Connect

How Connect Changed the Culture

Connect was based on the idea that workplace relationships matter and provides practical strategies for creating a culture of authentic and trust-based relationships that boosts retention, productivity, profitability, and well-being.

Shared interests, hobbies, and community are critical to flourishing in work and in life. But how do you bring them into work in a way that makes a real difference?

Connect was not only just a company intranet it was a place where employees from all over the world could connect and share common interests and goals. Not just in the business sense but in a personal one.

Goal: Was to make Connect easy and fun to use. A place where Hylanders could speak their mind, share thoughts, photos, and form groups as well as boost cross-departmental communication.

Problem: Hyland was looking for a solution that is easy to use, intuitive, and encourages employee engagement. But one concern about Connect was that employees would spend too much time on the system talking about hobbies and not enough time working.

Research: To better understand the needs of employees, I conducted the following research:

Interviews: I conducted in-depth interviews with employees from different departments to gather more detailed information about their communication and collaboration experiences.

Competitor Analysis: I analyzed what other companies intranet platforms functioned like to better understand the strengths and weaknesses of existing solutions.

Evolution and Growth:
Insights: Based on research, I gained the following insights:

Employees are using a variety of tools to communicate and collaborate, including email, messaging apps, and personal social media accounts.

There is a need for a centralized platform that allows employees to easily access both personal and business groups.

HR and the C level needed a way to quickly post corporate information besides just email.

Design Solution: To address these insights, I proposed the following design solutions:

Customizable Homepage: Create a customizable homepage that allows employees to easily access their personal and business groups.

Unified Group Management: Develop a unified group management system that allows employees to easily create, join, and manage groups.

Communication Tools: Include a variety of communication tools, such as messaging and file sharing to encourage collaboration.



Prototype: To test the proposed solution, I developed a prototype of the intranet platform. The platform included features such as:

Customizable Homepage: A customizable homepage that allows employees to easily access their personal and business groups.

Unified Group Management: A unified group management system that allows employees to easily create, join, and manage groups.

Personalization: Personalization features that allow employees to customize their profiles and group pages.

User Testing: I conducted user testing with a group of employees to gather feedback on our prototype. The feedback was positive, with employees stating that the platform was easy to use, intuitive, and allowed for easy collaboration between personal and business groups.

Employees not only were very willing to share ideas about the platform which made collecting solid and good data very easy. But they were willing to participate in user testing throughout the entire building process.

Conclusion: Once Connect was launched it was a huge success with nearly 100% employee engagement and positive feedback. Employees were not only creating personal groups, but they were also creating business groups and discussing cross-departmental projects.

Connect not only boosted employee communication and morale it became known as the heartbeat of the Hyland culture.