Sureway Employment and Training has been helping people in regional, rural and remote areas of Australia to improve their employment prospects since 1991. As an employment services provider delivering services on behalf of the Federal Government, accountability and transparency are key drivers behind fulfilling Sureway’s purpose of changing lives and building stronger communities.
Intranet, Digital Workplace, Design, Document Migration, Business Apps & Forms
SharePoint, Sproket, Microsoft 365, Power Apps, Power Automate
After years of service, Sureway could not avoid the inevitable: they needed to retire their old SharePoint intranet. Not only was the business seeking to build upon their security systems but the site was difficult to navigate and, for a geographically dispersed organisation like Sureway that relies upon its intranet for information exchange, this problem had to be rectified fast. Additionally, legacy workflows created around registers were complex and nearing the end of their life.
“The search function that we had previously just didn’t work," says Nathan Michael, Continual Improvement Specialist at Sureway. "Unless you knew where to go on the intranet, you would not be able to find it. Not being able to find things across the business –whether that be a process or someone’s phone number or whatever – was having a significant impact on the use of people’s time.” “We had three principles that we identified we needed right from the start," Nathan continues. "Our intranet had to make information easy to find; it had to present one source of the truth, and it had to help us to communicate better as a business."
As part of their procurement process, Sureway pursued a number of vendors before settling on Sope. As Nathan acknowledges, price was one deciding factor but it was the combination of Sope ticking a lot of boxes for solutions, as well as making a number of their past customers available to help them with their due diligence. “We were provided with three or four different references and we were able to talk openly with them about the experiences they had – what they liked about Sope and the full experience of working with Sope, from start to finish. We got a really good vibe from the customers themselves in terms of Sope’s ability to deliver a solution.”
Sope demonstrated considerable patience in designing Sureway's new intranet; something that Nathan saw as vital in ensuring they got the right solution for their business.
“Intranets are all about the content. If you get fantastic content, you can have a good intranet,” admits Nathan. “What impressed me was the team at Sope was able to bear with us while we worked out what we needed to bring across from the existing system, and which stuff we needed to get rid of. Their patience with us while we went through that exercise was really noteworthy.”
Of great significant was Sope's success in turning Sureway's seemingly endless document trail into something manageable and navigational.
As Nathan explains, "What Sope created for us is a document hub, and we liked the way in which you could present documents in a webpage without having to open them. It’s a great way for people to access information quickly and see whether it’s the right document. Previously, we had to download it, then open the document in a desktop app before you were aware if it was the document you needed.”
Another noticeable achievement was the training of staff to upgrade their workflows to the new platform. Sope made it easy for Sureway to manage and create new workflows without relying on a technical consultant.
Across Sureway's 70-plus offices situated in NSW, Victoria and South Australia, the new intranet has certainly made its mark, bringing the Sureway organisation together in a functional and synergetic way.
Staff engagement has been high – people actually use it – which is a very pleasing outcome, especially in the intranet's role as a single source of truth.
“We got people giving us feedback who don’t normally bother to give you feedback, and it’s been received very well,” says Nathan. “We’ve got a platform that we can build on as well. We’ve got a roadmap with Sope moving forward, which means the intranet has the ability to grow with us.”
“At the end of the day, Sope delivered a great solution. They built us a brilliant intranet."
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