Sluggish communication in your municipal workplace? Here's what other municipalities are doing to solve it
If you work in the public sector, you've probably experienced increasing demands, limited resources, and sometimes lagging internal communication and knowledge sharing?
Do you feel that your workplace is sometimes characterized by:
- Waste of time
- Misunderstandings
- Silos between departments
- Lack of knowledge sharing
- Too many meetings and emails
- Lack of dialog between coworkers or coworkers and management
- Employees who are not heard - e.g. due to their job function in the field and a lack of a place to communicate wishes, opinions, new initiatives, etc.
Unfortunately, these are well-known challenges from everyday municipal life that you can probably recognize:
- Geographical dispersion: Employees are often stationed in different locations, making it difficult to gather everyone in one place.
- Very different communication needs: From teachers and educators to technicians and administrative staff
- Technology challenges: Not all employees are equally tech-savvy and many don't have access to a PC during their working day, so some are completely cut off from hearing from management, other colleagues or head office
Recognized challenges at, for example, Ringkøbing-Skjern Municipality. Jette Rask, Project Manager Ringkøbing-Skjern Municipality explains:
"The size of the organization means that there are long distances between our departments. We therefore experience a great challenge in terms of interdisciplinary collaboration. We have found it difficult to reach out to our external employees who are in the different institutions - school teachers, childminders, nursing home assistants, etc. We've also found it difficult to search for colleagues with specific professional skills and to communicate information to employees through our previous intranet."
Why a digital communication platform - a modern intranet is the solution
A modern intranet that acts as a digital internal communication platform has proven to be a game-changer for municipal internal communication in Denmark, Norway and Germany. It acts as a central hub where employees can:
- Share knowledge: Best practices, experiences, and new knowledge can be shared in relevant working groups, via video, images, documents and comments/dialogues within or across departments and geographical areas.
- Collaboration: Projects can be coordinated more efficiently and employees can work together across departments.
- Finding information: With a good search function, employees can quickly find the information they need.
- Get relevant and segmented information: Employees who were previously cut off from important information can now get the relevant information they need. Fewer emails and better knowledge sharing. With segmented workgroups and news feeds accessible via mobile, tablet and desktop, employees only get the relevant information - news, events and important announcements can be shared on one central platform.
- Communicate two-way: All employees can now participate in collaborative discussions and contribute their knowledge, comment, like and engage. This changes communication from one-way via email or SharePoint to two-way with open dialog.
- Find the right colleague: employees can easily search for the right employee via competence tags. Who took that Excel course, for example, or who knows first aid?
Colibo is the largest provider of a modern intranet for municipalities in Denmark. A platform developed in collaboration with municipalities to understand the complex structures in the public sector.
Lisbet Rosendal, Web Consultant at Esbjerg Municipality explains why they chose Colibo:
The responsive platform has been a key point for us. We want to be able to access the intranet via mobile phones and tablets, so we can also include the daycare mothers, home helpers and healthcare assistants who don't necessarily use a computer in their daily work.
Ringkøbing-Skjern municipality also uses Colibo:
Remote employees can quickly access relevant information and at the same time create their own "collaboration spaces" through the workgroup feature. Colibo is also an intuitive and user-friendly intranet platform that allows us to quickly and easily find colleagues with specific skills.
- Jette Rask, Project Manager, Ringkøbing-Skjern Municipality
Silkeborg Municipality uses Colibo. John Andersen, Head of Administration, IT and Finance for the home and nursing section says:
In the past, employees on the move had to call or log on to different networks with a PC to access information. Now they have it all at their fingertips.
What makes a good municipal intranet?
- Ease of use: The intranet should be intuitive and easy to navigate so that all employees can use it.
- Mobile accessibility: Employees should be able to access the intranet from their smartphones and tablets.
- Personalization: Employees should be able to customize the intranet to their own needs.
- Integration with other systems: The intranet must be able to integrate with other systems, such as HR systems and financial systems.
The municipal intranet of the future
A modern intranet is no longer just a tool for sharing information. It's a platform that can enhance collaboration, increase productivity and create a stronger sense of community among employees. By investing in a good intranet, many municipalities ensure a more efficient and cohesive organization.
Would you like to know more about how an intranet can benefit your municipality? Or what other municipalities have specifically done or achieved with their intranet? Contact us at contact@colibo.com or + 45 28 14 40 15
