Boundless intranet welds together Rottneros Group

By implementing a new Omnia-based intranet, Rottneros has strengthened internal communications, company cohesion, and employer branding. The new solution offers a more user-friendly interface, an improved overall structure, and significant efficiency gains in terms of information management.

“Offering quick and easy access to company news, policies, employee information, collaboration spaces, and other tools, our new Group-wide intranet unifies all our units and production facilities and makes the Rottneros brand much more visible and appealing to our employees”, says Cecilia Hagen, Communications Officer at Rottneros, adding:

“One of the most used new features is the search functionality, which helps users quickly find contacts, competence, and collaborations.”

Smooth remote implementation

The founding story of Rottneros goes way back to 1630 when an iron hammer mill was established. In 1887 the mill was converted into a wood-pulp mill, with Rottneros thereby shifting production from iron to pulp. Today Rottneros AB is a listed Group employing about 290 people and with sales all over Europe and other parts of the world. The company has two pulp production units, Rottneros Bruk and Vallviks Bruk, together with a packaging factory. The latter, Rottneros Packaging, manufactures fiber trays and also incorporates the raw material procurement company SIA Rottneros Baltic in Latvia and the Swedish forestry company Nykvist Skogs AB.

Rottneros’ former SharePoint-based intranet platform was divided into three separate intranets. Each intranet catered solely to the needs of and communications within the respective subsidiary and production units. The platform didn’t allow for cross-unit or Group-wide communications. This made internal communications highly inefficient, with the solution creating information silos as well as leading to costly site governance.

Users also considered the platform’s interface to be out-of-date and uninspiring. Management consequently decided to upgrade the solution to a modern, mobile-friendly, easily managed, cost-efficient, and Group-wide intranet platform with full integration with Microsoft 365. Rottneros contacted Omnia and requested a demonstration of the intranet platform. The implementation of Omnia started two months later.
“We needed a new modern platform that would help us unite the Group in both visual and communicative terms. Omnia stood out as the most suitable platform, measuring up to all our needs. Additionally, the platform offered smooth integration with Microsoft 365 and Teams, which are our preferred desktop and collaboration tools”, Rottneros IT Manager Daniel Kaar explains.

Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, implementation was executed solely via digital channels. All meetings and workshops were conducted using Google Jamboard and Microsoft Teams, with technical installations and configurations being made via secure remote technologies.

“The remote implementation process was efficient and smooth. We organized four workshops in Teams and Jamboard, involving 14-15 key stakeholders representing every line function from the Group’s various units. Although face-to-face meetings tend to build stronger relationships, digital meetings have many advantages too. For example, participants can post their ideas anonymously, which can in fact boost creativity. And everything happening in the meeting can be automatically recorded and documented”, Omnia’s Project Manager Karin Lundberg points out.

Clearer overall picture strengthens engagement and unity

The main objectives of the new intranet were to consolidate and unify the Group’s internal communications and also to improve the navigation and information structure so as to enhance findability. Daniel, Cecilia, and their team subsequently invested a great deal of time in the refining, sorting, tagging, and recategorizing of every item of information on the intranet and in the document archives.

“The intranet is now much more attractive, well-structured, and relevant. We’ve scrubbed a lot of old and redundant information and radically improved its structure. For instance, all work-related content is now only accessible inside the intranet’s collaboration spaces, making it a lot easier to find. Our information management and internal communications have already picked up speed and are today much more efficient”, Cecilia concludes and continues:

“Users don’t have to spend as much time as before searching for work policies, processes, and other business-critical information. It is also much easier to follow and stay constantly updated as regards company news, visions, targets, and our core values. This gives our employees a more complete and much clearer picture of our operations, strengthening our unity and drive towards the achievement of our common goals.”

In order to create a more united Rottneros, a steady stream of news covering each and every sector of the Group is published on the intranet. A new content feature is called Employee of the Week, which is specifically designed to boost engagement and deepen employees’ insights into other work roles.

“Omnia’s responsive interface and the platform’s mobile app are hugely important to the majority of our employees who are constantly on the move. They can now always access whatever information they need on the intranet and stay in the loop about everything going on at Rottneros”, Daniel emphasizes.