Heathrow Airport

Overview

Heathrow Airport Customer story

The UK’s largest airport and the second busiest airport in the world, London Heathrow accommodates around 200,000 people who travel through the airport every single day. On top of their 7,500-employed staff, there are up to 75,000 employees in total who are hired by the 350 external companies that work with the airport daily. With thousands of deskless- workers, the team at Heathrow wanted to focus on building an award- winning digital workplace.

Problem

Welcoming over 70 million passengers a year, Heathrow’s employees are constantly working with customers to ensure they can travel safely and swiftly to their chosen destination. A couple of years ago, internal research showed considerably lower engagements scores from front-line staff compared to those working in the office. With the majority of employees whose work is not desk-based, a key challenge the communications team faced was how to connect and engage the colleagues.

The team required a much-needed upgrade from SharePoint 2007 and had recently acquired Office 365. However, the tools in Office 365 were not being utilised by employees due to the lack of understanding and busy work schedules. The only technology some of the staff had access to was via their personal mobile phones. Unaware and lack of understanding of Office 365, consumption and adoption of Office 365 was low amongst Heathrow’s workforce.

Solution

The solution was clear: to create and build a transformative digitally connected workplace that provides the right tools and technology to support the Heathrow staff in doing their jobs effectively and efficiently, anytime and anyplace.

The Heathrow intranet was developed as Hub+. A cutting edge internal platform and user interface built and designed for Heathrow’s employees. Hub+ is smart, modern and easy to use for staff on whatever device they use daily. Hub+ has opened up a window to inspiration and the tools to help employees learn, develop, connect and deliver. It has also helped the teams to understand the value that they bring to Heathrow and created a feeling of being part of something great.

Colleagues use the Hub+ portal regularly, where they can find information about airport emergencies, receive the latest terminal offers, maps, the daily forecast of how many passengers will visit the airport, news and campaigns.

The intranet is built based on information that is important for them to carry out their jobs. The daily briefing for security guards built into the intranet provides them with all the relevant information that they require for their shift. Previously employees would take notes from a piece of paper put up in the staff room. They no longer need to walk to a specific terminal and can receive all the information via their chosen device. What’s great about Hub+ is that it is built to be mobile responsive, this is first and foremost important for Heathrow’s employees. It allows them to collaborate, communicate and speed up operational processes on any device and delivery timely/relevant information to front-line employees.