• 50% faster migration to Google Workspace compared to other cloud-based tools 

• Shifts teams from asynchronous collaboration to live editing

• Uses instantaneous communication with Google Chat for urgent comms

• Empowers employees whose first language is not English to more easily communicate with English-speaking team members

Traditional financial institutions are often viewed as monolithic. Bank vaults are synonymous with being untouchable and unbreakable, and sadly those associations can make the world of finance and financial management feel foreign and cold. Questrade Financial Group (QFG) is on a mission to change that. Its objective is quintessentially human: the organization cares deeply about helping Canadians become more financially successful and secure. It does this through securities and foreign currency investment, professionally managed investment portfolios, mortgages, insurance, financial services and, most recently, real estate services.

For many years, Questrade relied on a traditional, on-prem document management and collaboration solution. But as an agile organization that focuses on its people, QFG wanted flexible, scalable tools that reflect its mission. "We’re a fast-growing, intelligent organization, and the people we hire are incredibly talented," said Max Schau, Managing Director of Enterprise Technology Services at Questrade Financial Group. "We needed a solid collaboration tool that would reflect those traits and enable them to do their best work."

Questrade’s workforce expansion—through both organic growth and the acquisition of new financial services organizations—and commitment to a hybrid work environment, means Questrade needs a solution that can support all of the company’s employees, no matter where or how they work. With hundreds of new team members joining in the last few years, Questrade needs to accommodate onboarding users at scale, on any device they choose to use. "We have a bring-your-own-device policy, where employees can either get a corporate phone or use their own personal phone, so we have a mix of Android devices and iPhones," Schau said. "So we needed a solution that didn’t just lean one way."

To support its existing teams and provide a scalable communication and collaboration infrastructure for future growth, Questrade shifted from its legacy solution to Google Workspace. The organization was able to migrate to the cloud in just three months, 50% faster than it would have with other cloud-based solutions, to get its entire team working together sooner.

This transition included a full adoption of the Google Workspace suite, with a key focus on transforming how Questrade’s teams communicate. Gmail became a first step for getting new team members started. "A lot of folks already use Gmail for their personal email," Schau said, "so giving them a similar experience at work that they have at home makes adoption very easy."

The company also relies heavily on Chat for more instantaneous communication across certain teams or project groups. "If we’re working on an initiative with a specific group, we’ll set up a space in Chat and share Drive files directly in there to keep the communication and documentation in one place," added Schau. 

Questrade also uses Chat to address more urgent communications, everything from broken printers and spotty Wi-Fi networks in the office to instant updates for senior leaders at the organization. "Email is no longer considered instantaneous. Our organization sends a lot of email, and there’s no guarantee someone will see something in a timely manner," Schau explained. "Chat helps us ensure we see the information when and where we need it." 

Being able to scale globally while maintaining a strong sense of purpose requires a willingness to listen to the workforce, so Questrade uses Forms to gather feedback and organize employee input. But not everything has to be about a specific business initiative. The company also collects information for team potlucks and informal check-ins to help nurture company culture.

In the company’s ongoing efforts to make its employees feel welcome, included, and heard, Questrade uses Google Workspace to find more ways for more team members to communicate with one another. With Docs, not only can people see what others are working on in real time, they can also use Smart Chips for providing greater context when sharing with other Questrade teams. "It’s invaluable to have someone work remotely on the same document, rather than having to huddle around someone’s computer or send rounds of edits," Schau said. "We’re also able to use Smart Chips to tag and include information about people directly in the document. Not everyone knows who I am, but anyone can click the Smart Chip and get a more detailed overview. That speed of information sharing helps a lot as we grow."

Questrade leans heavily on live captioning in Meet and predictive text in Gmail to support employees whose first language is not English. "We work with a global team and have plenty of recent immigrants to Canada working on our teams," Schau said. "Captions and predictive text help them make sure that they're understanding and able to participate in discussions in a way that's hard to do in-person when you’re learning a new language."