Location
North America
Users
100,000+
Sector
Banking
A consolidated digital workplace on SharePoint powered by Fresh for TD bank
TD bank was replacing both its internal social media platform and dated and clunky intranet with a single, modern, consolidated digital workplace, built on SharePoint, powered by Fresh from Advania UK.
The aim was to provide an ecosystem that reflects the new world of work, with mobile accessibility, communities of practice, a powerful people directory, tool selector, and personalised news to cut through the noise.
Phased approach
The bank planned a phased approach during 2023 introducing the brand-new ecosystem made up of SharePoint, Fresh, and Viva Engage, replacing its legacy intranet and the social media platform first.
The former intranet was 20 years old and the social media platform, 10. So, the bank’s employees were used to the old ways of working and accessing information.
With 1.1 million hits across the portfolio every day, employees were experiencing learned helplessness as they struggled to access information quickly.
But both sites were no longer fit for purpose, hindering comms and productivity, which is why they had to be replaced.
The bank’s ‘Employee Enablement’ team created a hearts and minds campaign to change entrenched end user behaviours and to encourage adoption of the new digital workplace, powered by Fresh.
Tapping into existing employee networks
Rolling out a phased and multi-faceted change management program, so not to overwhelm employees, the strategy was to harness and utilise the power of the existing employee networks, initially rolling out to an audience of 20,000.
Key figures from the Executive, 120 strong intranet site management teams for each line of business, a network of 2,500 technology champions “geniuses”, a dedicated central resource hub community, plus 60 change managers, and 80 communication leads were brought-in early to spread the word.
Recruiting 120 early adopters as part of the first wave of launch, these would help develop the program, test adoption materials, build their communities, and showcase their experience of onboarding onto the platform before launch.
Next, tapping into the 2,500 “geniuses”, their role was to celebrate the new platform’s collaborative behaviours, champion the change, reassure their leaders and colleagues, and encourage adoption of it.
Over 13,000 community managers, with audiences of up to 45,000, were brought in to build communities, and help with user adoption, they were supported by an evergreen ‘community build toolkit’ made up of six videos and associated worksheets.
A hundred and twenty intranet site managers across 35 teams were enlisted to manage the key messages on their intranet sites.
Specialist audiences, such as line of business executives, comms teams, and corporate comms teams were briefed to start spreading the key messages to their communities.
Finally, 60+ change managers were recruited to help lines of business to use central adoption materials and to customise messages to their audiences.
Six months prior to launch, the bank adopted a two-fold approach to communicating the change. Deploying enterprise communication tactics, e.g., posting articles on all 35 intranet homepages, and a line of business approach – targeting key messages to comms teams and change managers from each.
A gateway into the new digital workplace
Working with Fresh, the bank then launched a single, accessible, landing page, with great UX as the gateway into its new digital workplace which replaced its old intranet and social media platform, and will ultimately replace all 35 different intranet sites and multiple (12) landing pages.
On the new digital workplace landing page, employees could access news, HR tools, other apps, and online communities in one place across all devices.
Results: A soft launch that went viral
The bank’s soft launch on 27th February 2023, promoted using video, articles, FAQs, a direct email to 60K+ colleagues, people manager bulletins, guest slots in other newsletters, a banner ad across its social media channel, a Viva Engage webinar, plus intranet homepage switch over for 20,000 employees, quickly went viral.
Within days, 60,000+ employees had been into the new platform, garnering 1 million+ views, each spending an average of 15 mins. Since then, it has had 105K unique viewers, 9 million+ page visits with 22 mins as an average time spent.
Such was the success, the bank’s leaders invited the Employee Enablement team to present at their town halls, reaching a further 8,000 colleagues remotely and in-person in the preceding two months.