Building a social network for increasing employee engagement

Depending on how you interpret the dates, Intranets have been around for at least 30 years, with the term ‘Intranet’ first being coined in 1994, but internal electronic communications can be dated back to the ’60s and 70’s via email, back then it was set for use by the government and military. Collaboration and internal communications have been a priority for businesses for a long time, but businesses are still struggling to get it right.

Intranets started out as a small number of pages or in a lot of cases as a single page, with the sole purpose of conveying information to employees (one-way communications). In the early days, communications didn’t rely on the internet and provided no encouragement for employees to engage with them, it started to change in 1996.

Intranets have of course come along way since, but financial services firms still seem to be struggling with staff interaction and knowledge sharing. This brings us on nicely to a recent project that our Senior Software Developer, Joe Harvey has been working on.

What you up to Joe?

Joe: I have been working on a project to replace an old, outdated unused on-premise SharePoint intranet for a new interactive internal social network.

What line of business is the client in?

Joe: Financial Services, fund, corporate and private client services

What is the problem that the client has been facing Joe?

Joe: They wanted to modernise their existing SharePoint-based Intranet and create an engaging communication platform for their staff to keep up to date with all internal news and events.

“They wanted to create a system for their staff which they would enjoy using and want to engage with in a social way, like an internal social network”.

Their key goals before starting this project were:

• Increase Staff engagement through:
  • A smart, modern user interface, which is easy and enjoyable to use across desktop, tablet, and mobile devices
  • The ability to easily access the system from home, converting the previous intranet, to an Extranet
  • Allowing staff to customize the system to best fit their needs and have their say, through comments and reactions to content
• Reduce the reliance on IT for content updates to be made by allowing select staff across multiple jurisdictions to manage site content
• Develop a solution that fits well with the client’s existing infrastructure, architecture, and skill base

What part have you played in this Joe?

Joe: I put together the initial proposal and pitched for the project and have led all aspects of the delivery since. Including the build itself, the infrastructure configuration, and the day-to-day project management. Since the successful launch in Q4 2021, I have provided ongoing system support and continue to work with the client to develop additional features.

What is the solution that Nexus is providing?

Joe: We have built a bespoke Extranet built on the C#/ASP>NET based on Open Source framework Umbraco, hosted in Azure and secured via SSO against Azure Active Directory (Including multiple access levels based on AD Group assignment and the ability to enforce MFA during login for any access to the extranet from outside the client’s network.

What is this new system capable of?

Joe: As well as providing all the usual ‘read-only’ regulatory information/assets, the solution also includes:

• A customisable dashboard/landing page for staff to access all their other digital systems
• Personalised user profile including bio, birthday visibility and list of languages spoken
• A catalog of articles/blog posts filterable by business area
• Event listings each with the option to hold galleries of images from the event
• A staff directory to help find colleagues in certain roles and locations, filterable by department, jurisdiction, languages spoken, and search by name
• engaging homepage, displaying recent/featured articles and events, surveys and polls, and lists of staff birthdays, anniversaries, starters, and leavers
• A staff-driven recognition system allowing users to 'send a card' via email to colleagues for going above and beyond, or nominate them for recognition from management
• Comments and reactions (Like, Love, Laugh, and Applaud) on articles and including the ability to '@mention' colleagues
• Configurable access requirements including multiple user roles and the ability to enforce MFA for remote access