Innovapost uses Web 2.0 tools to engage its employees

The Authors

Chris Xarchos, Innovapost, Ottawa, Canada.

M. Brent Charland, Innovapost, Ottawa, Canada.

Abstract

Purpose – Web 2.0 is becoming increasingly popular in mainstream culture; blogs, wikis and social networking sites are springing up rapidly. Businesses are now adopting this suite of technologies and practices to improve the connectivity of their employees and derive benefits from increased employee engagement. Innovapost has recently started to investigate the use of Web 2.0 in a number of ways. The purpose of this case study feature is to report the results of a number of initiatives.

Design/methodology/approach – This paper uses the experiences of Innovapost as a case study.

Findings – Early experiences with a CEO blog were very positive and provided the impetus for additional experimentation. Forums provided mechanisms for employees to contribute to the development of the strategic business plan and to engage in ongoing discussions of Innovapost business and HR topics. The most ambitious foray to date has been InnovaConnections, which is a social networking tool that allows project managers to post opportunities and have interested employees “bid” for the work.

Originality/value – These initial experiments have led employees to suggest new and exciting possibilities for Web 2.0 at Innovapost and continued developments in this burgeoning area are anticipated.

Article Type:

Case study

Keyword(s):

Worldwide web; Internet; Employees; Employee involvement; Business development.

Journal:

Strategic HR Review

Volume:

7

Number:

3

Year:

2008

pp:

13-18

Copyright ©

Emerald Group Publishing Limited

ISSN:

1475-4398

Use of Web 2.0 technologies, the perceived second generation of web-based applications that facilitate collaboration and sharing between users, has been growing rapidly in recent years. New Web 2.0 platforms include technologies such as blogging, wikis, social networking sites such as Facebook, and media sharing sites such as YouTube. This technology is making it easier and easier for people to interact in online communities, directly exchange information with one another and create content online. Clearly, these types of connections can be of great use in the business environment where keeping increasingly widely distributed employees in contact with one another is a growing issue.

Web 2.0 is not just about technology. Its real value lies in creating communities, collaboration, co-creation and connections, that when applied to the workplace can improve the way we work, innovate, engage and deliver to our clients, partners and employees.

Investigating the opportunities

In 2007 Innovapost began to develop strategies to make the most of the opportunities this new environment offers. Internally, Web 2.0 had the potential to improve the way we work, innovate, communicate with and engage our employees. Also fuelling our motivation to invest in this area was the belief that developing and using these assets internally would provide our people with opportunities to learn and work with new ideas, concepts and technologies. In addition, developing Web 2.0 assets would help us bring innovations to our clients.

In the spring of 2007, the company asked its employees to sharpen their thinking around the practical uses of Web 2.0 technologies and to think of applications that create value for our employees, and potentially our clients. As a technology services company, Innovapost was well positioned to investigate Web 2.0 initiatives in-house and several interesting ideas emerged. The company decided to invest both time and money towards developing these ideas in greater detail. The focus was on using these opportunities to learn about implementing the technology and to see how they affected our employees' work life.

Innovapost has been actively working to create high levels of employee engagement through a number of separate initiatives aimed at specific targets. These Web 2.0 proposals fit nicely with our other engagement activities because they all shared the common underlying themes of participation, collaboration, community, co-creation and connection. In early 2007 we started work on four Web 2.0 initiatives that would:

• improve employee access to senior leadership;
• initiate and support a conversation with employees about the strategic direction of the company and get their input into the company's new business plan;
• supply a mechanism for ongoing, interactive discussions among employees about whatever interested them; and
• provide a mechanism to match new job opportunities with the skills of employees.

Starting the conversation

Our first, and in some ways the most straightforward, venture into Web 2.0 was the development of a CEO blog. Several years worth of employee engagement surveys had revealed a weakness in how senior leadership shared their thoughts on the strategic direction of the company. “Brendan's Blog” presented our CEO, Brendan Timmins, with a platform to speak about the direction of the company, outside the confines of “official sounding” announcements that target shareholders and external audiences. The blog also gave employees an avenue to pose questions to the CEO and receive responses in a timely, straightforward manner.

Positioned very prominently on our intranet home page, Brendan's Blog receives a considerable volume of traffic, averaging over 660 visits a month (the most popular content-based page on our intranet). Its conversational tone and broad range of topics have made it regular viewing for many employees. One of the interesting features of the blog is that there is a “talkback” mechanism that allows employees to respond to Brendan's postings and generate discussion threads among employees.

The blog is one of several initiatives Innovapost has embarked upon to expand communications with senior leadership, all of which have coincided with a significant improvement in employee attitudes about the level of communication they are receiving from the executive team.

Charting a new course

By 2007 Innovapost had become a victim of its own success. Having achieved in five years what our original business plan suggested we might do in ten, the company faced the challenge of breaking into new markets and continuing to improve employee engagement. For the company to remain healthy over the long term, we needed a new strategic direction that would help us grow and offer our people challenging work. The company was looking for ideas to renew its business and strongly believed that for any new business plan to succeed we had to tap into the collective intelligence of our employees during its development. The collaborative nature of Web 2.0 technology provided the platform to do this.

Enter “Polaris”, an online forum where components of our business could be discussed. Polaris challenged employees at all levels to have a frank discussion about the company's target markets, service offerings, competencies, assets and capabilities, client experience and employee experience. It took business planning out of the boardroom and into the open. The result was a three-month conversation that over time included the participation of 55 percent of employees. No business-related topics were off limits and participant anonymity was protected to ensure people were given the freedom to share their views honestly.

To maximize the potential value of employees' input, a moderator was assigned to help clarify and guide employees' online conversations. While openness and honesty were encouraged, personal attacks were off limits. It was also important to validate the accuracy of the information being provided and not to let important questions go unanswered. The moderator worked to ensure the conversations were not sent off course by erroneous information, including getting the right answers from subject matter experts when needed.

The project culminated in a letter to our shareholders that outlined our collective vision of the future. The results of Polaris were instrumental in shaping the final 2008 and five-year business plans that were approved by our board of directors. Polaris gave our employees a clear voice and sense of ownership in guiding the future direction of Innovapost. The executive team retained the final say in developing the plan, but appreciated having clear insight into employee expectations and visions for the future. Our implementation of Polaris brought out the best of Web 2.0 – generating collaboration among people who might otherwise not have connected to produce an innovative result.

Hearing it on the Grapevine

We used Polaris in a very targeted manner and with a carefully limited timeframe. However, the success of the initiative suggested an opportunity to go further. Within weeks of the end of Polaris, Innovapost launched “Grapevine,” a permanent discussion forum with a much broader mandate than Polaris.

Employee anonymity was guaranteed through the use of screen names and an initial range of topic areas were set up (see Figure 1). These included:

• an “Authoritative Answers” section where employees can post questions and get the right answers from the right people;
• the “InnovaLife” section that covers topics such as social events and charitable initiatives; and
• the “Feedback and Suggestions” section, a place where employees can offer up constructive advice on improving our company and workplace.

Within these areas employees are free to create discussion threads, respond to existing comments, request answers to questions on any topic and engage with their fellow employees. In time, the topic areas expanded at employees' request. One of the most successful has been the creation of a “Technical Questions” section where employees can pick the brains of their colleagues around the company on a variety of diverse subjects.

Like Polaris, Grapevine is moderated to ensure that participants follow the rules of conduct: inappropriate comments are not acceptable and are removed when complaints are received. However, there has been little need for moderator intervention over the first several months of operation. Employees, for the most part, are using Grapevine to engage in useful, thoughtful and, sometimes, amusing discussions.

In its first six months, more than one third of all employees have registered on Grapevine. We have seen steady registration growth with increases in both traffic and postings. As with many Web 2.0 initiatives, threshold participation rates are needed to really take advantage of the technology's potential. Once the core group has been established, there tends to be a relatively rapid uptake by additional employees as word spreads that there is interesting information available. We saw this same pattern when we launched our intranet shortly after the birth of the company.

Matching people and opportunities

Several years' worth of employee engagement surveys had identified access to career opportunities as an area in need of improvement within Innovapost. While opportunities existed for employees to step outside of their current job role and work in other business areas, there was no formal platform to learn of, or share, these opportunities. As the company grew in size, employees struggled to find ways to broaden their work experience, while managers struggled to find people with the right skills to take on temporary project assignments.

This was an obvious disconnect that Web 2.0 technology could help solve. “InnovaConnections” was developed as an open innovation tool to establish an internal marketplace for matching talent and task. It helps managers connect with resources and helps employees identify and participate in new work opportunities. It creates value for Innovapost by leveraging talent and capacity.

Participants in InnovaConnections are divided into “Seekers”, who are looking for people to work on specific tasks, and “Solvers,” who are people looking for interesting work. An employee can register as both a Seeker and a Solver and logs into the system as one or the other, depending on what they are interested in doing. Seekers post tasks for which they would like to find help. A task must have a defined duration and specific outcome. This avoids open-ended assignments and ensures that whole projects are not staffed through InnovaConnections (see Figure 2).

Solvers go into the system and can see all of the tasks available. If they see something that interests them they can submit a bid that includes their qualifications and availability. The Seeker then reviews all of the bids and selects the candidate they would like to have work on the task. At this point, the Seeker contacts the supervisor of the candidate and negotiates the details of the assignment.

InnovaConnections doesn't replace the traditional back and forth between managers who are looking for people to help complete projects. However, it ensures two important things:

1. that employees have greater visibility into all of the opportunities available in the company; and
2. that Innovapost can better see the range of capabilities and interests available among the employees.

We have just launched InnovaConnections and we are still in the early stages where people are learning to post tasks in the system and employees are learning to go and search the postings. The early signs are encouraging, but it will take continued effort to reach the threshold level of participation that will really deliver value from the tool.

What's next for Innovapost?

As part of the continued investigation of Web 2.0 tools and techniques Innovapost has started to investigate social networking. “InnovaProfiles” is currently under development with a proposed launch early in 2008. This tool is an internal “Facebook” type social networking application. It will allow all Innovapost employees to have a personal presence much greater than is currently available. This increase in accessibility should spur improved connectivity and sharing of ideas among our currently widely distributed workforce (six sites in two major cities). Reducing the sense of isolation of geographically separate offices is one of the key drivers for implementing InnovaProfiles and we look forward to seeing the results of this initiative in 2008.

We will always need ways to connect employees with each other and with the business. Lack of connection is one of the most commonly encountered difficulties in rapidly growing and geographically diverse companies. Web 2.0 offers a vast array of new technologies and practices for fostering the kinds of connections that will strengthen and unify our corporate culture of collaboration and innovation.

In the long run Web 2.0 is also very attractive to the next generation of employees (the “Milliennials”) who have grown up and are comfortable with these technologies. Leveraging this experience will be key to engaging the employees who will lead our company in the future.

How can organizations support Web 2.0?

Although Web 2.0 technologies are attractive given their high public profile it is important that your organization is able to support these initiatives effectively (see Figure 3). Our experience has highlighted three key organizational attributes that are important to ensure success:

1. Organizations need executives that allow experimentation. There must be a willingness among top managers to allow their employees to experiment with new technologies and business models. In turn, this experimentation can help uncover hidden talent within your organization and present business opportunities you never knew existed.
2. Discipline around IT portfolio management and funding allocations. Because of the pressure brought on by earnings targets, it is often difficult for management teams to support initiatives that do not produce an immediate return on investment. Management must look beyond their current needs to set aside part of their budget to fund strategic investments and innovation that will support long-term growth.
3. Involve all your people. Our experience has shown that the more people that get involved, the better it gets. Companies that make an effort to interact with their people via Web 2.0 initiatives can gain an enhanced understanding of their employees' wants, needs, and concerns. This knowledge can lead to improved communications, HR program development and employee engagement.

Figure 1

Figure 2

Figure 3

Box 1

About the authors

Chris Xarchos is a senior consultant in Innovapost's Communications group. His area of expertise focuses on corporate communications. Chris Xarchos is the corresponding author and can be contacted at: chris.xarchos@innovapost.com

M. Brent Charland is a senior consultant with Innovapost's Human Resources team. Currently he specializes in workforce analytics and new program developmentBox 1.