No risk of getting lost on Sala Municipality’s new intranet

– The launch of the new intranet has been the single most successful workplace improvement during my time as Chief Municipal Executive. The new intranet has made it so much easier to create and share new information and to involve the entire organization in everything that’s going on in our various operations and administrations, thereby avoiding unnecessary speculation. As a result, this will strengthen overall trust in the workplace and hopefully trigger curiosity among our personnel as regards the work carried out in other parts of our organization, says Daniel Holmvin, Chief Executive of Sala Municipality. 

The Municipality of Sala lies in Västmanland County and has about 23,000 inhabitants. With 2 100 employees and nine offices, the Municipality is also known as the Silver City since it used to be a silver-mining community from the late 15th century until 1962 when the last mine was shut down.

Up until the autumn of 2020, the Municipality had never previously had a traditional intranet. There was an out-of-date SharePoint-based website on which information and documents could be shared, but it was rarely updated and furthermore lacked modern intranet functions and integration capabilities. The Executive Committee of the Municipality had a few years earlier acknowledged the organization’s difficulties in finding and accessing relevant and common information, internal news, and documents. The organization also required much more efficient means of communication and collaboration, with employees who were frequently on the move in need of smooth mobile access to a shared communications platform.

– Besides needing a modern intranet so as to facilitate findability and the easier distribution and sharing of information and knowledge, we also wanted better structure, control, and traceability of information. For instance, with our previous platform, no ownership was allocated to information. In 2018 we began mapping our processes and needs. Based on this study, we were able to proceed with the procurement process, which Omnia won, since it stood out as the most complete intranet solution, satisfying our requirements in the best possible way, says Cecilia Rasmussen, IT Project Manager at Sala Municipality. 

Successful workshops boosted engagement

The implementation of Omnia started in October 2019. Comprehensive content and restructuring work was then initiated in the so-called “pilot” units and administrations. The whole process took about a year and the intranet was first launched to higher management at the beginning of November 2020. Three weeks later, on December 1, the intranet was opened to the entire organization.

– We wanted our managers to be first out of the blocks so that they could then act as ambassadors for the intranet and pull in the rest of the organization. We also chose to include only content from a few pilot units, like HR, Finance, and IT, basing the selection of the pilots on their content being of particular interest to most employees. After a test and evaluation period, we published content from other units and administrations successively. This step-by-step rollout has proven to be highly successful and the resulting intranet is very popular, Cecilia emphasizes.

The upgrade and modernization of the Municipality’s communications platform has, according to Cecilia, significantly changed the organization’s work processes. It’s now much easier to create and find information, as well as to keep information relevant and updated and to ensure it reaches all parts of the organization.

– The intranet is today our prioritized channel for communications across the entire organization. Since its launch we’ve cut back the number of mass e-mails to a minimum, with mass communications to the whole or major parts of the organization being today channeled via the intranet. For group communications and dialogue in collaborations, Teams is used, Cecilia adds.

The Municipality is currently implementing Microsoft 365 and Teams as the organization’s primary collaboration and desktop tools, a process facilitated by Omnia’s being pre-designed for integration with Microsoft solutions.

– The implementation process is very smooth thanks to Omnia’s seamless integration with Microsoft 365 and Teams and the fact that users have been using the intranet for about a year. Accessibility to our shared information and communications will be further strengthened when these solutions are in place, since the intranet can then also be reached via Teams and Microsoft 365, Cecilia concludes and adds:

– Overall, the intranet has greatly improved our efficiency and workplace trust as we can now readily find and access reliable and relevant information. The uniform and open platform furthermore boosts our unity, engagement and the interest of our employees in the work carried out in other parts of our organization and in our common goals.