In the A/E/C industry, most firms have a split of field employees and office personnel. The field personnel at Summit often refer to their truck as their office, and with that comes distractions and difficulties that office staff doesn’t have to deal with.
Between meeting client demands, dealing with weather conditions (currently extreme heat), navigating the potentially hazardous surroundings, and much more, our field team members are up against a list of daily challenges that can make communication and connection difficult. On the flip side, you have the office team members or corporate office personnel working long hours to complete tasks like proposals, audits, and insurance compliance as well as finding new opportunities to support the organization in a completely different way from our field teams.
Each of these groups is working equally hard under circumstances that are unique to their environment, and creating a connection between the two can be a communication challenge. All challenges aside, one of the things that I love most about Summit and the A/E/C industry is the dynamic environment that we are a part of.
What Does This Mean For Communication?
There will never be a one-size-fits-all approach to communication because of the diversity of the roles and responsibilities that make up our team. However, we recognized that we needed to find a way to keep our company connected.
Recently, we launched a company intranet to help build out our company community, connect our groups that spread out across the southeast, and provide our employees with an internal resource for important company information. Below is a list of ways that employees can use our intranet:
- Find company information like insurance benefits, IT policies, and proposal templates easily.
- Build out their employee profile with a fun bio and let people know what they are a resource for.
- Post project photos to tell us what our team members are up to and where they are.
- Give a shout-out to a team member that is doing a good job.
- Just simply give us an update on how they are doing and what they are working on.
What excites me most about the intranet is building an online community for our employees. The more we grow, the harder it is to stay connected. Allowing our employees to share what they are up to and what they’ve accomplished is a huge advantage of having a company intranet.
We started this project well before Coronavirus was an issue, and during this strange time where connecting is difficult, I am so happy that employees now have a platform to share their voice. Bringing technology in-house isn’t hard but turning it into an engaging and vibrant space where everyone feels welcome and participates frequently is challenging. At the end of the day, it will take time for people to adjust to this new change, and like everything else, this is not going to work for all of our employees. As always, we will have to adjust, adapt and be flexible with our team, but now more than ever, I see the immense value in building our virtual company community.
Adoption of Collaboration Solutions
How often do you use each of the following technologies at work? The percentage that uses platforms at least weekly, by age.
Reference: https://www.iflexion.com/blog/sharepoint-intranet
So What Does a Successful Intranet or Virtual Community Look Like?
It Encourages Collaboration and Connection Across Disciplines
We are a multi-disciplinary firm with a wide range of skill sets and strengths. The intranet can serve as a great way for people to elaborate on their experience in their personal profile and get to know team members in other states. It promotes a culture of getting to know all of the people in our firm.
It Promotes Transparent Communication
The intranet will serve as a platform for updates from our company leadership about our mission, vision, and strategy. Communication that used to get lost in company-wide email blasts will now be posted regularly in a single place, with opportunities for comments and questions.
It Fosters Inclusion
The intranet will be a platform for ALL VOICES at Summit.
It Encourages Innovation
If we aren’t innovative, we aren’t growing, and If we aren’t growing, we are creating a stagnant environment with limited opportunities for our employees.
It’s Easy!
Who wants to dig through files to find a policy when you have it within 2 clicks!
As we continue to build this virtual space, it makes me think about what it means to build community. The definition of “community” is a feeling of fellowship with others due to sharing common attitudes, interests, and goals. I would much rather see people I work with as a community and not just a group of co-workers. Through our virtual community (intranet), I hope that we can build strong connections between our office personnel and field personnel, break down communication barriers, and make our satellite offices feel connected and in the know. A company intranet will do nothing but strengthen our fellowship and help us reach our goals, and I’m excited to get the journey started!