It was this that brought together 22 internal communications professionals within the industry to London in a forum titled, ‘The changing role of internal communications within Finance.’ The group was bursting with internal comms expertise, in an array of guises and from a mix of financial services organisations, some of whom have been in their role for 3 weeks, while others are approaching 15 years. The one thing in common is that they are all looking to share their experiences and glean knowledge from their peers, to improve their communications through the use of social tools.

Leadership portrayal in times of uncertainty

The first of the topic areas was steered by the loss of employee trust that is quite prevalent in the financial industry, and which now poses a key challenge for internal communications. It is in these times of uncertainty most of all, that the leadership team need to be visible and transparent.

The first consideration from the room was around the idea that communications and marketing is deemed a nice to have during tough times. It’s very hard to quantify with a clear ROI, so you need to demonstrate that without good communications, there isn’t a business. The way to do that? Stats, but not before setting the objectives to establish what success looks like.

In regards to getting the leadership team out there, these were the practices amongst the group:

1) CEO blogs. This is a channel most people were doing, or at least were planning on doing. Some did it everyday, others once a month. Whilst there weren’t many tales of CEOs blogging themselves, a few strategic bullets from them seemed to be enough to form the content of ghost written blogs. Encourage your champions to push these out and get people to interact.

2) Engage with the level below CEO. Open, honest and not always well written blogs resonate much more with employees over polished content. Working with the senior team, feeding them content that they then write themselves will make them appear more human. Encourage content that’s important to them, e.g. CSR, diversity, even a current book they’re reading. They will then start to create their own style, which employees are more likely to buy into.

3) Video messages. Comms doesn’t always have to be delivered in written form. One delegate shared how they film a one-minute video message from the CEO twice a month to deliver key messages. This sees a spike on the amount of views and it’s easy to do – just filmed on a GoPro.

4) Enterprise Social Networks (ESNs). Whilst ESNs can be used to highlight the delivery of leadership comms, they will often get diluted amongst general activity. As a rule, senior team members within Finance are nervous of social tools. Having one platform means social elements can be introduced at their pace, so they’re not put off from the start. Plus, it removes the need to have multiple platforms for multiple tasks, such as social, document management etc.

5) Getting the CEO out there. Giving employees the option to listen and speak to the CEO and a member of the senior team on a regular basis has proved to be a much better way to build engagement and get questions answered. This can be achieved face-to-face or even on a hotline. Taking questions in advance too will remove any barriers from those who are less confidence to ask questions.

6) The comms matrix. Using a suite of channels, offline and online, will help address the fact that different people interact differently. To create a dialogue, it’s important to ask employees about the company culture or a topic they want to hear more about in a survey or poll.

Streamlining communications in a regulatory environment

It will not be new news to internal communications specialists that social tools can be met with resistance. Within financial services, surrounded by regulatory bodies and compliance teams, it can be even more of a challenge for timely and relevant internal communications plans to be delivered.

7) Sign off from compliance. As internal communications is audited as part of FCA regulations, it’s essential to work closely with compliance teams to create rules, such as the level of customer information that can be revealed or image rights etc. It also helps to have discussions upfront with other departments around permissions, if anything, to avoid keeping too much hidden away.

8) Share policy updates. As with all financial services departments, everything needs to be documented. Share new regulations, terms and internal policies with employees, setting mandatory reads on your intranet to be sure they’ve been read.

9) Be aware that social is fast. Fear of breaching regulations can set down too many rules. Some delegates struggle with a massive checklist to consider before posting on social media, making posts almost anti-social. Others advocated the four-eye principle; if you wrote it, you can’t publish it, and setting the boundaries of technical and customer content.

10) Assume all content is searchable. As a general rule, if you assume all content can be found and read by everyone, you can normally mitigate the risks. This is particularly prevalent since the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) ruled that employers can view personal messages if they are on a work device.

Building engagement in tough times

When asked how many people had engagement at the top of their agenda for 2016, almost 100% of hands appeared in the end. So how were delegates combatting this?

11) Defining the values. The senior team should live the values, and lead by example, so that employees can gain an understanding of what they mean and what’s expected of them. Creating an owner of the values and leadership development will help to embed the culture and behaviours across all personas within the company.

12) Reward and recognition. Developing a rewards program aligned to the values will make them even more ‘liveable.’ Delegates shared an array of programs in place already, from employees making the nominations and votes, to the company choosing an employee of the month. It was considered whether such things really improved engagement, especially as some employees who felt like they were less likely to receive nominations, feel disgruntled. The answer to that: Work out loud in order to get recognition. It was felt unanimously that it’s the little rewards that go a long way to engage people – employees would much rather have a note of thanks than a branded badminton racket.

13) Ask your employees. Delving into the value that internal communications teams get from an annual employee opinion survey is a hot topic in the community. People were implementing changes to the process, such as conducting quarterly surveys, capturing engagement scores and reputational surveys. However, there still seems to be an issue around doing something with the results, and this seems to be linked with a lack of ownership.

14) Engaging Millennials. While the subject of Millennials appeared at the end of the discussion, it was only revealed to be a significant issue to a handful of people. This seemed to have something to do with employee demographics, and prioritising other areas that need addressing first.

15) Adoption of technology. The general consensus was that new starters will rapidly adopt technology as they’re new starters, not because they are a younger generation. People don’t adapt to change and experts don’t necessarily want a new way of working, unless they are shown in a way that’s relatable to them. You need to get to know them in order to influence them.

There were some great discussions as each of the 22 delegates openly shared their challenges and successes. From this forum, a Community has been formed, which is what it’s all about. We look forward to the next one – next stop New York!

The post 15 ways to combat the changing role of internal communications within Finance appeared first on Interact software.

Many factors can hold someone back from posting a blog; a lack of confidence in writing skills, a fear that the post won’t be read… the potential culprits are vast! Today I’m focusing on writer’s block – what happens when your employees don’t know where to start? This is something that affects ALL employees, from front-line staff to your senior team (access some great tips to win over your SMT), even the marketing team.

Giving employees a gentle push in the right direction is important to encourage participation, and to create a culture that becomes more open and transparent. Ultimately, building a happier and more engaged team. That push can come in the form of ready-to-write blog topic ideas, alleviating any shyness or writer’s block standing in the way of great content.

Encourage a social workplace, and don’t be afraid of your employees posting content of a personal nature. In fact, doing so will encourage relationship building company-wide, increase knowledge sharing and boost engagement.

Offer new starters one or two of the following blog ideas as part of the on-boarding process. This will introduce them to the company and make them feel welcome as their new colleagues engage with their posts.

Try these suggestions to get everyone involved:

1. A personal introduction, for example; What attracted you to the company? Where were you previously? What are your goals?
2. 9 things people don’t know about you
3. How-to guide on a product feature
4. A frequent question answered
5. Your interests outside of work
6. Volunteering or charity events you are involved in
7. An overview of your typical day
8. Description of your team, its function and the people in it
9. Personal profiles with fun facts (this is a great one for your senior team)
10. A video tour of your office or workspace (this will do wonders for a disparate team)
11. Video profiles of your colleagues or team (this can be done on your phone)
12. A photo gallery of people or activities in your workplace
13. Description of a colleague who helped you achieve a task
14. Jargon busting (really useful for new starters)
15. An overview of the company’s mission, values and culture, and what they mean to you
16. Seasonal or holiday news for international teams (for example, an overview of Martin Luther King Day or Guy Fawkes Day)
17. An overview of company social events (create a photo gallery or even embed a SlideShare)
18. Suggestions for new company events (encourage people to share their views)
19. Present voting options for a project or task you’re working on, perhaps you’re looking for a new name for the newsletter or meeting rooms

Imagine how wonderful it would be if internal communications were delivered by the employees themselves, alongside the formal comms channels. Messages delivered from peers are much better received; a recent survey found that only 19% of Millennials and 40% of Baby Boomers say people can be trusted.

Encourage employees to share their successes and challenges. You’ll be amazed by how many people get involved. This motivates content authors, and it inspires anyone reading the post and comments. Plus, it’s a great way to get company news from the bottom up. Give these suggestions a try:

20. The company history (a great post to come from your senior team)
21. What’s in store for the future
22. Highlight a new customer
23. Share press coverage of the company
24. A new customer case study or testimonial
25. A success story, perhaps related to a customer, a supplier or even a new process that’s proven successful
26. Introduce a new strategy
27. A review of industry news and best practices
28. Team activity; planned, current and previous (including results)
29. Highlight a new product or service
30. A look back at the previous year in your industry or target market
31. Predictions for the year ahead
32. Customer stats in your area (encourage employees to create infographics – there are some great free tools out there, check out tip 6 on this blog post for ideas)
33. Awards given to the company, your team or a customer
34. Any news events that can be related to your values, goals, product or service, such as this post by our Head of Professional Services, Tim Gough, who was clearly inspired by Tim Peake’s adventure to the International Space Station

Uncovering hidden knowledge within the company saves employees’ time, effort and frustrations – a great way to enhance productivity and boost morale.

Encourage knowledge sharing and requests for knowledge. People love being asked for their expertise. Richard Millington of Feverbee explains how people find the time to contribute when you create status-boosting opportunities – his talk at Interaction is summarised at the beginning of this blog post.

These blog post ideas will provide a good starting point for anyone (after all, everyone has expertise they can share):

35. A competitor review
36. Key influencers in the industry
37. An interview with someone outside of the company
38. A customer profile
39. The best resources, external blogs, newsletters or updates peers can subscribe to
40. Any useful events or seminars you have attended or any that are upcoming
41. New trend discoveries (a great subject to encourage discussion)
42. The top tools that help you in your role
43. Your knowledge and expertise to help with previous blog posts
44. What are the top blogs you’ve read this month
45. Who you follow on Twitter to get the most relevant industry updates and tools
46. Which LinkedIn groups you get most value out of
47. The top tips and ideas you have learnt from the past week or month
48. A challenge you face (you will be surprised by how many offers of help and comments you receive from people who have had similar experiences)
49. An innovative approach that you have discovered
50. New industry stats you have uncovered (again, this would be great as an infographic)

The post 50 blog topic ideas to increase employee engagement appeared first on Interact software.

“After decades of corporate discourse about the war for talent, it appears that the battle is over, and talent has won.”

It’s a great piece of content, that’s just as valuable today as it was 12 months ago. It’s still an employee-driven market, but have all companies quite come to terms with that yet? And have they, as this article encourages them to do, expanded their thinking about what employee engagement really means?

I won’t repeat the content, I simply urge you to read the article; it will provide you with an employee engagement model that will make your company irresistible. What I want to be able to do is provide you with a simple employee engagement strategy that will help you get the right feedback out of your employees, and make the most of it once you get it.

An employee opinion survey isn’t a new concept by any means. You no doubt have one in place at your company, but are you getting what you need out of them? Do you really understand what’s going on and how the employees really feel? Most companies are finding the traditional annual or bi-annual survey just isn’t cutting the mustard for today’s workforce; often being perceived as being an arduous, tick-box exercise that delivers very little changes.

In order to get accurate and real-time insight into how employees are feeling, they need to be asked little and often. You can do this in a number of ways and there should be variety. Using the intranet makes it quick, easy and accessible, even to remote workers, as does including it as an agenda item in team meetings. You could even introduce a company-wide initiative – there’s an employee engagement eBook coming out next week with further ideas around this (follow us so you don’t miss out on its release).

Getting feedback in this way not only makes the information much more manageable as you’ll be able to address one or two priorities at a time, but employees will feel more engaged as a result. The more used to this style your employees become, the more it becomes a part of the culture. Employees will feel more comfortable about answering questions and give you more honest results.

Of course to really make an impact, everyone needs to take personal responsibility. This means the employees themselves, managers and the senior team. Managers also have a responsibility to be the voice of their team. They should have an awareness of how their team is feeling, and how to respond if there is any evidence of disengagement.

To see if they are aligned, consider asking managers to complete a score card and compare the results. This can be just as easy to do and if it’s online it will capture a higher audience reach.

It is worth bearing in mind that this may highlight an engagement issue with management itself. After all, Gallup revealed the main factor in workplace discontent is not wages, benefits or hours, but the boss. However tricky this may be, it’s a big positive that you’re given the opportunity to address it.

All too often the first team to see the results are HR and comms. The results are only shared with employees once they’ve been processed, perhaps when an action plan has already been decided, or sometimes they are not even shared at all.

The results shouldn’t be held back, after all the employees know how they’ve answered! It will take everyone a while to process the information and no one will expect answers straight away. By sharing immediately you are showing full transparency and that you value all feedback.

What employees will expect is information around the way you’re going to approach it…

It’s not unusual to find that changes implemented from a survey are decided based on what the senior team feel is what the employees are looking for. This may not always be the case, so even if the good intention is there, it makes the whole process quite pointless and frustrating for all.

Employee contribution in this process shouldn’t just stop at answering a few questions. They will also have ideas as to how to make the changes that will improve their engagement. You could set up groups in teams, across departments or even management groups (if the results require management behaviour to be considered).

There needs to be facilitator in the groups – there isn’t a problem solver at this stage. Each topic should end with the question, ‘What would have to happen to give this a top score the next time we ask?’ This is a great way to focus minds and it enables your employees to offer more targeted solutions.

At the risk of sounding like a broken record, get employees involved in making changes – they will take responsibility to make the changes that will improve their working lives. Consider creating working groups with representatives across the company. This will uncover any hidden knowledge or expertise within the business and remain inclusive keeping teams informed through their peers.

Of course this isn’t always going to be the right solution, especially with more sensitive issues. And some will be easier to address than others, requiring just one person to own the action keep everyone updated.

This is crucial! Employees need to see what’s going on in order to keep their engagement and encourage them to continue answering honestly. This doesn’t just mean sharing the good bits. If something can’t be done – tell them. As long as you have a reasonable explanation and an alternative solution (even if it’s going back to the drawing board), it won’t be a problem. By keeping everyone updated you will also find people offer suggestions and you will uncover expertise you didn’t even know existed.

Of course the more positive news you can share, the better. Set realistic timescales so this isn’t the issue. Ask everyone involved what they think is realistic around their day-to-day tasks.

Most importantly of all, out of sight is not out of mind! Once the changes have been implemented, don’t just close the action. Keep checking how employees are feeling and whether they can notice a difference and what further suggestions they have. Essentially, think of this as cycle.

The post 6 steps to execute a successful employee engagement strategy appeared first on Interact software.

Magenta Living is getting well into the holiday spirit using their intranet, YETI. The first thing Joanne Harvey did was make sure YETI dressed for the occasion:

A Christmas countdown has been added to the homepage:

And they created Elf Day; a fundraising day where employees dress up as elves (or Christmas jumpers if they’re not feeling very adventurous), and enjoy an array of activities, such as a cake sale and raffle. There is even a Santa’s workshop, where employees can bring in presents for volunteers to wrap – a service I would definitely take advantage of! Bakers and volunteers have all been commandeered though the intranet, and the proceeds will go towards Magenta Living’s corporate charity, Alzheimer’s Society.

In addition to all this activity, employees can find The Grinch List on YETI, enabling them to send Christmas wishes to colleagues through a Forum instead of sending cards. This is proving to be a great success as lot of employees using this aren’t usually active on YETI.

Joanna is also taking advantage of the galleries and polls on YETI – a Christmas Dinner poll received 30 votes within 2 hours! These simple ideas not only get spirits high, but encourage employees to return to your site.

Samantha Lamb of TaxAudit.com uses their intranet, TACtics, to share charity giving amongst their 3 locations in California; Citrus Heights, Santa Ana and Camarillo. Each location picks a charity they want to champion for the holiday season. As well as promotion throughout the site, there is a progress chart to encourage some healthy competition amongst employees!

TACtics is the only place employees can go to access information about parties and events, as well as being the place to go to access the photos afterwards – both of which ensuring employees visit the site.

3BM employees are full of the Christmas spirit thanks to Rob Pidgley’s efforts on their intranet, Purple Planet. As soon as they arrive on the homepage they are met with a Merry Christmas banner and an advent calendar which takes employees to a festive related video on YouTube.

The Employee Committee are also making the most of the season as they are hosting a drop-in event, promoted through the intranet, where employees can pop in for a mince pie and hot chocolate. There’s even a Christmas quiz, and who doesn’t love a quiz!

The post How to engage employees in the countdown to Christmas appeared first on Interact software.

This of course isn’t a new concept. Content marketing is a way for businesses to stand out and engage consumers in a very full and competitive pond, technological advancements have just enabled content to be delivered more effectively. And this is no different for internal content as employers struggle to retain and engage talent, whilst employees demand to be treated more like consumers (there’s an on-demand webinar that’s well worth a watch on this subject).

Whether producing external content to businesses or consumers, or speaking to an internal audience, content needs to be engaging and credible. The best way to do this is to consult the experts. Internally of course, that’s your employees. Communications are much better received when delivered by peers as a trusted source.

We are seeing more and more customers encourage user-generated content, in fact recent research amongst our cloud customers shows that 31.1% of content is user-generated (outside from official content authors). There are a few that have been leading the way. Dupaco, for example, has a homepage that is 100% user-generated!

The thing is, of course, not everyone is a communications expert! And this may be putting some people off contributing. Our customer research reveals when a blog is liked, authors are 45% more likely to post again. When a blog post receives comments, authors are 80% more like to post again.

This means the author experience needs to be a good one and that there needs to be enough of a culture of psychological safety in the workplace so that people feel safe contributing. There are going to be elements relevant to your business only, according to your brand guidelines and industry requirements, but to help get you started here’s some tips that will help give your employees some confidence to get creating:

1) Who are you talking to?

So, let’s start at the beginning. Before writing anything, you need to understand your audience. Ultimately who are you writing the piece for? Are you producing content for the whole company or is it for a specific segment; your team, the board or even an individual? Creating personas will help you develop specific pieces of content that are relevant and engaging, and therefore engage your intended audience.

Consider the demographics of your readers. Where they are based? Perhaps they are remote workers who need quick and easy access to information on the move or colleagues in completely different time zones. How technology enabled are they? What are their levels of engagement at this point? What do they know already and how much information do they do need (I mean really need) ? Remember that different audiences require different amounts of information. Senior managers often prefer a high level overview, whereas a colleague in customer services will require more information. This can make it tricky when talking to everyone, but I will cover that in structuring your content below.

2) What’s the story?

This may sound so obvious, but before you go off and put fingers to keys, have you thought about what you’re trying to achieve by sharing your content? Is there a need or want for this information? Or is it content you want users to read, but no one really cares about? Now that doesn’t mean they won’t be interested in it once they start reading, but you need to encourage readers to get there by creating the need and want.

The best way? Ask them! A great tool for this is running a quick poll on your intranet that sits on the homepage. You could also check your intranet analytics to see what people are searching for and identify any content gaps. Using this information to approach experts within the business is a good way to encourage users to blog; people love nothing more than receiving expert status! The content will be engaging as you’re giving users a subject they feel comfortable with and the need has already been identified, so readers are more likely to like and comment.

Richard Millington is a guru of building Communities. He shared great tips as to how to encourage people to join in when he spoke at Interaction, which I covered in my summary of the event.

3) How do you structure your content?

As discussed earlier, when speaking to a large audience who all digest content in different ways, you need to give them a chance to decide whether to take it all in, or just the headline facts. Now that’s not free reign to tell everyone everything!

Think of your content in food form (it always works for me). Give readers a bite, a snack and then the meal. A lot of people make the mistake of heading straight to the meal, which often switches people off and means great content is missed and authors are left feeling disheartened.

The bite is the headline, the snack is the summary and the meal is the story. The story still needs to be broken into sub-sections so it’s more digestible, using sub-headings as mini bites – this is where top tips come in handy!

4) How do you create a winning headline?

The headline is tricky to master, and it is the hook that reels in your readers. Our blog titles tend to follow the formula; number + adjective + promise. The number makes your content more digestible, the adjective explains exactly what people will find and the promise reveals how it’s going to be of use.

This is not an exclusive formula and there are some great tools out there to help if you need some inspiration. Hubspot’s Blog Topic Generator is a particular favourite of mine:

Once you’ve got your headline, there are tools to test how effective they are. I hear what you’re saying, you could do this forever. But CoSchedule’s Headline Analyzer is brilliant!

5) Keep your content simple

Every organisation has its jargon, but that doesn’t mean everyone understands it. The best rule is to avoid jargon at all costs. It’s also good practice to keep language simple – there’s nothing more disengaging than using superfluous lexes!

Possibly deemed a bit old school, but a test I still live by since my days as a journalism student, is the Flesch formula (the above is not going to do my score any good).

It’s really simple (and even more so as Word does it for you if you amend your settings – Google will help you with that bit). The Flesch reading ease test will rate content on a 100-point scale. The higher the score, the easier it is to understand (60-70 is good place to aim for).

Of course I had to test this blog… 62.9 (phew)!

6) Make your content visual

To make your piece of content truly engaging, include as many images, infographics and videos you can. It helps portray the message in different ways, so information is more likely to be retained.

And the best thing is, you can create the images yourself, even if you’re as graphically challenged as I am. My favourite tool is Canva – it’s so quick and easy to use, and best of all free (although there are paid options of course). I knocked this one up in about 7 minutes, and whilst our Designer Zack needn’t worry about his job security, it’s not too shabby!

7) Make your content personal

People love human stories! It’s a great place to start; it builds your confidence as you get used to sharing news, it engages users and encourages people to interact through likes and comments. You could share charity work, team nights out or even what you got up to at the weekend. Photos are always a good addition to a piece of content (even when it’s this lot)…

8) Get advice from the content experts

There is a pool of resources and groups out there to help and some fantastic ones. I can’t recommend The Content Strategist from Contently enough – the posts are fun, easy to read and full of great tips.

There’s lots of groups on LinkedIn that you can ask to join, where people are really free with advice and sharing of experiences – you could try Content Marketing Group and Content Marketing Institute. In terms of knowledge sharing amongst internal communications experts, The IC Crowd is a good one to follow on Twitter.

There is loads more to share, but in the interests of blog length best practice, this is a good place to help you get started.

The post 8 tips that will inspire your employees to create great content appeared first on Interact software.

After a fantastic evening of intranet awards (keep an eye out for Nigel Williams’ blog coming soon), delicious food and flowing wine, day 2 of Interaction Intranet Conference 2015 was full of promise, excited intraneters and one or two sets of bleary eyes. Luckily this lot liven them up…

Building a sense of community in an online world

Richard Millington, Feverbee Managing Director, opens up the conference with a tale of a client who created a community. He had the expensive platform and the big commercial push. He crafted messages with the CEO and offered a reward for contribution. Over the first three months the level of activity increased until 1,000 people were contributing and then… it plummeted as there were no more people to reach out to.

Richard explains there is too much focus on technology – some clients will happily spend 6 figure sums on a platform but then have an intern managing it. Forget about technology. Unless you develop a sense of community it won’t work. Cramming people into a space isn’t enough, you need to make them feel they are part of it. A sense of community means high levels of retention, productivity, knowledge sharing.

Richard then shares his 4 principles to make it a success (and I couldn’t leave one out):

• Membership. People want to feel like insiders of a group where they share similar interests, so the community needs to understand the boundaries that separates insiders from outsiders. People want to join the most exclusive clubs they can so make it something they get to do, rather than something they have to do.
• Influence. The only people who participate are those who feel they can influence. You need to highlight great contributions through news articles and blog posts. Create status-boosting opportunities, such as interviews with designated experts, and suddenly people find the time. Also use discussion threads by converting askers into the experts when someone else asks a similar question.
• Emotional bonds. Create a narrative so that every new member understands the history of the group. Unique experiences create a bond, whether that’s events, projects or chess-boxing!! Push discussions to deeper levels so members feel there is only one place where you can discuss this topic. Let members brag where it’s socially acceptable.
• Needs integration. Satisfy users’ social needs by pushing conversations above the fold, like HR.com. Ask new joiners questions straight away to increase the quality of knowledge. Make it look successful by removing discussions no one responds to and highlight most popular discussions and highlight it. People need to feel it’s going to be better tomorrow than it is today.

Digital workplace roadmap

The intranet concept has been around for over 20 years and there’s an identity crisis looming as the things that it used to do are getting squeezed out. Sam Marshall, Digital Workplace Specialist and Owner of ClearBox Consulting, encourages us to ask, ‘how do you create a digital workplace and what are the things fulfilled by an intranet?

We were then treated to clips from Jurassic Park and Disclosure; the virtual reality scene in the latter being likened to a user browsing round your intranet. And the point? Sam explains that we need to focus on the needs of people, and then fulfil those needs with the best technology. It’s with this thought that he introduces us to the Digital Workplace Manifesto. Here are his top three:

• Work is no longer a place. Productivity goes up between 10-11% when working from home. A work space still needs to be created (not in the Caribbean on a deck chair), but you can decide where the best place to work each day is.
• Manage the outcome not the process. If you just give people objectives and don’t worry about how they achieve it productivity up by 35%. Bosses feel out of control, and peers feel colleagues are not working. In reality they do more and share it so it becomes visible.
• Digital workplace should be a pleasure to use. Consumer IT is much more ahead of the game than workplace IT, so we know how nice software and apps can be.

Engaging employees in a newly merged non-profit

Anna Pietrowski and Nick Wakefield of Breast Cancer Now took us on their journey to engage employees as a newly merged charity. Breakthrough Breast Cancer and Breast Cancer Campaign used to be rivals, so it was a challenge for staff to suddenly work side-by-side. This is why it was vital to get the intranet right. Here are their top three lessons:

• Putting staff at the heart of the charity. Right from the planning stages they put the users first. They got 30-40 colleagues involved in a room together with a strategist to work out what they did and didn’t want from an intranet. A team of content managers was created to keep areas up-to-date and engaging.
• Encouraging users to update their profile. With a merger and a sea of new faces, the profile is so important. Breast Cancer Now encouraged users to take responsibility of their own picture and bio. They ran a competition to give people a nudge and in just three weeks profile completeness doubled.
• Being adaptable. Three months on they’re learning that people love sharing news, so much so that people were missing things and the size widget had to be increased. The Timeline has also proved popular as colleagues love praising one another. There is a core group who are getting others on-board, by liking things within teams others want to get involved.

Developing a social intranet

Lia Crooks, Internal Communications Manager at CIPD, gave us a fascinating insight into how the organisation approached a culture shift towards thinking digitally. They put together teams of people and set each team an objective to be completed in 90 day sprints. Lia and her sprint team set out to work on their intranet; a static site that was transactional, limited in terms of social capabilities and full of forms not working correctly.

The new intranet had an array of social tools. Here are Lia’s top three tips:

• Hashtags work really well in projects and to share work. It’s good for people to see that social tools are work-related as well as fun. Hashtags have also supported the HR team with onboarding people. They use #hellonewpeople and @mention from HR; it gets lots of likes and extends networks.
• Encourage people to update their profile. The sprints had a digital day in which they took profile pictures on mobiles, emphasising the point that it doesn’t need to be a corporate photo, it can be changed by users whenever desired – it’s their profile.
• Learn from your mistakes. When developing hashtags, it’s important to bear in mind user confidence. They launched #oops to encourage people to feel comfortable with making mistakes, which didn’t take off as people didn’t feel confident to share this information.

Panel debate

Sam Marshall, Richard Millington, Kelly Freeman and Steven Osborne took to the stage to answer those burning questions…

• If you went back to your first intranet, what would you do differently?

Richard: understand the importance of getting the concept right, base it around the specific goals you are trying to achieve and invest in the idea before spending money, such as starting simple discussions to see if you can get ten people talking.

Steve: be more assertive with content and process owners. If you don’t change to be set up for end users you are going to end up in the same trouble, just on a different platform.

Kelly: re-assess the purpose. What is the point of this intranet? Have you got any objectives you want to achieve when switching it on?

• When do you need to have a full time resource?

Kelly: There is no absolute, it all depends on the size of the organization, for example, a company like Unilver would require a dedicated resource, while a smaller company probably doesn’t. With a federated model of governance, managing the intranet can be part of everyone’s job description, so it doesn’t belong to one person or department.

Sam: At the beginning you could be looking after the intranet project full time, but on a temporary basis. It all depends on the governance structure, as if centralised there will be a bigger intranet team. It works out as one full-time intranet manager per 2,000 employees.

Richard: you need a full time manager to grow, not just when your intranet is up and running, however most people can’t do this so you have to work with what you’ve got. It’s probably something you have to make the time to do, so it’s about using the time you’ve got to initiate discussions or recruit new members. The minimum amount of time would be 2-3 hours a week.

• What can you do about negativity from management?

Kelly: there is a perception that the software will solve all your problems. Management are not the experts, they don’t usually get involved in the thought process. It’s the role of the person in charge of the intranet to change the culture and help the SMT be a part of the journey.

Steve: like Starbucks, recruit success partners to be influencers and demonstrate the behaviours needed to get behind the intranet. It’s about removing the rocks for people to hide behind.

Sam: you don’t have to get leaders to contribute first as it can be risky. In one organisation the CEO congratulating people narrowed the possibilities, as that’s what everyone else did.

Data boundaries: enabling cohesive workspaces

Stephen Emmott, Head of Research at J. Boye investigates how employers fit within the digital lives of their employees. The workplace is no longer a superior experience. Home mobiles, computer bandwidths and cutting-edge online services all amount to an exceptional customer experience that the workplace doesn’t provide.

Approximately a third of professionals are carrying around two devices, so essentially have two personalities. Governance is the big challenge; how do you deal with a trend towards mobiles if there’s no agreement? Policy is a key instrument in governance, it’s about shaping the path you can follow so your employees can make decisions and carry out actions.

The results were so interesting I broke the top three rule and put them in an infographic:

30 lessons from 12 leading homepages

Elizabeth Marsh, Director of Research at Digital Workplace Group takes us on a whistle-stop tour from 12 big brand homepages, including Adidas, Coca-cola and Ikea. The key trends include modern design, that’s boxy and clean, includes news carousels, social streams, personalization, app-like design, balancing news, search scoping, user research/personas and consideration of how the intranet can help to evolve the culture.

Here is an overview of the top three:

• Adidas Group: 50,000 employees. It’s a young demographic with an average age of 30. It’s important for their intranet to deliver a consumer-like experience. The homepage is shockingly simple, with carousels, social feed and app iconography (for key tools) so people feel familiar with it and to project collaboration.
• Adobe: 125,000 employees. It’s a branded and beautiful experience. People want continuity of experience – it’s about user experience and engagement. There is a mix of news and social tools, however it is slightly overwhelming. Personalisation is based on profiles. When a user visits in the morning they are asked what they are working on that day, which then appears in the activity stream, bringing through a sense of what’s important.
• American Express: 80,000 employees. This site’s main objective is mobile responsivity. There’s lots of visuals, infographics and catchy headlines. It’s clean, modern and relaxing (with pleasant colours). The app icons are familiar and easy. The users demanded a world clock, which they can personalise according to the colleagues they work with across the globe.

Sport England: replicating social interaction in an online environment

Inside Track is Sport England’s intranet. It’s the primary comms channel for employees, but it took a lot of work to get there and bring people on the journey. Matt Phillipson, Internal Communications Manager at Sport England explains how they introduced social tools to engage employees.

Here are Matt’s top three tips:

• Social doesn’t just happen. You have to be patient, tenacious and persistent. Some colleagues, leadership team particularly, may have a hard time understanding the value, so you have to work hard to reach people.
• Understand kinks and quirks. You have to be flexible. Use tools and resources the best way you can to benefit you, whether that’s gamification or competitions. Engage with people and enhance certain behaviours.
• Let it go. Let your site grow organically, as if you lock it down you’re not giving people a chance. When you give people permission to contribute they are aware they are accountable and commenting in a transparent way, so you shouldn’t have to remove any content.

How do you encourage and maintain user engagement – the $64,000 question (but without that budget!)

Michelle Baillie, Senior Communications and Marketing Officer at The Children’s Trust gave a moving presentation showing how they connect their 600-strong workforce and 600+ volunteers, all with different motivations, on one platform. Here are Michelle’s top three tips:

• Connectivity is key. As part of one little boy’s therapy program he wrote a blog on The Loop about his trip to Mercedes Benz World. It was included on the weekly bulletin encouraging people to like or comment and this boy has been inundated with offers from people inviting to take him back to Mercedes. This has now become the most popular piece of content on the intranet.
• No one size fits all. You can be creative with no budget. The Loop looks like it’s had money spent on it, so people are surprised when they discover it didn’t cost them anything. Find ways to engage staff, such as promoting social events like a bake off and encouraging blogging.
• Low cost, high impact. An intranet is about parenting. The Loop is now in the toddling phase where it’s easy to lose people on the journey so they have monthly induction sessions, training for new starters on their first day and Michelle goes to people to find out what they want.

Happy people work harder

In this enigmatic talk Wendy Jordan shared Wheatley Group’s tips for engaging employees to ensure that they feel motivated to give their very best when in the office. Here are Wendy’s top three tips to help:

• Your people matter. Treat employees as internal customers, listen to them and give them support when they need it.
• “A job isn’t just a job it is who you are.” Employees do care about more than just their salary and holidays so share customer feedback as it provides a sense of pride within the team.
• Get personal. Give your intranet a personality, make your content human and relatable to your audience.

Engaging a geographically diverse workforce

As Head of Employee Engagement and Benefits for Arriva UK, Malcolm Cotterell shares his experiences of uniting a uniquely distributed workforce with limited technology access. Here are Malcolm’s three key points to help:

• Trust is a two way street. It’s really important to build trust within your organisation, if you want people to participate you must ensure you provide feedback for suggestions and next steps.
• Give everyone a voice. Not everyone will use or have access to the same tools, make sure you cater for everyone so they all have equal opportunity to join the conversation.
• “Talk a good talk but make sure you walk a good walk.” Lead from the top, if you want your employees to use the tools make sure your senior management team are using them too.

We need a new intranet!

As the Global Intranet Manager for Hogan Lovells LLP, Jon Olson took us on a journey of their intranet project so far and some of the challenges they have faced. Jon shares his three key learnings to date:

• Don’t stop planning. Think about what’s coming next, don’t stay ‘business as usual’ for too long as your business is constantly changing and you need to stay ahead of the curve.
• Don’t be afraid to break up your intranet project. Make it easy to focus on specific areas by breaking up your project allowing you to focus on key objectives and deliverables.
• Don’t take stats at face value. Look a little bit further and you will uncover the true story. Stats at Hogan Lovells showed only 20% of lawyers were accessing the intranet, however the majority of their secretary’s were accessing the site everyday to get the information the lawyers needed.

Intranets in Retail

As Head of Internal and Customer Communications for the UK’s biggest chain bookseller, Waterstones, Suzie Robinson shares some of the internal communication challenges faced in a retail environment and what they are doing to address these. Here are three tips from Suzie to help overcome internal communications challenges in a retail environment:

• Make sure key content is never missed. Waterstones send out a weekly bulletin that rounds up all of the latest news from that week on their intranet to make it easy for employees to stay on top of what’s going on.
• Minimise impact of major issues. Waterstones use a News Flash on their intranet homepage to communicate any major issues such as internal IT problems. This not only provides information to those affected but it also minimises the number of calls IT receive about the issue.
• Tone of voice. To ensure blogs and comms are read on their intranet Waterstones have developed a friendly and engaging tone of voice that speaks to users as human beings.

Six guaranteed ways to make your intranet magnetic (number three will shock you!)

Intranet Consultants, Matt McCourty and Haydn Smith discuss how we can use techniques from the web in business environments. For this one, I’m only going to give you the top two (only kidding).

• Know your audience. Understand your demographics: consider remote working, age, gender and location. Remember the stuff you want people to read isn’t necessarily what they want to read so you need to make the content interesting.
• Establish your objectives. Make it clear to people if they want to, click and read more or move on if it isn’t relevant. Use this formula: bite > snack > meal.
• Master the headline formula. Formula: Number or trigger word + Adjective + Promise. For example, before: How to bathe an elephant, after: 18 unbelievable ways you can bathe an elephant, business example: five Monday morning tasks for a successful week.

Fall in love with your intranet all over again

Your intranet should delight and Nigel Williams, Community Manager, steps up to talk us through the emotions it takes you through. Here are his top three:

• Joy. Make it quicker and simpler to access information, so your site becomes more effective and gives you a sense of success and feeling of joy.
• Fear. Help technophobes by showing people how it works from scratch with training sessions and videos. People have a fear of breaking the intranet, so you need to build trust.
• Sadness. If content gets no response, no one likes or shares and there is a lack of followers, engagement is going suffer.

Moving Beyond Engagement: A consumer focused workplace

Steven Osborne, Interact Lead Strategist, says we need to treat users as if they were customers who have a “choice” and a “voice”. Here are his top three tips:

• Alright is not enough. Your site needs to delight, as ‘alright’ will not capture someone and keep them engaged.
• Use segmentation on your intranet. Who are the users? Do they fall into different categories or groups? Can they see different homepages?
• Don’t make assumptions or ask line managers what people do on the intranet. Speak directly to your users.

And so that was a wrap for Interaction 2015, but not without a few final presentations, and beverages of course.

Simon Dance was delighted to present Interaction’s charity sponsor, The Children’s Trust, with a cheque for GBP1,245 – GBP5 from every ticket sold.

The winner of the homepage competition, decided by delegates across the two days, was The Children’s Trust, with their homepage The Loop. Michelle collected the prize which was a delicious chocolate hamper.

There was a competition running throughout the event where delegates entered their details to win a nifty Apple Watch. The lucky winner was Simonne Alliott from Mizuho Bank

The post 59 intranet tips from leading global intranet experts appeared first on Interact software.

The beautiful and the practical: Developing and maintaining an award-winning intranet

Opening the workshop with a refreshing account of their intranet journey were Jason Parkes and David Groom of Mediterranean Shipping Company UK (MSC).

It’s been 20 months since MYWORKSPACE went live and it’s an impressive site which has been well received externally scooping up numerous awards, including a Ragan earlier this year. This surprises no one other than MSC themselves as the industry isn’t known for being at the forefront of technology.

Here are Jason and David’s top three tips:

• Always remember the user. The big focus, and one that has remained, is people; it had to be about what the users want. There’s a risk that you can be a bit selfish with your intranet, using functionality that’s cutting edge, but may not necessarily make life easier. If it doesn’t – it’s not worth doing.
• Understand your limitations. Business functionality had to come first, then social functionality was added to the site. In order to get buy-in from senior team, they needed to prove the business benefits, like improving the delivery of internal comms before introducing social elements.
• Be brave. Something may not work as planned, but keep going as it will evolve. It may be down to user confidence, which can be built through department/project areas, and introducing non-work related activity, such as employees taking a teddy on holiday. Work with those using the site and others will follow.

The Intranet Derby: The race to solve your intranet challenges

We then went off to the races as Steven Osborne, Lead Strategist, introduced the Interact Derby presenting each table with an envelope that made them collective owners a horse. The horse, of course, was named after a common intranet challenge. The runners were Crowded House, Lone Ranger, Unguided Missile, In the Dark, Faded Glory, Spaghetti Junction, Magical Mystery Tour and Smoke Signals. The objective: to come up with an action plan of how to overcome this problem.

There were some great ideas, delivered in ways that would give John McCririck a run for his money, but Faded Glory was victorious. Their challenge: “Nothing has changed recently and user feedback is poor. It has just had a two year anniversary – that wasn’t celebrated.” Here are the three key steps from the winning team:

• Attend a day at the races (#iic15 of course) to get ideas.
• Muck out regularly and make sure your stable is clear. Set up focus groups to review content, revisit the strategy and use analytics to see what’s not been looked at and why.
• Give people a hand getting on the horse. Go back to basics, assess knowledge, challenge perceptions, talk to people and find out what’s standing in their way.

Intranets in action

To enable delegates to tailor the day to meet their needs the morning broke into a mix of smaller stream sessions and the option to spend some time in the expo area with our customers, who took time out to take delegates on a tour of their intranets.

So what went on in the streams?

Homepage tips

Jo Sullivan, Intranet Trainer, kicked off steam one with some valuable tips and examples of how to build a great homepage. Jo shares 3 common mistakes that stand in the way of successful homepage and how to overcome them:

• Making it too busy. Trying to add too much doesn’t work, it will just look cluttered. You are better to regularly review and refresh content than add everything at once.
• Embedding content that will slow the site down or that users don’t have access to. Twitter or YouTube content can be an amazing way to convey information but not if the sites are blocked. Consider your employees’ access and location.
• Creating ‘welcome’ pages on every homepage. If this is really necessary then use the in-built ‘Meet the Team’ widget to at least make it dynamic or have a page of @mentions directing you to peoples’ profiles.

Content areas, Teams and Tasks masterclass

Sara Burgess, Intranet Evangelist, takes to the stage to answer a common question around whether content managers should be using content areas or teams. Sara explains why the question is redundant because they work so well together:

• Content areas push content to a wider audience and should be used as a formal place to present content, in an admin-controlled environment.
• Content within team areas are seen if you are a member of that group. There is an owner, but anyone can create content to populate in the area.
• Alongside these, the Tasks application provides a holistic solution as it can be added from content areas, linking it together and enabling transparency of content creation.

Streamlining the new starter experience on your intranet

Kelly Freeman, Intranet Strategist, tells us the importance of ensuring new starters have a good experience as most employees choose to leave within the first 3-6 months. Kelly shares three ideas to help:

• Create a page with 5 things new starters need to know on their first day, to keep it all in one place and signposted off to different areas. This can include meet the team, how to update profiles and most importantly where to get lunch.
• Instead of giving new starters an abundance of paper forms to fill out, use workflows on the intranet and highlight key policies and processes with mandatory reads, so they know what’s important.
• Promote the values, vision and corporate plan with links to the people directory and department areas, ensuring content and people stay together. Make it visual and be creative with videos and infographics.

Creating personality for your intranet

Nigel Williams, Community Manager, shares the important questions you need to ask in order to give your intranet a personality that ensures you achieve your objectives. Here are Nigel’s top three questions:

• What is your intranet for? Decide what you want your intranet to achieve; streamline business process, increase collaboration, improve communication? Use characters to achieve your objectives and take the fear factor from user’s feeling they are asking silly questions.
• What is your tone? Keep it simple. Use rich media to make your comms engaging. It’s something email can’t do and it helps to hook your users in. Don’t forget your audience though, as it may not be suitable if you have a lot of remote workers.
• What does it look like? Your homepage is your shop window and needs to be engaging in order to get people to move forwards. News, forums and timeline feeds keep your homepage dynamic with no effort.

Launch your intranet with a wow

Vicky Keith, Customer Success Coach, talks glitter cannons and cakes, plus an array of top tips that will make sure your intranet launches with success and beyond. Here are Vicky’s top three:

• Know your audience. Review the strategy and consider your employees when deciding how to promote the benefits. Posters are a great a tool to emphasis the key benefit for employees that’s going to encourage them to log-on. As are freebies to encourage employees to complete a task, such as headphones to listen to launch videos.
• Don’t forget the importance of face-to-face. Showing employees the new intranet will be much more effective than just telling them. Go to regional offices so they don’t feel left out, or pop into team meetings for a few minutes where you can.
• Don’t forget the launch is just the beginning. Add features to your site at a later date, whether that’s in a week or a month. Review the analytics regularly to see the areas you need to focus on to encourage adoption.

My sexy intranet. Making blogs engaging and intranets attractive

There is no holding back when Wendy Jordan of Wheatley Group takes to the stage. The audience are instantly mesmerized and when she compares their intranet, Holmes, to Gary Barlow – grown up and aging beautifully – it’s no wonder why.

As Wendy takes us through the re-vamped Holmes we can see that everything has a purpose. Although she is all about the sexy to keep employees engaged, it needs to be useful – form follows content. Whether delivering news or blogs, it’s got to be engaging. Wendy shares her top three tips:

• Get straight to the point. Make it simple and don’t be elitist. You’re not trying to impress anyone, you are trying to communicate.
• Give a damn. And if you don’t, shadow someone until you do and go out with them on their job to understand what they do day-to-day. If the subject is dry make it stand out, e.g. 10 reasons to xxx.
• Know your audience. Get to know all employees, from frontline to CEO, so you can communicate with them – both on the intranet and face-to-face.

So we’ve successfully launched, what next?

With her usual wit, Jemma Goodman, Customer Success Manager, takes us through the customer success experience. She explains how easy it is for an intranet project to lose momentum. At the beginning of a project you have a lot of support with a team behind you. Six months in and the enthusiasm has dwindled and you are suddenly without the resource, time or energy to maintain a successful intranet. Jemma shares three steps to make sure this doesn’t happen (and will enable you to have a lovely holiday):

• Complete a scorecard to get a good understanding of where you’re struggling.
• Attend recommended training sessions.
• Review your scorecard to assess improvements.

Meet Novel

Paddy Johnston of publishing group, Hachette, gave a delightful account of their journey from Harriet (the previous intranet only briefly revealed due to the audible gasp) to Novel (the current visually exciting, engaging and intuitive platform). Paddy shares his top three lessons:

• One homepage. They previously had a different homepage for every publishing division. Now they have one homepage including links to the other 8 publishers, which the users prefer.
• Encouraging social. Although social features are proving slow to take off, content managers continue to encourage comments and the homepage includes non-work related elements, such as book of the week and aid the refugee crisis.
• Assign content managers. Each publishing division and group function has their own content manager which makes keeping the site fresh and accurate manageable.

Smart content re-purposing to drive user engagement

Ashley Rudge and Gregor Henderson-Begg of Wandle went back to basics to relaunch their intranet into a trusted place of information, improving comms and promoting cultural change. Flo (as in the flow of information) was getting an upgrade – name included. So they relaunched in three months to keep people engaged and momentum going. Here are their three top successes:

• Keeping policies all in one place under the library, rather than in departmental content areas means they can control permissions and be without fear of duplication and inaccuracy.
• Mobile workers can access information on smart phones and tablets enabling them to provide answers immediately and confidently.
• Team areas has given different teams a platform to openly share what they are doing with people that need and want to know.

What’s on the Interact roadmap?

Simon Dance, CTO and Martin Malone, Product Manager, took us over the planned product developments over the next 12 months and beyond. These have all come from comments and suggestions from the Community. Here are the top 4 (there’s just too much going on to choose 3):

• System text feature.Customers have asked for greater coverage, management tools that are easier to use and the ability to embed HTML, and improve import and export capabilities.
• Notifications. There will be improvements to the content of individual notifications, end user filtering options so people can decide what type of notifications to receive and multiple URL support, where customers use different URLs internally and externally.
• Native mobile app. External access to an intranet has always been a barrier to moving forward with a native mobile app. With the shift to cloud for the majority of customers this is now a possibility and a native mobile app will be coming in 2016.
• Application builder. In 2016 Workflow & Forms is being taken to the next stage, providing the ability to build out simple applications: connect multiple forms, edit existing form data and separate permissions.

Day 1 closes with Q&A

Hosted by Nigel Williams; Scott Hitchins, Vicky Keith, Kelly Freeman, Steven Osborne and Martin Malone take their seats on the stage ready to answer questions from the floor.

• How do you measure efficiency?

Steve: producing more content doesn’t mean it’s better. Can you produce resource cost savings, such as storage capacity and less post?

Kelly: you need to establish what users are reading and what about. Similar to Ragan, by putting comms stories into topics you can measure what’s popular and what’s not. Then you can start to look at what you can do differently. The hit rate on a random story is not going to tell you if it has improved comms.

Nigel: Check out Kevin Cody from SmallWorlders. He is changing perceptions of what to measure.

• How do you engage senior managers? Could you share examples of best practice?

Nigel: people aren’t training their senior team enough. They too are users and need an explanation as to how the intranet will make them more effective. Everyone hates change, even your senior team. Having to learn something is a pain, so make it quick and easy.

Kelly: don’t make it too onerous. Spread the tasks out amongst the whole team, for example, one blog a month from the senior team as a whole, so they can take it in turns. You’ve got to hold their hands. Just because they are leaders they may not be comfortable blogging. Ask a question at the end and invite comments. If necessary add moles who respond so they feel loved and want to do it more.

Scott: come prepared with the impact it’s having on the business. Talk bottom line.

• Intranets can be content graveyards. How do you do a working practice which gets people to do audits and tackles those who ignore notifications?

This one opened up to the floor as members of the audience shared how they did it:

Will Burnett (Oxford Innovation): We started being gentle and ended up letting the document expire. Those who wanted the document did the chasing for you.

Floor: If users don’t add a picture and description they are exposed as a newbie on the intranet which just says ‘working on it’. This is embarrassing so we find people don’t leave it for long.

Floor: We don’t let anyone else add anything as it’s easier. We will ask different departments per month so we’re not inundated.

That rounded up day one, so it was a quick spruce up and on to the Intranet Excellence Awards (more on that to follow)…

The post Interaction Intranet Workshop – The top 3 tips from every speaker appeared first on Interact software.

So what was the answer?

A single, intuitive intranet platform that could bring everyone together and address the following challenges:

1) Single access to knowledge

With employees across multiple locations, accessing knowledge and expertise to deliver legal advice for clients quickly and accurately was a challenge. DWF needed one place their employees could access the skills, knowledge and information they needed from across the business.

Having previously struggled to find what they needed on old platforms, it was essential their new intranet included search functionality that searched all content, from documents to the staff directory, calendars to attachments, to find the most relevant answer. Having this instantly helped DWF bring together legal specialists across all of its six practice groups.

Lawrence Spence, Portfolio Manager, explains; “Previously, it was difficult to find the right people, skills and information needed to deliver client engagement in the best and most efficient way. Now, the process is much faster for our legal specialists, saving them time and increasing their focus on core, client-facing tasks.”

2) Promoting collaboration

Having a single platform to share knowledge and best practice, provide an awareness of who’s who across the business, and access to social tools, including blogging and discussion forums, has been essential for DWF to foster collaboration.

Ryan Kaye, Project Manager, says; “Blogging is a critical tool for us in terms of driving collaboration. Our CEO Andrew Leaitherland blogs very regularly and that’s been fantastic for engaging staff across all our practice groups. We use discussion forums regularly now when we launch new products and services, and we get ideas and suggestions on how we can improve them.”

3) Easy access to critical news and information

Communicating important messages and making sure the most up-to-date and relevant information is being used across a dispersed workforce is always a challenge.

DWF use their homepage to give employees fast, easy access to a range of critical news, information and resources in one place. It provides all the tools and resources users need, including links to legal knowledge banks for different practices, online legal and IT training, blogs and discussion forums and HR and expenses.

This helps to effectively communicate the firm’s mission, values and brand to all employees, as well as giving them fast access to the tools and resources they need.

4) Improving content management

Previously, adding new content was complex and time consuming, putting pressure on content administrators and the IT team. Now, through their intranet, the process is much faster and simpler, delivering significant time and cost savings.

Ian Bennett, Content Administrator, is delighted with the results; “Interact has made it very easy for me to add new content areas and to add information to those areas. The whole process is now very quick and simple, which means I can focus on more strategic tasks such as driving adoption and supporting users more effectively.”

5) Maintaining brand identity

Maintaining a strong brand identity is always a challenge post-acquisition. By standardising page templates, corporate brand guidelines and introducing a set of engaging brand characters called the ‘o-men’ through their intranet, DWF has managed to achieve this.

Lawrence explains; “The o-men represent the values of the company and provide valuable information about new initiatives, people investment activities, company leadership, reward and recognition and driving employee engagement.”

6) Reducing pressure on time and resource

The objectives were clear but given the previous situation it seemed like a daunting task that would only put pressure on people’s time and available resource. They needed an easy-to-use, out-of-the-box solution, and Interact was just that allowing them to deploy in just 11 weeks.

Creating DWF-branded pages was fast and simple, requiring no specialist knowledge. Lawrence says; “The rich branding capabilities of Interact have enabled us to communicate DWF’s mission and brand values to all employees, helping us to create a more cohesive, successful firm.”

The results speak for themselves

Following a live launch at the DWF partner conference and a successful campaign, nearly all of DWF’s 2,500 staff now access the intranet on a regular basis. Blogging and forums are used frequently by teams to collaborate and share best practices.

And the site is growing at an impressive rate. When DWF launched their Interact intranet just over a year ago, the site contained 568 pages. It now has more than 1,400 pages and is growing by an average of 11 pages a day.

The post Driving employee engagement to deliver client success: 6 challenges DWF addressed with their intranet appeared first on Interact software.

Since the launch of their Interact Intranet, Voice, it has clocked up 20,000 visits, 127,000 page views, a 70% weekly staff usage rate and 89% employee contribution. It will be no surprise to hear that Oxford Innovation employees are feeling more engaged, informed and motivated. Managing Director, Chris Allington, said: “Voice has been the significant improvement in internal communications. It’s revolutionised the way we work.”

Break down the barriers

Oxford Innovation has a network of 21 business and innovation centres across the UK, each with its own individual centre team. Including those in head office, the business has 110 employees to connect.

Delivering formal communications to the centres and sharing information between them was a challenge. Information was pushed down through email, which created a barrier between senior management and staff members. Each centre worked in isolation, so knowledge wasn’t shared between teams, and any successes and challenges stayed exactly where they happened.

This will be a familiar tale to any business with a disparate workforce and breaking down the barriers was going to be tough. But Oxford Innovation found a way to do it… a company intranet. To be precise an Interact Intranet.

Encourage employees to help themselves

From launch, Will Burnett and the team have worked tirelessly to increase collaboration and communication across the sites. They visited centres to show employees exactly how Voice could help them day to day. And because Interact is so easy to use, adoption was only encouraged across a workforce with varying levels of IT skills.

Once employees felt comfortable they were encouraged to help themselves; use the forums, team spaces, and access information and knowledge already there. For every one person that asks a question, there are five who are looking for the same answer. Employees get a positive experience when they visit, and Voice has become an invaluable knowledge sharing tool.

A social intranet has been the key

The People Directory and Interact’s search functionality was a big hit and the key to early adoption. Putting a face to a name instantly engaged employees and got people talking to one another. The barrier between senior management and staff has started to dissolve with centre staff having the confidence to greet senior management when they visit, giving employees a great morale boost and helping to deliver important communications.

The birthday widget has had a similar effect – saying ‘happy birthday’ to one another got staff communicating outside of their working silos and gave people the confidence to start contributing, especially those who were nervous about the social aspect at the beginning.

Employees seeing their peers and colleagues engaging has increased employee contribution confidence and increase brand voice. The stats speak for themselves as Voice has seen user contribution rise by 52% since launch.

Keep plugging away

Will and the team’s vision for Voice is to ensure that Voice is a key part of day to day life at Oxford Innovation. There is still a long way to go, but with adoption already so high and engagement continually rising, Voice has achieved its immediate objectives and more.

Will’s advice: “Keep plugging away, encouraging people to help themselves and continue to contribute. If you do this, you will gain valuable insight into how employees’ feel, see an increase employee engagement and ultimately have a more productive and successful business.”

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