2011 Intranet Excellence Awards

Each year we recognise organisations that have produced exceptional intranets by using Interact Intranet to improve business processes, communication, collaboration, productivity and make huge savings.
This year the winners were announced at the awards dinner during the much talked about London Intranet Conference, Interaction 2011 and presented by James Robertson, MD of Step Two Designs.

Categories as follows:

• Best Return on Investment
• Best Intranet Launch Strategy
• Best Intranet Manager
• Best Employee Engagement
• Best Intranet Design
• Best Intranet

Best Return on Investment

Criteria: Provide a success story on how your intranet has enhanced your business. This can include; using the intranet to save valuable man-hours within the IT, HR and Communications departments, savings by using online forms, a reduction in internal emails and telephone calls and new ideas being harnessed via the intranet and implemented to improve existing processes.

Winners
1. Waterstone’s  – Compass
2. Romec – Romec
3. American Golf – Clubhouse

Waterstone’s were awarded first place as we were particularly impressed with breadth of areas that their intranet had contributed to ROI.  This included a 50% saving in time through ASK HR, a support desk called Hub Queries that eliminated 200 emails a day to IT, minimised email usage through store to store forums and replacing spread sheets with forms and workflow.

Waterstone's Best Return on Investment 1st PLace

In 2nd place were Romec who in 2010 showed they have saved £1.2 million pounds through actual savings, employee time savings and green savings using eforms, reduction in email usage, supplier databases and improved search over their previous intranet.

American Golf claimed second place by showing that after just 6 months of using Interact Intranet, they repaid for the cost of the intranet by removing the businesses reliance on the email system, using eForms and massively streamline communication from head office to stores and back.

Best Intranet Launch Strategy

Criteria: Showcase an intranet launch campaign that resulted in great intranet awareness and quick employee adoption (this can include; the creative launch activities, initial intranet staff training and any collateral/media produced for the launch)

Winners
1. UK Asset Resolution (UKAR) – Ui
2. Vale of Aylesbury Housing Trust (VAHT) – Merlin
3. Group Gwalia – Y Wal | The Wall

UKAR scooped first place due to their extensive intranet launch campaign – from testing the concepts through and pre-launch teaser campaigns, to a competition to name the intranet UKAR excelled in their intranet launch. Their incentive of donating £1 to charity for every user profile that was completed ensured that over 1000 profiles were completed in the 1st week of the launch.

UKAR Best Intranet Launch Strategy

Second place was awarded to VAHT who put a bit of magic into their launch with a themed launch day to introduce their intranet (Merlin) to staff with branded merchandise and entertainment. They also had post-launch drop-in sessions to retain staff engagement and removed any equivalent sources of information.

VAHT add some magic to their launch

Group Gwalia’s previous SharePoint intranet hadn’t met organisational goals so they ensured their launch had the x factor via online and SMS text voting for the name of the intranet. They also had a treasure hunt competition designed to get users familiar with the many tools in Interact Intranet.  They named their employee peer to peer recognition tool – “Brownie Points” as a key to initial success.

Best Intranet Manager

Criteria: Highlight the efforts of an Intranet Manager who has gone the extra mile and made a real difference to their company intranet and demonstrated an on-going commitment to intranet best practice.

Winners

1. Jennifer Mills – The Mileage Company – Radar
2. Ayesha Graves – Waterstone’s – Compass
3. Malcolm Payne – American Golf – Clubhouse

Jennifer Mills of The Mileage Company claimed the title ‘Best Intranet Manager’ following her passionate dedication to designing and launching Radar. Jennifer was praised for going over and above her duties and championing the intranet as the sole tool to unite the globally expanding business. Her dedication has resulted in 98% of the 500 employees accessing the site daily, which is amazing!

Jennifer Mills of The Mileage Company collects her award from James Robertson

Second place went to Ayesha Graves for taking the intranet from being a ‘nice to have’, often ignored by shop teams, to being a central communications tool by managing the content, people and development of the intranet. Malcolm Payne, of American Golf was awarded third place for his dedication to the governance and development of the American Golf intranet. His work to constantly update the design of the intranet to coincide with the activity taking place within the business ensures it is kept alive, operational and interesting.

Best Employee Engagement

Criteria: Demonstrate an intranet which has resulted in increased employee engagement. This can include the use of collaboration and communication tools which has resulted in improvements such as new ideas, improved processes, better employee morale and greater company transparency.

Winners

1. Admiral – Atlas
2. North East Derbyshire District Council – NEDi
3. Financial Ombudsman Service – Intranet

With operations in seven countries worldwide, Admiral were the winners of Best Employee Engagement due to the many features launched to retain staff engagement including international online chats with senior managers, an ‘Ask Henry’ widget which gives all employees the opportunity to ask questions to the CEO.  Their top position in The Times 100 Best Companies to Work For competition praised their intranet:

“Motor Insurer Admiral Group has turned to a Facebook-style social networking site to engage with its 3,448 employees. Its new intranet site, Atlas, offers employees their own personal profile pages, where they can forward regular updates about themselves making collaborating and idea sharing easier.”

North East Derbyshire District Council showed how critical an intranet can be for staff morale through change and uncertainty with the looming public sector cuts. Their intranet, NEDi has become an employee communications one stop shop. The Chief Executive’s regular blog, regular surveys and ‘You Said, We Do’ areas have resulted in 91% of staff using and finding the intranet useful in their day-to-day job.

The Financial Ombudsman claimed 3rd place in this competitive category. They saw great success from their strategy of planting teasers about the intranet in other communication channels and then letting their forums go ‘viral’. Their ability to engage staff through a number of features including live chats, blogs and the suggestions showed the power a social intranet has in engaging employees.

Best Intranet Design

Criteria: Showcase outstanding intranet design leading to increased business productivity and a reinforced company brand. This can include the homepage layout, use of widgets, use of colours, images and personalisation.

Winners

1. Republic - Reptile
2. Yodel – Be… interactive
3. Mosscare/BCS – Mosscare

Republic were awarded first prize for their amazing looking intranet called Reptile.   We were impressed with their ‘one-click’ infrastructure and the clever incorporation of the white ceramic title wall in the design, which is a prominent feature in the Republic brand. We also loved the competitive element of the departmental homepages in terms of layout, content and use of design.

Republic's Reptile Home Page 1st for design

Second place went to Yodel who showed the judges that the fresh and inviting design of the intranet echoed the organisation’s new brand values and enticed staff from the two merging companies to unite and collaborate.   Be… interactive encapsulated the values of Yodel perfectly.

In joint third place were Mosscare Housing who were commended for their ability to produce a clever intranet infrastructure with limited funding resources and BCS, The Chartered Institute for IT who make great use of seasonal design’s and coherent homepage structure.  It is worth noting that Mosscare were the first customer of Interact Intranet back in 2003.

Best Intranet

Criteria: The winner of this award will be the company whose intranet embodies all of the award categories. There is no submission for this entry. This winner will be chosen from one of the other category submissions

Winner

Waterstone’s Compass

The overall best intranet was a really difficult decision with so many excellent entries.
Waterstone’s intranet, Compass stood out in all categories with its powerful mix of communication, collaboration and business process.  The ASK HR function significantly improved efficiency in HR, the eForms enabled them to include all 3,000 employees in real time feedback and their forums help all employees share their love of books through support and sharing.  What is more impressive is now all email comms to stores has stopped and is directed through Compass.

Ayesha Graves accepts her award from James Robertson

Here are some quotes about Compass from Waterstone’s staff and further afield:

“… having quickly browsed Peter’s Don’t Panic! microsite in preparation for the interview… [it contains] very useful and interesting information for Booksellers.  It reads much like a blog and provides much product information.”
Oliver, Bookseller, Waterstone’s Hastings

“Just wanted to drop you a line to say how great Compass looks!  I logged on to be greeted by this spectacle of fuschia information architecture – absolutely amazing!  It looks pretty and the drop downs are clear and easy to navigate.”
Tessa, Waterstone’s Piccadilly

“…just a quick message to say thank you for the Compass overhaul! The new system is brilliant, quick, easy to use, information in the right place and all together! As a business I’m sure this has saved us hundreds of hours per week.”
Sara, AM, Waterstone’s Bath