Contact us
    Digital workspace | Microsoft 365 - 29.01.2025

    A coordinated playbook takes AINS Group’s internal communication to a new level

    Advania Finland
    Written by Advania Finland

    After years of steady growth, the Finnish consultancy company AINS Group was looking to restructure its internal communication, and chose Advania as its partner. The goal was to improve the coordination and user experience of internal communication through the efficient use and administration of Microsoft 365 tools.

    AINS Group is an engineering, architecture and consulting company specialising in the built environment with offices around Finland as well as in Estonia. The company employs 1,300 professionals who work on thousands of property development, industrial and building services engineering projects in Finland and around the world every year.

    The necessity of a better approach to internal communication arose as the organisation kept expanding. The coronavirus pandemic also played a role, as the switch to remote and hybrid working increased the need for efficient digital communication tools.

    ‘Our communications team’s focus was on external communications, and our IT department prioritised the usability of our project management systems and engineering software. Our intranet had become outdated both technologically and content-wise, and we had no protocol for using the digital tools available in our office environment, such as Teams,’ explains AINS Group’s Communications Director Silja Sarkamo.

    Tools promoting efficiency and teamwork

    The company wanted to make key information easily available to everyone in real time and to ensure that everyone in the organisation was familiar with the company’s digital communication tools. AINS Group fosters a corporate culture of equal opportunities, and accordingly also wanted to flatten hierarchies and break down silos in the exchange of information and ideas. The company identified three objectives for internal communication: openness, timeliness and impact.

    The project with Advania involved defining specific roles for Microsoft tools, modernising the company’s intranet and compiling a playbook for the range of software used by AINS Group’s professionals.

    The first step was to run a personnel survey to gauge people’s views on what information they need in their work, how readily they felt this information was available and how proficient they were in using different tools.

    Of the applications included in the Microsoft 365 suite, AINS Group’s employees habitually used Outlook for email and Teams for chats and meetings. The project team also explored other M365 tools to determine whether they had potential in project management and consultancy work. The daily range of software used by AINS Group’s staff was revised so that each tool now plays a specific role in the company’s routines and teamwork.

    Specific roles were defined for the following M365 tools:

    •    Teams
    •    Outlook
    •    Viva Engage
    •    OneNote
    •    Forms
    •    Planner and ToDo.

    Intranet pools together internal communication platforms and tools

    AINS Group identified its SharePoint-based intranet as the hub of the company’s permanent data. The homepage acts as a digital desktop and a gateway to other key systems that employees use in their work – while also keeping them up to date on important developments and hot topics of conversation.

    Exchange of information between professionals and colleagues, staff initiatives and informal groups are enabled via Viva Engage, which has been integrated into the intranet homepage and Teams. Group projects and teamwork take place in Teams.

    Coordinated maintenance, development and management with an M365 playbook

    The company’s priority in compiling a playbook for internal communication was to define responsibilities and roles for each internal communication channel. AINS Group’s M365 playbook covers the company’s SharePoint-based intranet, Viva Engage and Teams.

    Ownership of these applications is divided between the communications team, HR and the IT department, and coordinating each application on a daily basis is the responsibility of administrators – or ‘masters’, as they are called at AINS Group.
    ‘In our search for better ways to bring people from different engineering disciplines and areas of expertise together, we have also broken down silos between support services, which has been extremely rewarding. Internal communication belongs to everyone,’ Silja Sarkamo says.

    Building a more open communication culture across the entire organisation

    Compiling the playbook was a complex process, which succeeded thanks to flexibility, a dedicated team and trust.

    ‘Advania gave us exactly what we needed: insight on best practices, disciplined project management for defining the roles of our internal communication channels and tools as well as the competence to build new platforms. We worked well with each other and managed to put together an extremely user-friendly intranet that is now used by more than 1,000 professionals every day – as well as a homepage where each member of our organisation has a voice.’

    Wish to improve internal processes, communication and teamwork?

     
    Share:

    Related articles