Bellway Homes (BWY.L), one of the UK’s largest residential developers, has reported a voluntary turnover reduction of more than 19% following the rollout of a new mobile-first employee communications platform.
The platform, built on Staffbase and named Pathway by employees, now reaches 94% of Bellway’s roughly 3,000-strong workforce across England, Scotland, and Wales.
The achievement is particularly significant given that two-thirds of Bellway’s employees work on construction sites without access to a desk or corporate email.
Employee satisfaction climbed above 90% within just 12 months of the platform’s company-wide launch in May 2024, marking a substantial shift in how the business connects with its people.
Pathway replaced a legacy SharePoint system that had not been meaningfully updated since 2014 and had accumulated more than seven million documents, including conflicting versions of core company policies.
Trust in that old system had eroded to the point where employees had simply stopped using it, and an internal rebuild attempt stalled against limited IT resources.
A two-person Group Communications team led the Pathway project, grounding the design in employee feedback gathered through a 12-month pilot involving 300 employees across the business.
The platform was rolled out with a roadshow across all 21 divisions, where communications and HR teams met site-based employees face to face to introduce the new tool.
“We chose Staffbase because we simply couldn’t deliver a project like this ourselves, and they had the roadmap and the team to deliver,” said Paul Lawler, Group Head of Communications at Bellway.
The real-world impact of having a single trusted source of information became evident when acquisition rumours surfaced outside standard working hours, putting the platform under pressure.
Bellway issued its first official statement through Pathway within minutes of the formal market announcement, and more than 1,500 employees read it that same evening.
Employees heard directly from their employer before the media or the start of the next working day, a result that underlined the platform’s reach among frontline workers.
“We’ve gone from blasting inboxes to giving people real control. Now they choose the content they care about, and they actually engage with it,” said Lawler.
Email was repositioned at Bellway for critical updates and a weekly digest, while day-to-day communication shifted into Pathway, where employees select content relevant to their role, location, and team.
The phrase “It’s on Pathway” has reportedly entered everyday language across the organisation, reflecting how deeply embedded the platform has become in daily operations.
“It’s not just a comms tool. It’s a cultural asset,” said Lawler. “It’s the biggest transformation we’ve ever made in internal communications, and we delivered it on time and on budget.”
Bellway became the first UK Staffbase customer to pilot the Staffbase On Air AI podcast tool, leading to the launch of the Pathway Podcast, which delivers personalised audio content to employees on the move.
Bellway also began testing Staffbase’s AI chatbot, Navigator, this month, providing employees with immediate resolution to daily queries and requests.
“Bellway designed for their hardest-to-reach employees first, and that decision is what made 94% adoption possible,” said Dave Maffei, GM, Global Markets at Staffbase.
Bellway is a FTSE 250 listed housebuilder headquartered in Newcastle upon Tyne and has been awarded 5-star homebuilder status by the Home Builders Federation for the tenth consecutive year.
