Improving online access to information for staff at Birkbeck Jane Van de Ban Web and Social Media Manager

Improving online access to information for staff at Birkbeck 1. Role of steering committee 2. What is a ‘staff intranet’? 3. Why redevelop the staff intranet? 4. What do staff want? 5. What do we recommend? 6. How do we get there?

Role of steering committee 1. Discuss/feed back on suggestions 2. Provide feedback / advice / sense check 3. Feed into further development work 4. Identify related projects/priorities that need to be taken into consideration

What is a ‘staff intranet’? For the purposes of this project, the Birkbeck staff intranet is a web resource designed to make a company's internal information and applications easily available to employees. Currently, our ‘staff intranet’ comprises more than 21 separate microsites, each with their own navigation and news area, some of which is linked to from a staff intranet front end + additional online services.)

Why redevelop the staff intranet?

o Staff-facing info not organised intuitively (instead organised by department) o Most professional service microsites are very very old and need to be updated o Information is out-of-date, and links don’t work o Not easy to find links to online systems, forms, procedures o Internal communications identified as an issue in the 2013 staff survey

Why redevelop the staff intranet? Simply, our current staff web resource isn’t good enough. Badly organised information has resource implications: ‘When salaries and overhead costs were taken into account, we calculated that a company with one of the least usable designs in our study would spend $3,042 per employee annually to cover time spent on the sixteen tasks we measured. ‘In contrast, the average company would spend $2,069 per employee per year, and a company that was among the best in usability would spend $1,563. ‘The total annual cost of intranet use can be estimated by multiplying by the number of employees. For companies with 10,000 intranet users, the annual costs are as follows: High usability (among the best 25%): $15.6 million Average usability: $20.7 million Low usability (among the worst 25%): $30.4 million’ Neilsen Norman Group:

What do staff want? Accurate and up-to-date information Better access to staff details / contact information Better organisation / improved search / improved findability Single sign-on Easy access to all online systems Better access to news and alerts Improved communications (fewer all-staff s) Improved access to forms / procedures

What do we recommend? The vision A dynamic, primarily public-facing microsite that all staff (inc. temporary staff) can go to in the certainty that this is the best place to find the Birkbeck news and information, services and contacts they need to help them do their job.

What do we recommend? See wireframes New staff intranet front end, with improved communications channels New configuration of staff-facing information to eliminate department boundaries on information (no more microsites!): – based on a comprehensive review and refresh in conjunction with content owners (aim to cut down the amount of content we put online) – Facility to provide bespoke landing pages that reflect the particular information requirements of different content areas (e.g. training timetable for HR area) New navigation tools – e.g. mega menus, fat footers – to make it easier to find information New communications tools – alerts / Year planner Global access to alerts, Twitter feeds, and other dynamically generated information All content to be optimised to improve search experience on the staff intranet [initial suggestion for structure derived from card sort exercise with 3 groups of staff]

Questions/discussion Are there associated developments/projects that will have an impact on this project? How to ensure that these projects come together efficiently? What are the best systems for providing what we want? How to avoid duplication? Best way to further discussion about possible move from separate department-oriented microsites to information organised by topic?

How are we going to get there? Stage 1: suggestions? Set up staff intranet working group to guide further developments Presentation to SHA/SHA sub-committee for input/advice Commission new design and layout Commission site build Further consultation with content owners to review/ refresh/ migrate relevant content (prioritising the oldest microsites including ER and Registry) to new sites Identify content maintainers and provide training/ongoing support to ensure continued high quality/findability of content

How are we going to get there? Stage 2 New staff directory; roll out initial portal technology to enable single sign-on Stage 3 ??????