Principality Building Society

Principality Building Society are the UK's 6th largest building society based in Cardiff, Wales. Their old intranet was built over 14 years ago, and lacked dynamism and organisation. By working closely with ClerksWell, their digital workplace was restructured and reimagined, creating a seamless and intuitive communications platform for their workforce. 

The Challenge 

Principality’s old intranet was  run without developer support, on an unsupported IT infrastructure, and was lacking key functionalities. 

​Principality were looking for an intranet that would bring excitement to their workforce; one that would inspire engagement and collaboration. 

Their requirements were carefully understood through a full day on-site review, and a thorough investigation following this initial discovery. Principality wanted their new intranet to be the go-to place for essential information and news updates. They wanted their new platform to encourage socialisation within the workforce, and create a united company culture. The capabilities of the intranet and contributions from staff would signal Principality’s move into the digital era, and express the refreshed brand, aligning the internal experience with the external presentation of the business

The Solution

The solution began with content consultancy from ClerksWell. With 14 years of history and legacy content on their old intranet, ClerksWell wanted to ensure that nothing crucial was missing, and that all relevant data was migrated onto their new platform. 

Easy access to reference materials and integrations to systems were huge priorities. ClerksWell designed a site architecture that allowed for intuitive navigation, was fit for many years to come, and followed industry best practice. This included creating new content alongside the Principality team, ensuring that employee's needs were met, and training their content creators on publications and IA. This process allowed Principality to measure their employees content journeys, track the publication of articles, and to see first-hand the increased level of engagement following from their new content delivery strategy.  

Results

On launch day, the new and improved Cwtch intranet received 935 unique visitors, and 919 colleagues signed up to Yammer – over 90% of the Principality workforce. Employee engagement, socialisation, and collaboration skyrocketed. Three articles were posted to the intranet, highlighting the key features and benefits of the new platform. Posters were displayed and a ‘Getting Started’ guide was handed out. These additional training materials helped to streamline the internal changes that this new platform fore fronted. Considering the adjustment, the impressive 90%+ rate of engagement was considered to be a tremendous success by both Principality and the ClerksWell team on the project. 

​Not only has Cwtch brought a new level of connectedness, engagement and sense of belonging inside Principality, but it has also quickly become a trusted hub of information. The powerful search engine (based on SharePoint search) has made it quicker and easier for colleagues to find the information that they need to do their jobs. It has helped to improve the service that employees are able to deliver to customers. 

Long-standing Relationship

Principality Building Society have recently decided to further upgrade their digital workplace to an Office 365 environment. They were so pleased with the intranet that ClerksWell delivered that they have opted for a lift-and-shift migration method, keeping in place the bespoke features and fundamental functionalities/structure of the previous solution. ClerksWell have once again been chosen to complete this migration, due to our time-efficiency and strong client relationship. This migration will open up even more possibilities for internal communications, such as the use of forms and streams embeds. Check out our full list of Microsoft 365, Office 365, and SharePoint services here.