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Armstrong Watson accountancy firm averts communication challenges

Armstrong Watson’s (AW) internal reshuffle was essential for the future of the accountancy firm, but it brought about big communication challenges. It created 14 different offices, virtual teams, and many people were no longer located in the same office as their team leader. AW needed a smart way to keep their dynamic teams up to date with regulation changes, and a simple way to share knowledge. The Jostle^® intranet has helped them do just that.

Challenges

AW faced three core communication challenges. Here’s what Toby Woodhead, Solution Architect at AW, shared with us:

1. Clear communication. “Keeping the team engaged and connected was our biggest internal challenge. Our employee surveys regularly raised communication as one of our biggest issues.”
2. Relevant updates. “As an accountancy practice we need to continuously inform the team of changes to regulations and our own internal processes; sending these updates by email means that if you weren't part of the team when the change happened you aren't informed.”
3. Employee recognition. “Worst of all, we didn't have a mechanism to properly celebrate our successes, business and personal! We used to send a weekly email update to the whole team but the successes were often hidden in the depths of the text.”

Solution

Getting leadership to buy in at the beginning of the rollout was essential to AW’s success. Their leaders lead by example to keep updates relevant. As Toby puts it, “once the CEO started posting both news articles and shout-outs the rest of the team followed.” Soon, employees were using their intranet to recognize each other’s achievements and bring successes up to the forefront.

AW also created an education piece to reinforce the message that their intranet was the go-to place to spread information, and discourage the use of email to effectively clear up communication.

AW also chose to make their intranet the company homepage so it’s the first thing anyone sees when they open a web browser. This move helped people adopt it as their go-to place for communication, encouraged participation, and got everyone in one place to read important updates.

Results

1. The firm as a whole has a better understanding of what’s going on and what direction they want to go in. “Partly this is because the Jostle intranet centralizes all our information into a single place and makes it easy to consume, but it’s also because the management team have increased the volume of their communications now that they have a simple channel to use.”
2. Everyone can access the information they need. “Due to the nature of the platform’s News feed, we have a growing bank of knowledge articles that can be easily searched by anyone. Individuals can access previously published articles, which hold useful information, even if they’ve just joined the team.”
3. Recognition of good work and celebration of achievements has increased. “One of the elements that’s growing is the use of the Activity feed to celebrate personal achievements. People have embraced it as a great way of saying well done or thank you to others.”