Køge Municipality Enhances Internal Communication with a Modern Omnia Intranet

– The municipality’s enhanced digital workplace and intranet allow users to access all news, relevant internal and personal information, discussions, and tools via a single view. Omnia has also improved the employees’ mobility and flexibility by making it possible for frontline personnel in the future to have individual and personalized access via their mobile phones. This was not possible in the previous intranet. Above all, the new solution makes it much easier for users to find and access instructions and other information, collaboration sites, and tools. This will strengthen and make internal communications more efficient. Furthermore, it will boost internal dialogue and collaborations between different units. This will lead to a more unified organization, says Caroline Høyer Simony, project manager at Omnia.

The Municipality of Køge is located 40 kilometers south of Copenhagen and has about 60,000 inhabitants. It is an integral part of the Greater Copenhagen area, but with a strong individual identity, and is fast becoming a regional growth center with many developing projects in progress.

Køge Kommune’s previous intranet was out-of-date and difficult to keep updated. It also had some security flaws, didn’t allow for targeted and personalized information, and offered poor accessibility on small mobile devices. According to Lotte, it was also downright unattractive and uninspiring to navigate. As a result, very few employees bothered to use it. The municipality’s intranet was consequently in pressing need of an upgrade.

– We needed a modern SharePoint-based intranet platform, easy to customize, allowing for smooth integration with Microsoft 365, and offering attractive layout options and personal targeting functions. Omnia really stood out in the competition! It’s a flexible solution, provides great targeting and mobility functionality, and is easy to manage and adapt. This will certainly increase our productivity. We can now create the start page and change the intranet’s general layout ourselves. This used to require assistance from external consultants, which was costly and time-consuming, Lotte Holle Schneider, Communication Manager at Køge Municipality points out.

Køge Kommune and Precio Fishbone started the implementation project in January 2020. Shortly afterward, the COVID-19 pandemic forced the implementation team to follow through using only digital channels.

– The new intranet was launched in November 2020, although we had hoped to have it up and running in October. I think that the absence of physical meetings and workshops made the process slower. The whole project was more or less conducted via Microsoft Teams. Our team members weren’t initially accustomed to having meetings and working through digital channels, but they were quick learners and the project gradually picked up speed, Lotte explains.

Attention-grabbing Baby iPad

In order to prepare the organization for the change and spur employees’ curiosity, Lotte and her team produced a video featuring a stork pulling the intranet, symbolized as an iPad, in a pram. In the video, viewers were asked to come up with a name for the baby (i.e. the intranet). The video was called “The Little New” and was distributed throughout the organization. It stirred up a lot of interest and talk among employees. The winning name was the Danish word “Dokken”, which translates to “The Dock”.

– We wanted to create a buzz around the new intranet, but also keep expectations down a little. Hence the humoristic twist. It was a great success and the winner of the naming contest was awarded a basket full of delicacies and cake for the winner’s entire department. The winner was also interviewed and the news video posted on the new intranet’s front page, says Lotte.

Fingertip information for all

As in most implementation projects, Køge Kommune has had to screen and categorize all the information that would be migrated over to the new platform. It’s been a time-consuming but rewarding process since the information is now much better structured, making it so much easier to navigate. The ultimate goal is to make any item of information relating to the municipality and users’ employment available on the intranet.

– It is very easy to find any kind of information on the new intranet. Omnia’s responsive design has also allowed the intranet to be accessible, for the first time, to all frontline employees. We plan to implement the Omnia app in order to further improve the mobile experience. With Omnia’s targeting functionality, we have also made the information more relevant for each user, thus boosting the intranet’s usability and popularity, Lotte concludes.