Case Study #7
Inranet Homepage Redesign
Problem
A prominent biopharmaceutical company with sites across the U.S., Europe, Canada, Australia, and China identified effective employee communications as imperative to supporting their sustained growth. The existing intranet was not used to deliver company news, and their PDF newsletter—published six times a year and focused on external events—covered stories that were old by the publication date.
The company needed a channel for communications that were timely, interesting, useful, and relevant. It needed an intranet homepage with current company news delivered in an engaging format. To complicate matters, the company's intranet systems and technology were out of date. In fact, there were 19 different home pages—one for every major office location—without a single company-wide homepage.
Action
- Wordwright conducted interviews with key employees and a company-wide employee communication survey.
- Results indicated that employees were unclear about the company's direction and strategy, that functions and sites operated in silos, and that accomplishments were not generally appreciated or recognized.
- To keep within the client's budget, Wordwright opted to work within the limits of the company's existing technology. We also decided to introduce the new home page as quickly as possible and to postpone major navigational and visual changes to minimize confusion.
- Wordwright proposed feature stories that would reinforce the company's strategy, direction, goals and values; provide news and updates on programs, projects, and policy changes; and profile patients, employees, functions, and teams.
- Subsequent survey data indicated that employees liked to read about business and strategy, themselves and their colleagues, and various aspects of working at the company. We set out to increase readership and hit counts by posting more of those stories and delivering key messages through employee profiles.
Results
- Between 2006 and 2008, Wordwright increased the number of published stories from three per quarter to two per week, an increase of 767%.
- In 2008, a year after launch, we received nearly three times more unique visits than 2007, and 22% more unique visits per story.
- We increased the volume of business content from 32% in 2007 to 39% in 2008; and of employee recognition content from 28% in 2007 to 33% in 2008.
- Among the many employee comments we've received are: "Fantastic article...very inspiring and motivating." "I absolutely enjoyed reading the article… I've wanted to learn more about the department, and this article was very satisfying. I am so happy to be a part of the team."
