One of the UK's largest homebuilders has improved how it reaches its people — connecting 94% of its workforce through a new mobile-first platform, with broader gains in engagement and retention following
LONDON, July 07, 2026 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Bellway Homes, one of the UK's largest residential developers, has seen a reduction in voluntary turnover by more than 19% and lifted employee satisfaction above 90% in the 12 months following the launch of a new mobile-first employee communications platform built on Staffbase. The platform, named Pathway by employees, now reaches 94% of Bellway's roughly 3,000-strong workforce — two-thirds of whom work on construction sites without a desk or corporate email.
The news at a glance:
Voluntary turnover down more than 19% and employee satisfaction above 90% within 12 months of launch
94% adoption across a workforce that is two-thirds deskless, far above typical reach for construction and other frontline-heavy industries
During a market-moving acquisition rumour, 1,500-plus employees read the company's first statement the same evening it was issued, outside working hours, ahead of the media
A single, governed source of truth replaced a legacy SharePoint system holding 7 million-plus documents and conflicting versions of core policies that employees had stopped trusting
For years, Bellway relied on a SharePoint system that had not been meaningfully updated since 2014. It had accumulated more than seven million documents and multiple conflicting versions of the same policies. As trust eroded, employees simply stopped using it, and an internal rebuild stalled against limited IT resources. The harder problem sat beyond the desk: most of Bellway's people work across hundreds of sites in England, Scotland, and Wales, where reaching them with consistent, trustworthy information had always been a challenge.
Rather than reaching the easiest third of the workforce first, Bellway designed for the hardest to reach. A two-person Group Communications team led the project, grounding it in employee feedback through a 12-month pilot with 300 employees across the business. Pathway launched company-wide in May 2024, supported by a roadshow across all 21 divisions where communications and HR teams met site-based employees face to face.
"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 shift changed how information moves through the business. Email was repositioned for critical updates and a weekly summary, while day-to-day communication moved into Pathway, where employees choose the content relevant to their role, location, and team.