Severfield’s intranet ‘Connect’ launched back in 2020 and since then the partnership between Oak Engage and Severfield has completely transformed how they communicate and engage with their dispersed workforce of 1,850 people.
Industry: Manufacturing & Construction | No. of users: 1,850 | Area: UK & Europe
Leading structural steel company, Severfield, spent over a year developing a SharePoint intranet which brought more challenges than triumphs. Previously, they relied heavily on notice boards and emails, and they needed a better solution; something intuitive, user friendly and one that kept their IT team satisfied by integrating seamlessly with Microsoft 365. With around half of Severfield’s workforce being remote, based in either factories or on construction sites,, Severfield needed an intranet that would enable them to connect instantly with everyone across the group, no matter their location, or whether or not they had a company device. In particular, during the pandemic, Severfield needed to develop a better way to communicate and engage with their workforce, whether it be in manufacturing, construction, or with those working from home.
“We didn’t get along with SharePoint. We came across many challenges and it was really limited. We needed an intranet and a colleague app to cater to our dispersed workforce. We shortlisted Oak and one other provider, but once we had spoken to the team at Oak, we knew straight away they were the right partner to help us achieve our goals. We signed on the dotted line a week later.”
Charlie Joy, Creative Communications Manager at Severfield plc
The relationship between Severfield and Oak Engage is a true partnership. They have given Severfield a more engaging way to share news with their people, as well as a central hub to provide colleagues with easy and instant access to important information, such as payslips and company policies.
Severfield took an iterative approach to launch which allowed the team to debut new branding and a whole host of new pages and areas for different departments to explore. It also gave the team at Severfield an opportunity to listen to colleague feedback and develop something their people actually wanted and would use.
Charlie commented: “We launched phase one as the ‘Coronavirus Hub’ but it has developed so much since then. We love the flexibility and the intuitiveness of the drag-and-drop functionality, the customisation and how easy it was to integrate with all of our other tools. Oak Engage is a really seamless system!”
Gone are the days of posters on notice boards and email overload. Internal comms got a mighty upgrade with the opportunity to make it fun, engaging and interactive for colleagues at all ends of the business.
Charlie added: “We have had really good feedback, especially from our executive team, who all see the value in what Connect offers, compared to where we were five years ago.”
Severfield uses the latest news to ensure urgent updates reach their widespread colleague base quickly, making sure they keep their teams well informed and connected.
In 2024 Severfield launched ‘The Severfield Way’, its biggest internal campaign in recent years, bringing to life the company’s purpose, values and behaviours.
Severfield’s campaign was launched to align external and internal communications with a unified brand and allows colleagues to recognise each other for demonstrating one or more of the company values. Oak’s personalisation and customisation features enabled Severfield to create a campaign that authentically represented their brand identity and values.
They created custom keyrings for colleagues across the Group. The keyrings had charms attached to signify each of the four new values that together make ‘The Severfield Way’. Each keyring had a QR code on it to direct staff straight to the employee recognition area on the intranet, demonstrating how through the use of QR codes, Severfield’s non-computer-based colleagues could easily access the intranet, and nominate colleagues, in an easy, interactive way.
As each note of recognition is sent, it populates an intranet page where everyone can see what their colleagues have been acknowledged for, and the corresponding company value, each of which has its own allocated colour. The more that each value is recognised, the more colourful the page becomes without the team having to do anything extra, which is brilliant! The Severfield Way initiative launched in May 2024 and within four months had received over 70 nominations.
Andreas Pavlou, Internal Communications Manager at Severfield said: “Oak has given us a place where we can celebrate our brand as a business, ensuring it’s consistent. This allows us to recognise our colleagues for demonstrating our values. This just wasn’t possible before. It has given us so many benefits that change the way we communicate with our colleagues. When people are tagged in articles or receive recognition for their achievements, they are notified, which then builds a bridge between whoever recognised them, further strengthening connections right across the business.”
The communications team at Severfield has won over their colleagues by showcasing the capabilities of Oak through personalised homepages. They have since been able to create a template for new department areas so that department heads can visualise how their areas will look, and the content that will go within it. This streamlines not only the user experience once the area is built, but the time in which it takes for the internal comms team to create the homepages for their colleagues.
People are really impressed with the Oak Engage platform. Now that other people have seen what we can develop for other departments, they want a piece of the action. We have recently since created a legal page, a procurement page, and a quality page. We are now going to be giving the reins to department heads to look after their own page content and documents. They will get reminders of when documents need to be reviewed, which went down a treat with our legal team who need to ensure all documents on Connect are up to date, ensuring we stay compliant.
Oak’s documentation management system enables all employees to access important company information and policies in a safe and controlled environment.
With user-friendly navigation using a mega menu structure and advanced search function, it has become so much easier for people to filter their information search down to a department or business area, enabling them to reach what they need in fewer clicks.
Charlie added: “With Oak, it's visual and it's just easy to search, because there's so much information on there to cater for the whole business. It's made us think, what do people want to go and search for? Policies is one of them, so they can type and find them straight away without having to trawl the intranet first.”
Andreas added: “Oak, or Connect as it’s known to our colleagues - has become part of their day-to-day life. Connect acts as a central point where they can find everything they need, or at the very least, find out who they need to speak to in order to get it. This is possible through the org chart function, which allows colleagues to go on a click-by-click journey through the business, seeing who works in which teams and who they report to.”
It’s no mean feat trying to pull stats from internal emails. With Oak, Severfield realised how easy it was to see analytics across all types of content on their intranet. They can now monitor which locations or job types are seeing notifications that are relevant to them and tailor their strategy accordingly.
Charlie commented: “We would often run one-off campaigns but we had no way of measuring the impact of our communications. Now, with Oak’s great reporting tools, it's very easy and allows us to refine our strategy for future campaigns to ensure greater success.”
Severfield has seen great success using hubs which provide spaces for colleagues to collaborate and connect with each other.
Charlie said: “Oak has given us a more fun and engaging way to communicate with our people. We used to rely heavily on email, but we now use hubs as a social tool to celebrate holidays, run competitions, and provide a place for colleagues to share and post their own content to create an inclusive environment. We’ve had a hub for everything from Pets of Severfield, to the 12 Days of Christmas, and people love to get involved!”
Charlie added: “The whole package that we get from Oak, including the support, is great. They’re responsive and will help us out straight away, which certainly makes them stand out. It’s a two-way street; you want to feel comfortable reaching out to someone you can trust to answer what might feel like the most simple of questions without being judged. I feel like the team at Oak is an extension of our team. They are so approachable and knowledgeable about the product and its capabilities. We know that even more great stuff is coming, and we look forward to the future of it.”
When you think of intranets, you’ve got the likes of SharePoint which does a job, but you’re very much in the Office 365 suite and you don’t really feel like you’re on your own site. With Oak, however, it's such a nice blend of getting the functionality of all their tools, whilst also feeling like we have our own internal website with the ability to brand it however we like. Oak has also given us our very own brand as an internal communications team!
If you like what you see, we offer a free and personalised demo service, showcasing our intuitive and easy-to-use platform. Tailored to meet your specific needs.