Inheriting a new intranet — Suzie Robinson
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Suzie Robinson explains how she took on the intranet at WSH Group. Intranet Now, 2018.
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Inheriting a new intranet — Suzie Robinson
- 1. Lessons and learnings of inheriting a new intranet Suzie Robinson WSH Group Limited #IntranetNow @SuzieRobinson42 https://www.linkedin.com/in/suzie-robinson
- 2. #IntranetNow @SuzieRobinson42 Restaurants, Cafes and Bars Event Spaces Client Services Catering
- 3. July 2016: Project began January 2017: Intended launch June 2017: Launch started (and stopped) September 2017: I joined WSH January 2018: Launch complete #IntranetNow @SuzieRobinson42
- 4. When I joined there were a few issues… • Delayed + • Not fully launched + • Poor uptake + • Old system déjà vu + • No user research + • No clear vision + • = Poor employee experience (NB – It’s not just an intranet) #IntranetNow @SuzieRobinson42
- 5. #IntranetNow @SuzieRobinson42 If you build it WELL they will come…
- 7. #IntranetNow @SuzieRobinson42 “Food and Nutrition” for Caterlink Looks simple, but this is completely different from anything the business has done before…
- 9. “The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes, but in having new eyes.” – Marcel Proust #IntranetNow @SuzieRobinson42
Notas del editor
- I started with WSH a year ago and I’ve learned so much that I thought I’d share my story with you all. First going to answer the question: who are WSH Group Limited? I didn’t know before I started with them and it forms the framework that the intranet sits on. Holdings company in food, hospitality, and service industry, made up of…
- These are the 10 businesses that fall under WSH Group (plus a Support Centre team that isn’t shown) BaxterStorey is a contract caterer for large businesses, Caterlink and Holroyd Howe are school caterers 23,000 people total – BaxterStorey 10,000 people, Caterlink 6,000 Each has its own, very strong, independent, brand, which means… There are 9 versions of the intranet to serve the businesses (there is some departmental content across each, but most content is independent by brand) This structure is quite difficult to pick up for a new person, as is what happened with the project itself…
- I started 14 months after the project started & 8 months after the intranet should have launched to all businesses The launch was delayed, then was stopped by senior management due to a number of failings in June 2017 Then I showed up and walked into a project in difficulty, I managed to complete the rollout, but it was a bumpy road…
- These were the biggest issues when I started: All aspects of the project were months behind schedule Only 3 businesses had it… …in those businesses the log in rates weren’t reaching 20% The old “intranet” (which was a very simple file store and links) was 15 years old (no changes in that time), but the content had just been moved across without any re-working, along with the same departmentally organised structure The user research consisted of 30 people being spoken to out of 23k No vision for it beyond the broad-brush and internally controversial term “engagement” (BUT the business didn’t understand what to do to build a strong intranet, or really what the potential was) = Poor experience – not to mention key stakeholders and businesses as a whole were disengaged NB – our intranet is also an eLearning platform, online recruitment, an online shop for marketing resources and there are plans to add payslips, employee self service and possibly other features = big system
- The movie “Field of Dreams” gave us this saying, but I think there’s an important word missing… A well built intranet is at the core of good employee experience By “well” I mean that it meets their needs (the ones they do and don’t know about), and ultimately improves their day-to-day lives Should add that comms around it is important too, so people know it’s there – but good comms pointing to a bad intranet is far worse, in my opinion, than the other way round (as informal, word of mouth comms, will be far more negative) But ours wasn’t built well, so the experience was poor (and the good comms around it was therefore a mixed blessing), but gave me a fantastic starting point to make improvements A year’s worth of work is tricky to distil, but there are three categories that cover what I’ve tried to do with my work on the intranet…
- (RE)ASSURANCE: Needed to prove I’m a safe pair of hands & can deliver what the businesses want/need Reassured them there will be changes from what they’d experienced before Proved that the intranet will be made relevant for their business/department Did this by showing results from previous intranet work, providing examples from other companies, and spending time on mock-ups and plans IMPROVEMENTS: Simply put I made visible improvements and talked to as many people as I could about what my plans were A lack of previous experience/understanding in the company meant that I could work on content, architecture, and design to show what a difference having a strong vision/understanding can make FOCUS: Gave time to departments across the business to discuss what we could work on together (and share my plans) I also worked out a “thing”: a topic or area that was important to each business that could start to give each site its own identity Here’s one recent example of all this in action…
- Invited myself to a Caterlink meeting where their Nutritionist pleaded with the management not to contact her for recipes, and if they were having problems to talk to IT Spoke afterwards and we worked out that she wasted more than 30 hours a year (about a working week lost) on phone calls from people looking for recipes on SharePoint (unable to log on, network restrictions, access not set up properly, just difficult to find) We worked together, alongside the Chef team, to create this “Food and Nutrition” area (launched 31st August) This is completely different from how everything was done before: Content was built for and by Caterlink, no other business was involved Previous intranet architecture was departmentally driven – this isn’t, covers 2 subjects already, and sustainability will follow in the new year to coincide with a company project We also asked people what they wanted, and responded to informal feedback too So far more people from Caterlink have been logging in more regularly, feedback has been positive, and the Nutritionist has had fewer phone calls Other results from across the year are trickier to distil, but I’ve gathered these into 3 areas too…
- UNDERSTANDING: There is greater understanding of the potential of the intranet. CONFIDENCE: With understanding comes confidence, which has additional result that I’m being approached to review content and people are enthusiastic about upcoming development work I’ll do with them. Hopefully it will also mean that collaborative features will be switched on (but that’s a different conversation and potentially presentation). EXPERIENCE: Finally, and most importantly, there is a much better employee experience and better engagement Going to finish on a quote to explain some of what this year has taught me, and some thoughts for you to take away…
- I really liked this quote when I saw it, it sums up 3 things I’ve learned this year: I am, and we are, experts – it’s easy to forget that, especially when you’ve been looking at the same intranet for a while Controversially, poor employee experience isn’t a bad thing as long as you recognise that it’s poor – it means you’ve started on the path of discovery and have new eyes, so you can fix it (and that is a really fun journey) Lastly – make sure you have your eyes on a vision, those eyes should change and adapt over time but having clear waypoints really helps to provide a strong employee experience [NB – All photos (apart from the field) are from across our businesses, including this chef who completed the three tours cycling challenge]