One central hub to connect frontline social-care workers – on desktop and on the move.
How Blue Triangle cut email overload and reconnected distributed staff across Scotland with Involv, as part of a wider digital transformation.
Blue Triangle is a social care organisation based in Glasgow. It provides person-centred support and accommodation across nine local authority regions in Scotland.
When Blue Triangle began their intranet journey with Involv, they were also undertaking a comprehensive digital transformation project – meaning lots of change for staff and new systems to learn. They needed a future-proof intranet that would connect distributed co-workers and provide centralised access to digital workplace tools: very user-friendly, at-a-glance and extremely useful.
The majority of Blue Triangle employees are services staff who, despite having an office base, spend much of their time away from their desks. Although currently on-premises, the organisation wanted a solution that could eventually migrate to the cloud. With Involv, which runs in the Microsoft 365 cloud, Blue Triangle could have both.
Challenges
Blue Triangle's intranet project was part of a wider digital transformation programme. The organisation's old intranet was outdated and underused, overtaken by email as the primary source of staff communication.
Due to the distributed nature of the staff, this led to employees feeling increasingly isolated from their co-workers and the organisation as a whole – particularly problematic during the pandemic. Time-pressed staff simply couldn't keep up with the volume of emails, and needed a central hub where they could keep up to date with company news and access essential digital workplace tools.
New to her position in the summer of 2022, Communications and Engagement Manager Keara Donnachie was tasked with rolling out the new Involv intranet.
Solutions
1. A one-stop digital workplace
Top of Keara's priorities was reducing reliance on email and improving the accessibility of digital workplace tools for staff who are time-poor and pressured by external factors. The beauty of Involv is that it is so easy to use: employees see the latest news and essential tools such as Teams, Sage HR and Thrive (Blue Triangle's learning portal), and can access contacts and policy documents directly from the homepage. As well as reducing reliance on email, this centralisation is designed to save time.
“The dream for me is this intranet will reduce reliance on emails. Staff get sent hundreds of emails a week and they don't have time to read them. When they're on the frontline, dealing with people in such serious situations, they need somewhere that they can click, read at-a-glance, then leave. With Involv they can do that.”
Keara DonnachieCommunication & Engagement Manager, Blue Triangle
Keara Donnachie2. Creating connections and celebrating success
Keara wanted the new intranet to be a space for employees to feel connected to the wider organisation, particularly after the isolating effects of the pandemic. So it was important that staff had a place to share not only company news, but personal stories too. The homepage is central to this vision: a place where co-workers who are unlikely to meet face-to-face can still feel connected.
“Our frontline workers are under huge pressure dealing with difficult circumstances. So, to offset some of the challenges they face, we wanted to shout about the amazing work they're doing. The Involv Intranet is a great way to celebrate those things.”
3. A mobile app, key to frontline buy-in
With a large percentage of staff working out in the field, Keara needed an intranet that came with a mobile app. The Involv mobile app – which gives employees access to company news, documents, the people directory, meetings and email wherever they are – has been a crucial way to get staff buy-in. As staff go from meeting to meeting, in their car or on foot, they don't have much time to use the intranet from their desktop; and managers travelling between services also need on-the-go access.
“A lot of our staff are out in the community. They need to access things like the people directory, phone numbers and contacts on their work phone, which they can do from the Involv app. The push notifications are also a useful way to alert staff to important updates whilst they're on the move.”
4. A self-service intranet, with support from the Involv team
As a comms team of one, Keara needed a self-service intranet that is quick and easy to update and customise, with no coding required. Luckily, Involv is all of those things: from moving objects to changing colours, the functionality is intuitive and user-friendly. Even elements she thought would be “really complicated”, like the Mega Menu and Quick Links, turned out to be simple. And although Keara confesses to having “broken things” on occasion, the Involv team have been on hand for support when needed.
“As someone who hasn't worked on an intranet before, I was very intimidated. But the support from the Involv team has been fantastic. They've really helped me to understand what an intranet can do and all the building blocks and tools available.”
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