Setting up an intranet for your firm can boost morale and
effectiveness
It's tempting to see intranet building as a question of software
and hardware tools. But those who have been there and done that are
quick to point out that there's a lot more to creating a successful
intranet than simply setting up on the servers and churning out the
HTML. People like Clare Mapes, for example, intranet service
manager at Thomas Cook, who went live with the company's intranet
last September, says: "The biggest issue? Change management and
taking care of the human side is the largest part of the job and
one that can't be underestimated".
You might think that change management and the human angle means
getting colleagues to accept, use and benefit from an intranet.
But, as Mapes knows well, the first step lies in convincing
management of the benefits and winning the confidence required for
the all important green light. "On the team we've always known the
potential, but we have to prove it. We have to prove it all the
time, drawing up justifications for new team members and fighting
for resources." With the intranet (TCNet to its friends) now rolled
out to 900 users, with a target of 2000 by the end of the year and
another possible 8000 in the offing, it's clear that Mapes's team
has managed to deliver the goods to managers and users alike. It
hasn't been by thinking small.Mapes asserts: "Our mission statement
is to establish TCNet as the platform for global communications,
corporate knowledge, business solutions and the future development
of e-business. We'd like all Thomas Cook employees to have access
and for it to become the default communication tool for simply
everything people need to know."With the concerns of change
management, consistency, clarity and control, the TCNet team looked
at other intranets to see how other industry leaders were using web
publishing. They were faced with the nightmare task of training
business users to use Word and chose Netobjects because they felt
that its template facilities allowed users a fast track start to
web publishing that would allow even novices to add their own
content to precreated page style and layout. This allowed them to
create a corporate uniformity for their staff pages.TCNet uses
Netobjects Authoring Server Suite which allowed them to supervise
the progress of staff sites in development and offer help and
advice as required. "If they call us for help, we can get into
their sites from in front of our own screens and help them out
directly, so it offers us that control we need with the user
friendliness for our clients," explains Mapes.TCNet came out of a
background of mixed products. The staff previously used Front Page
while the developers were using HTML. During the six-month
changeover to Team Fusion, team members moved on from Fusion 1.0 to
Authoring Server Suite to get additional functions (the components
and Javascript). They are sticking with the Authoring Suite simply
because "we simply wouldn't want to give up our levels of
control."TCNet is designed around three areas; "work, rest and
play". Under "work" and "rest" there are a selection of sites aimed
at improving internal communications, combating the familiar
corporate evils of facelessness and confusion over roles. "We have
business sites where individual departments can publicise what they
do, explaining their role and who they are - all personalised with
photographs," says Mapes.In addition to putting the human face back
into an organisation, this also singles out each department's role
with a view to improving its fit within the company: "It's all
about telling others what they do in order to improve their own
processes. Which in turn helps smooth out the workings of the
corporate machinery. For example, we have a global services site
which has just implemented an application for logging calls about
system problems. Previously, users had to send in details by email
but this had to be in strict format, in order to be processed by
the call logging system, and users had to remember that set way of
working. That approach was fraught with problems but by using the
intranet site, a user can fill in the details with the promptings
of an online form."TCNet also has an important role in helping
users navigate through the welter of standards and policy
statements that abound in a global corporation. "We have a
traveller's cheque acceptance site, used by all our call centres,
which instantly advises them of the best types of cheques for any
particular country along with details of where they can be
cashed."Other business sites include the phone directory,
information on millennium bug squashing, internal vacancies and
clear explanations of uses of the intranet and Internet. As new
sections are added or points of interest emerge, the TCNet team
brings it to the attention of those concerned by firing off emails
to the appropriate mail lists - this includes a shortcut in the
mail to transport them to the site.There is even a virtual personal
assistant taking the confusion and inconvenience out of tasks such
as booking meeting rooms, ordering buffet lunches or buying a train
ticket. Mapes claims that: "The great thing is that the sites
themselves are a showcase demonstrating our value to the business
areas - it gives a good impression and it improves the way we work
with our internal customers.""The 'rest' and 'play' sections of
TCNet also improve relations with internal customers by helping
ease people into the habit of intranet usage. In the 'play' we have
non-work related content - news, information and, recently, we
launched a sandwich booking form from the canteen so you can book
your lunch for the day. "It's also where we host an individual's
home page, something we encourage because it's a great way of
learning HTML. Which is a lynchpin of the TCNet approach, spreading
the message in every sense by encouraging internal client
departments to take part, developing their own sites and actively
engaging in the ownership of them. People are seeing our approach
to IT and they start to see how it could be applied to their
department."While TCNet is growing as new departments take to it,
its development is carefully controlled, with the onus still on
justification at every stage. "All websites have to have proven
benefit, so the first step to creating an intranet web site is to
complete a concept paper including business benefits, goals and
cost - both the cost of creating the site and then of maintaining
it. That way we get people to buy into it right from the start,
since including their commitment to keep it going which has to be
signed off by a line manager. Before the site can go live, they
fill out a maintenance agreement in which they sign up to maintain
and update, at specified intervals, whether that be daily,
quarterly, yearly or whatever is appropriate. They have to let
users know how often it will be updated and if the site is not
maintained, we simply take it down. Its essential - we had a pilot
scheme for one year and one of the things that it was most
criticised for was out of date content, or content being buried so
you couldn't find it. You just have to have consistency of look and
of navigation."The next challenge for TCNet is expansion across the
country. "In the UK, we're aiming to get up to 2000 people by the
end of the year and, of course, we are planning quite a few new
sites to go with that. In addition, the retail side of the company
is looking at access to TCNet as well, which would mean including
800 branches - that's some 8000 people all by September of next
year. "Which suggests that all the hard justifying the TCNet team
has been made to do has paid off. "It's great - we've just
recruited two new team members to provide a platinum level of
service. It's seen as a very sexy activity within the company and
we've all had to learn so much after starting off with no
experience of intranets. We've still got a long way to go, but
we're learning all the time and actually it's fun too."Or, as TCNet
itself might put it, a balance of "work rest and play".
Rachel
Hodgkins