Challenge: How to overcome communication challenges in a fast-growing company
PT Zurich Insurance Indonesia (Zurich Indonesia), the local unit of a Switzerland-based insurance company, has constantly evolved and expanded its presence in the Indonesian insurance industry since 1991.
As the organization scales up, Zurich Indonesia was looking for an effective platform that can support speed and collaboration in the workplace. They were also aware that managing communication is more challenging in a fast-growing company. For that reason, Zurich Indonesia wanted to build a system to create effective communication and information transparency, also to bridge the communication gap between the management and the staff.
Solution: Make an effective intranet that gives employees a voice
Communication is the lifeblood of every company and, without it, things will not get done. We firmly believe that bad communication practices cause a majority of work problems, such as low employee productivity, collaboration and engagement, which ultimately influences a business’s bigger picture (i.e. profit). Hence, Zurich Indonesia partnered with Suitmedia to overcome communication barriers in the company with a little help from technology.
We chose to build corporate intranet called ZINC (Zurich Innovation Center) as a platform to improve communication, increase collaboration, share knowledge, and to help overcome many challenges that Zurich Indonesia faces on a day-to-day basis.
During the development process, we ensured that the features on the intranet are employee-centric and supports the way employees want to work or communicate. After conducting user research, we focused on building features with functions as news feed, document management system, and communications medium all in a single platform.
One of the most important ways to keep everyone in the workplace on the same page is to ensure that they all are informed about the latest company updates. With news feed feature, staff members receive timely and consistent messages about all the latest news. News updates can also provide proof that the company really is doing what it believes in and living its own values.
Using an intranet communication platform is also beneficial for the CEO or management as they can be more open and transparent. Thus, we created ‘Ask Soekrisno’ and ‘Ask HR’ as features that facilitate the communication between management and staff. Through this feature, the employees can easily send questions to the CEO and HR division. Those features allow employees to communicate openly and honestly with management. Employees who feel they can communicate well are more likely to have positive feelings toward those managers so that improving the employee-manager relationship. By enabling managers and employees to talk candidly through the feature, both parties are more likely to value the relationship and perceive it as balanced.
The ZINC Intranet identity itself is rooted in minimalist design. The simple and uncluttered design makes it easier for employees to find news and information they need. Users can easily explore and narrow the content categories. The look and feel of this site were carefully thought to make it aligned with Zurich corporate identity. A great intranet design can embody brand sentiment and company ethos, help drive a sense of community and makes users will want to visit it every day and work with it.
Today, the ZINC intranet is regularly used by Zurich Indonesia employees and has succeeded in speeding up internal information search, increasing efficiency, time and cost-savings for companies, also improve relationships between employees and managers.
