Elderly care organization tanteLouise is located in the western part of North Brabant. Annick Dingemans, Communications Officer, talks about how they reach more than 1,800 employees through their Digital Workplace (Synigo Pulse platform). This enables caregivers and nurses, among others, to make some 1,300 residents in the nursing homes and 1,500 clients in the neighborhoods happy every day. The transition from Citrix to the cloud, with the associated IT infrastructure, was provided in cooperation with IT partner Simac.
A rundown intranet
Annick talks about the previous situation within TanteLouise: ''In 2014 the desire for an intranet arose. Quite late actually. Talks were held with all kinds of parties at the time, but it took a long time. Our Administration Manager managed to tell us that we could also make an intranet (InSite) from AFAS, which we were already using. That seemed like an easy and quick solution at the time, where we already had a link to Profit, could show birthdays, who's who and internal vacancies. Unfortunately, that intranet was not well maintained. There were few options for personalization, there was no like function, and most importantly, the Content Management System (CMS) was not user-friendly. When we had to explain it to new colleagues, it would show again how cumbersome the system was.''
Challenge: reaching employees
The main challenge? ''Reaching our employees. An intranet or digital workplace in healthcare is different than for companies with many office workers. People don't necessarily sit at their computers first thing in the morning. They usually work in a nursing home and, of course, they're there working primarily with clients. But they need the right tools for that. We were looking for a long time for the best form to reach employees: through the intranet, mail or physical expressions. In corona time a lot has changed for us. Our whole way of working actually."
"We went from Citrix to the cloud. We went from fixed computers to laptops. And the way we handled documents and information also changed. Especially in corona time, it's important to be able to communicate well with your employees. A user-friendly digital workplace helps with that.''
A user-friendly CMS
Annick explains what the new platform had to meet: ''The user-friendliness of the CMS for administrators was very important. And functionalities such as being able to schedule posts, display events nicely, and the possibility of personalization. A modern digital workplace was one of the components Simac advised us within our transition to the cloud. They gave us a workshop, explaining what you can do with the platform and how it works. When I started setting it up, I discovered that the CMS could do much more than was on our wish list. For example, a sign-up functionality for events and the good interaction option on messages positively surprised me.''
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Content management
Content keeps the digital workplace alive. ''Together with my Communications colleagues, we post almost all news items on the site. Sometimes we receive a ready-made piece of text and sometimes we create the entire post ourselves. There is enough going on to keep this section alive. For example, our Vitality Advisor is very active and now posts her own information and sets up events. We are also testing with the Works Council so that they can manage their own content.''
The new workplace, the starting point of work
''There happened to be a healthcare employee in our office today. Then I always take a look at how the digital workplace is being used. She finds it very clear and uses it regularly. This is because the apps she needs for her work are only accessible via the platform. I like that: that it really is the starting point for people's work. I've actually never heard anything negative. We always refer to the intranet from other communications, so people go there regularly. Not everyone in healthcare is digitally literate. So we explain a lot. And sometimes we do a little test. For example, a win action: 'Leave your reaction in the comments'. When I see that many colleagues do that, then I know that they find their way well. Also under the news items I see more and more likes and reactions. Posts about parties or really personal stories are doing particularly well.''
Further developments on the wish list
There is always room for improvement: ''We have made a phased transition, per location. Some colleagues have only been using the digital workplace for a year. I actually want to share more tips and tricks, so that colleagues understand, for example, that they can arrange the homepage themselves as they wish. And I also want to set up personalization on the back end even better. So that we can show messages to different locations or job groups. Finally, we would still like to have internal job postings displayed through a link. And set up the Onboarding module for new employees.' A wonderful digital workplace, which is getting even more complete step-by-step!"
