way street. Employees treated it like a news page, skimming over information but not engaging with it.
The company realized that it didn’t just need a place to post files, but one where recognition and genuine conversation could occur. That set the stage for Workvivo.
Choosing Workvivo
After three different versions of Interstellar, Ather tried other productivity and project-tracking tools to achieve a two-way communication process. However, these tools weren’t keeping the larger workforce engaged.
“There are the three main pillars for internal communication – inform, collaborate, and engage,” says Rohith. “Channels such as project-tracking tools or chat help people collaborate, but you want to help your teams connect in a slightly different way, to really engage as people. Those other channels were not built for that.”
Rohith makes an interesting analogy: “An ambulance can technically take you from A to B. But would you use it for a family road trip?”
It was clear the company needed a different vehicle to foster culture and give recognition.
Workvivo met that need. It offered a feed-first, two-way space that blends intranet, comms, engagement, and an employee app into a simple social experience. The platform helped Ather clarify the roles of their different tools:
- Chat, productivity, and project management tools: Get company work done
- Workvivo: Tell the story, recognize the people, and celebrate success
The implementation process
The rollout of Workvivo was both smooth and exciting for Ather Energy:
- The operations team migrated critical content (documents, organizational charts, archived news posts) to Workvivo.
- On launch day, the team planned a single "big-bang" launch event across all locations.
From kick-off to launch, the entire project lasted just a month. To build excitement for the launch, the admin team distributed cupcakes in the factory and office cafeterias, along with login instructions.
Behind the scenes, Workvivo’s support team coached Ather’s champions through a training session. There were instructions on how to post, what to share, and how to set the tone. With that guidance, adoption skyrocketed.
What actually changed with Workvivo
For Ather, Workvivo provided a lively platform where employees could drop in for a laugh, celebrate wins, and feel seen. Below are some highlights
1. Spaces & interests
One early surprise was how quickly staff adopted the Spaces feature. Ather created dozens of spaces for shared interests, such as #DadJokes, #Photography, #FirstTimeParents, sports teams, and more.
Employees also started making their own spaces while departments such as HR created unique channels to share company news. One engineer mentioned he logs in every morning to enjoy the latest humor in #DadJokes before starting work.
2. Peer recognition
Workvivo’s built-in recognition tools became popular. In the factory, teams would issue shout-outs and badges to coworkers for small wins (such as fixing one of the many production bottlenecks or training a new employee).
“Recognition doesn’t get the same mileage in chat tools as it does on Workvivo,” Rohith says. As a result, peer recognition grew rapidly, enabling employees to celebrate others’ successes in real-time.
“Fundamentally, Ather is a very driven organization,” says Rohith. “But because it is driven, it happens that you don't stop to recognize what you have already achieved. However, one thing that still surprises me is the way recognition is increasing thanks to the platform. People are doing it voluntarily, wanting to celebrate each other.”
3. Regular content creation
Ather’s senior leader releases a monthly podcast post. According to Rohith, “The predictability that Workvivo provides trumps every other thing. When everyone knew there would always be something new at a regular time, checking Workvivo became a habit.”
Results and lessons learned
Within months, Ather saw an activation rate of 99% on Workvivo.
The impact goes beyond the statistics – teammates from different functions now follow each other’s stories. HR also reports that employees find documents much faster now with Workvivo’s search, cutting down time wasted digging through old intranet pages.
Rohith explains, “Ather’s experience is unique because content engagement didn’t depend on C-suite involvement. Contrary to common advice that executive participation drives adoption, Ather actually saw the lowest participation from C-level execs. Employees didn’t necessarily want more content from leaders since they already follow them on external platforms like Instagram, Twitter, and LinkedIn. Instead, adoption was driven by the engineers, the factory team, and the corporate teams themselves.”
The key takeaway for any company rolling out Workvivo is to understand your audience and mission. Ather, for example, discovered early on that entertaining content can attract even the most focused engineers.
It also recommends establishing success metrics (for instance, percentage of active users, recognition posts, etc.), engaging champions early, and clearly articulating the differences between Workvivo and other tools.
Bring your team together with Workvivo
Ather Energy’s experience proves that as you scale from a small team to thousands across multiple countries, it’s possible to keep your workforce culture alive. By switching from a one-way intranet to Workvivo’s dynamic social feed, employees could celebrate wins, share laughs, and become increasingly connected.
Ready to build an informed and engaged workforce? Request a demo today and see how this communication hub can work for you.