How Wave Active Streamlined Shift Communication Across 66 Teams with Joyned
Keeping hundreds of casual staff connected across multiple sites is no small feat, especially when communication happens through scattered WhatsApp threads and out-of-hours text messages.
For Wave Active, a charitable organisation championing health and wellbeing across Sussex, this approach had begun to strain operations, blur work-life boundaries, and raise safeguarding concerns.
Looking for a safer, more structured solution, Wave Active adopted Joyned. Within days, the team had replaced informal chats with organised group roles, creating a smoother, more sustainable way to keep their staff aligned across numerous community groups.
Leisure, Health and Youth
Wave Active: The Charity Organisation on a Mission to Keep People Moving
Wave Active operates 15 leisure facilities, health programmes, and youth services across East Sussex. Formed in 2006, the organisation invests a lot of time and development into the community, supporting people of all ages and stages to gain confidence through improved fitness and wellbeing.
Their mission is rooted in accessibility: supporting individuals of all ages, backgrounds, and abilities to build confidence, improve fitness, and stay connected through movement. They play a vital role in improving local wellbeing, with community at the heart of everything they do.
Too Many Messages, Not Enough Structure
Wave Active has over 450 employees, over 300 of whom are casual or shift-based workers. As a result, they rely heavily on timely updates, shift scheduling, and multi-site announcements. This makes seamless communication challenging, with important messages being missed and work communications bleeding into staff personal time.
With no unified tool in place, operations managers and senior staff were often overwhelmed by lack of personal messaging boundaries. And their use of WhatsApp meant exposing personal contact details in group chats — a clear safeguarding and data protection issue.
As a community-first charity, Wave Active needed a more professional and secure way to manage operational updates. Here’s how Joyned was the answer to their communication needs.
Why Joyned? The App Built for Simplicity, Chosen for Control
Compared to larger, more complex tools, Joyned’s simplicity and focus on operational use cases made it a great fit for Wave Active. The Wave Active team selected Joyned for its communication-first features, including:
- GDPR-first approach to internal messaging
- Mobile-friendly onboarding via QR codes
- Structured group model, with roles for each site and job type
- Administrative flexibility, allowing managers to run their own groups independently
Joyned offered Wave Active exactly what they needed: a straightforward, secure platform that gave teams the structure to communicate effectively, without adding complexity or admin overhead.
How Wave Active Rolled Out Joyned in 24 Hours
Rapid onboarding is one of Joyned’s many fantastic features, helping companies get their teams up and running on the app without losing momentum.
To onboard Joyned quickly, Wave Active ran a week-long onboarding sprint to set up groups and train managers. They set a tight 24-hour deadline as part of a target-based rollout. Having such a tight, clear timeline, supported by 15-minute training sessions delivered to all managers, ensured smooth team-wide adoption.
“We onboarded 200 members within 24 hours. Then WhatsApp was shut down, and Joyned went live.”
What Changed After Switching to Joyned?
Since onboarding Joyned, Wave Active has seen both measurable improvements and cultural shifts across its operations:
- A total of 375 staff have been onboarded into 66 dedicated groups
- WhatsApp has been fully phased out for all work-related communication
- There have been no reported incidents or major issues since launch.
Making the move to Joyned has significantly improved staff privacy, set clearer work-life boundaries, and removed the risks associated with sharing personal contact details in informal channels. For a frontline-focused organisation like Wave Active, the shift to Joyned has meaningfully streamlined communication at every level.
What’s Next? Turning Communication into Culture
Now that Joyned is fully embedded in Wave Active’s day-to-day operations, the team is beginning to explore new ways to strengthen internal culture. That includes turning long, all-staff newsletters into shorter, site-specific updates — and encouraging leaders to share informal video messages that feel more personal and timely.
Wave Active also sees Joyned playing a bigger role in onboarding, helping casual staff feel connected from day one. By building on what’s already working, Wave Active is laying the foundation for more open, inclusive communication across every level of their organisation – one message at a time.
Laying Foundations for Smart, Safe Connection
By replacing fragmented group chats with a secure, structured platform, Wave Active has strengthened team communication across dozens of community sites – all while reducing admin overhead and safeguarding its young workforce.
Joyned has become a trusted part of their day-to-day operations, giving staff more clarity, control, and confidence in how they connect.
Give Joyned a Try
Want to see how Joyned could support your team? Get started for free or talk to our team and let’s explore how secure, flexible communication can make a world of difference.
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