Elevations Credit Union needed a brand-new intranet to support their company culture that embraces community, innovation and collaboration.
- Industry: Finance
- Country: US
- Company Size: 251 – 1000 users
Starting Point:
Colorado-based Elevations Credit Union wanted a new intranet to be an engaging, easy-to-update one-stop shop for documents, news, information, content and social activity.
The challenge was to give their staff easy access to view and share information, as well as distribute most employee communications using a channel other than direct email.
Solution:
As Elevations Credit Union wanted an innovative intranet that would make sharing information and news much easier, Valo’s Premium Partner Catapult Systems suggested Valo Intranet. It’s a modern, highly collaborative and social platform.
Benefits:
- Valo Intranet is now used for all low-urgency company-wide communications, reducing the number of stand-alone emails
- Staff can publish content easily and engage with others
- Past news articles and key dates can be found quickly
- Employees have their finger on the pulse of the company all the time – in one simple portal
From clunky to intuitive and innovative intranet
Headquartered in Boulder, Colorado, US with about 550 employees, Elevations Credit Union is a mission-focused organization with members, not customers.
Elevations believes in having a solid community and communication ethos, therefore employee engagement is genuinely important to them.
Their old intranet was built more than 12 years ago on legacy technology and was literally a splash page with links, making it difficult to highlight or prioritize special content. As a result, they were relying heavily on email to communicate key internal messages.
They began looking for an innovative intranet tool to unify their 550+ workforce, and make their working life more efficient. As they were already using SharePoint, and were due an Office 365 upgrade, Valo Intranet was the perfect choice. Staff didn’t have to learn an entirely new system, which meant keeping it simple and intuitive to use.
Valo Intranet gave us the additional functionality we were looking for on top of SharePoint. Valo’s features really helped us take SharePoint to the next level.
An engaging news platform
Kathleen Hoxworth, VP of Internal Communications, was also looking for a platform that would enable them to create engaging content. They wanted to be able to empower users across the company to easily create new pages, edit the content, and have them look consistent.
In addition, Kathleen really wanted a news carousel at the top of the home page, so that she could highlight featured stories. Her vision was to enable others to create their own news stories for the front page and send them through a workflow where the internal comms team could review, approve and post from within the platform. And Valo Intranet’s features met all of these needs.
Thanks to Valo’s news carousel, we’re able to publish content that really engages staff and piques their interest. We are also able to monitor engagement with each story, which helps inform our messaging strategies.
An intuitive search function
Introducing an intuitive search function was also a top priority for Elevations’ team. They wanted a platform that would help people easily and intuitively find content and information.
Valo’s Mega Menu, that offers a drop-down menu and accessible links on each of the pages, was a huge selling point for Kathleen. As was the People Directory, which enables users to search for colleagues easily, based on a variety of search criteria.
They also liked Valo’s events and birthday features, which have been an added bonus for them.
Reduces reliance on email
In the change-making process, the organization also wanted to move away from relying on email so much. They wanted to work towards a situation where employees can self-serve and find the information they need when they need it. This strategy is aimed at reducing people’s bulging inboxes, so important emails get the attention they deserve.
In order to make this possible, they made a very intentional decision to make ‘The Peak’ the homepage for all of their web browsers. This means when opening an internet browser, The Peak is the first page a staff member sees.
Rave reviews from staff
The new intranet has been very popular with the staff. Management has also been impressed with the efficiency of Valo’s digital workplace.
My favourite memory was from the very first day we launched Valo Intranet. Our Chief People Officer – my boss – came up to me and she said, “I’ve been here for a year and a half and this is the first time I feel like I can actually find what I am looking for on the intranet”.
The overall staff feedback has been incredibly positive. The time schedule from inception to launch was notable too. Thanks to Valo Premium Partner Catapult Systems, they were able to transform their intranet from ‘0-60’ within a month.
Now Elevations Credit Union has a user-friendly intranet that provides more of an engaging experience for their employees. Plus, their new digital workplace is aiding innovation and enhancing the way they work.
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