Clinical research company inspires employee collaboration with new intranet

Quintiles’ communicators were tasked with creating an intranet from scratch that would transform the way employees create, discover, share and interact. It’s done just that and we’re pleased to recognize it as the winner of the Best Social Intranet in Ragan’s Employee Communications Awards.

Early metrics demonstrate that the effort has succeeded. Seventy-one employee blogs have generated nearly 20,000 page views and more than 1,500 comments. More than 100 discussions were started on message boards, each averaging 15 posts.

Another reason to predict success is the research on which the project was based. Too many redesigns and overhauls proceed without input from those who are expected to use the intranet and expect the intranet to serve business goals. Quintiles undertook a two-month research phase that included executives and employees. This research provides Quintiles with a baseline against which to measure the intranet’s effectiveness.

Using SharePoint as the intranet foundation is another potential barrier to success. Quintiles avoided these landmines by contracting with a third-party SharePoint development team to work alongside the communications team. Equally impressive is the effort to motivate content owners throughout the company to migrate their content from the old system to the new one.

Most impressive, though is the outcome itself, the comprehensive and visually appealing employee profiles, the integration of social tools like five-star ratings, the list goes on.

The social intranet category included a lot of noteworthy efforts, but Quintiles produced the most comprehensive, strategic, well-measured and well-executed result of them all.

Sr. Digital Strategy Director: Laura Grover