Our new Intranet project

What’s the project?

We’re excited to announce the launch of our new intranet project, which began in June. This initiative aims to bring together all the information and resources from our four merging councils into one cohesive platform. By leveraging the best practices from Essex County Council, The Co-op, Banardos and other authorities with open intranets, we are committed to creating a user-centered design that meets the needs of our staff.

Why are we doing this?

Our staff have faced several challenges with the current intranet systems, including:

• Difficulty accessing the intranet, especially for those without a council device.
• Challenges in finding the information they need.
• A lack of trust in the information available.
• The importance of the intranet as a daily tool for many staff members.

With the added complexity of merging our councils, we recognise the need for a unified platform that simplifies access to information and processes. Our new intranet will address these issues by providing a single, reliable source of information for all staff.

What’s our approach?

We’re taking a phased approach to this project, starting with a Minimum Viable Product phase to launch early and receive feedback. This will ensure we’re making progress to provide staff what they need, and also ensures we are building the right solutions, enabling us to be agile and adapt to user needs and feedback. This phase of the work runs in sprints, where we scope what should be delivered in the next 4 week sprint and continually review our own progress. The delivery is managed by the Digital team and the Intranet Steering Group.

What have we achieved so far?

Since starting the project, we’ve made significant progress, including:

• Creating a the intranet content management system, at no further cost on our corporate website technology.
• Designing and on brand Intranet theme.
• Researching and designing key user journeys.
• Building a suggestion tool and analysing the responses.
• Writing new pages to demonstrate what good content looks like for an open intranet.
• Designing a new information architecture for the entire intranet.
• Developing content design patterns and components for clear, consistent publishing.
• Establishing a concise content operations model with governance guidelines.

What’s next?

Our first live version of the new intranet is set to go live on October 25, 2024. It's still a work in progress with lots more content to redesign and bring in. As we move forward, we’ll continue to engage with staff and request feedback to ensure the platform meets their needs. We’re committed to a user-centered design approach and will keep refining the intranet based on user input.

We’re excited about the potential of this new intranet to improve the way we work and provide a better experience for all staff. Stay tuned for more updates as we continue to develop and refine the platform.