Intranet Case Study

Housing Plus Group transforms businesses efficiency with Engage intranet

Housing Plus Group was formed by a merger between Severnside Housing in Shropshire and South Staffordshire-based Housing Plus, in October 2016.

With 12,000 homes, 25,000 customers and 600 employees, Housing Plus Group is a strong, resilient and effective provider of homes and care services throughout Shropshire and Staffordshire.

The Group has ambitious plans to build more homes and provide even better choice for their customers and communities.

Find out more about Housing Plus Group

The challenge

To develop a user centric, accessible and secure intranet that will provide staff with an indispensable tool to share and find information, communicate, manage knowledge and disseminate news.

To equip staff with access to relevant applications and management tools that are compatible with Housing Plus Group systems to further increase efficiency.

To positively impact on business processes resulting in measurable business savings, streamlined work flow and a better informed more efficient workforce.

The solution

Housing Plus Group chose Engage as their preferred intranet to replace an existing SharePoint site which was difficult to maintain and develop. The new site is packed full of important, useful and engaging content. Single sign-on capability also ensures that the intranet is the go-to place for all employees for all business needs.

Improvements in efficiency have been seen across the organisation with the biggest improvements coming from time saved whilst searching for policies, forms and people.

The site provides links to many other business systems including Office 365, the IT Helpdesk and the HR system with some teams already experiencing improvements in efficiency as employees can now easily find the information they need themselves on The Hub rather than contacting them directly.

The intranet plays an important role in sharing corporate information, replacing all staff emails. News stories are added to the site throughout the week to keep everyone well informed and up to date. A news flash banner has been created for important messages that need to stand out. There is also a news round up that is released at the end of each week.

The site is engaging employees by featuring a ‘photo of the week’ which anyone can submit. There is a ‘what’s on’ section that lets everyone know what’s happening throughout the organisation i.e. board meetings, award meetings etc. The Housing Plus Group twitter feed is shown and there is a weather application on the homepage, both are great for keeping everyone up to date and engaged. Polls have been used on the home page and an employee recognition application currently being planned.

“The policies and forms page on the new intranet has made a huge difference to how we find the information we are looking for as all documents are now in one central location. We can save our favourite documents, easily access folders and search for the information we need. The contact directory now has up-to-date information and the people search has been a huge hit!.”

Natalie Tyler
Internal Communications Officer

Promotions are also shown on the home page of the site and have proved to be a very popular way of promoting specific changes in the business and raising awareness. They often feature countdown timers, links to documents, photos and much more.

A working group, led by the Communications team, was formed by bringing together representatives from different departments across the organisation. The group worked with Sorce as a team to share ideas and discuss requirements for the new site. They were also responsible for analysing the results of the employee survey that was sent to everyone to gain an understanding of individual needs.

“The group created a brilliantly engaging, simple but highly effective intranet called The Hub, that very quickly became embedded within the culture of the group and hugely increased efficiency.”

Ben Payne
Marketing & Communications Manager

The Hub was launched in December during the festive period with branded mince pies, bunting, posters and a virtual advent calendar. As a way of increasing engagement with the brand-new site, the first door took employees to details of a competition to find five images of the chief executive wearing an elf hat which had been hidden throughout the site.

A promotional pre-launch video was also created to raise awareness of The Hub. The video got lots of people involved and was filmed around the office. It focused on all the benefits that The Hub would bring, it was fun, engaging and a great way to introduce the positive impact the new intranet would have on the all employees and the organisation as a whole.

“The launch was great fun and ensured that everyone across the organisation got involved and engaged with the Hub from day one. Two weeks prior to launch we started to put up ‘coming soon’ posters to get people thinking about their new intranet.

I also worked with our designer and digital marketing officer to create a pre-launch video to promote the site. The video focused on how the Hub would improve our working lives. The video was shown by our Chief Executive at all four corporate briefings before launch to raise awareness and create a buzz throughout the organisation.”

Natalie Tyler
Internal Communications Officer

The result

The Hub has equipped employees at Housing Plus Group with quick and easy access to the tools and systems they need to do their jobs more effectively with time being saved across all departments. Housing Plus Group are self-sufficient in creating and developing new applications.

“There are now less clicks needed to get to the information you need. We have succeeded in streamlining business processes and we are now a more informed workforce.”

Ben Payne
Marketing & Communications Manager

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