Unifying City of Malmö organization with Omnia

The City of Malmö has created a new Omnia-based digital workplace. Efficiently connecting the municipality’s employees, the new platform has generated marked improvements in interactivity, mobility, accessibility and internal communications.

– Our new digital workplace enables us to further strengthen internal communications as well as the engagement and participation of our employees. The solution provides a much improved information structure and user navigation process, boosting internal collaboration and facilitating information searches. Accessibility is also improved thanks to an enhanced mobile experience. It makes it so much easier for us to reach and engage employees who don’t work in front of a computer all day, says Elisabet Lundholm, Intranet and Project Manager at the City of Malmö.

A platform for closer collaboration

The City of Malmö is a large organization with 26,000 employees working in 14 departments dealing with everything from education to healthcare. As in every Swedish municipality, the nature of the work involved differs greatly from department to department. The City’s previous intranet solution consisted of a heterogeneous mix of various systems, many of them custom-made. With the platform lacking functionality for efficient collaboration, its content was furthermore overloaded and difficult to navigate, making it hard for employees to find relevant information, tools and other resources.

With the aim of creating a modern and more efficient digital workplace, the municipality implemented Office 365 in 2017-2018. In early 2020 a new Omnia-based intranet was also introduced.

– In order to simplify, update and streamline our platform, we needed to get away from specially designed solutions and implement standard systems. We also wanted it to be easy for us to manage and distribute information based on users’ work roles. At the same time, we needed a solution that would help us bring the separate parts of our organization closer together, Elisabet explains and adds:

– Omnia’s architecture, functionality and ability to target, adapt and manage large amounts of information, together with its smooth integration with SharePoint and Office 365, made it a very attractive candidate. What finally made up our minds about Omnia was our conviction that Precio Fishbone would be the ideal partner for us in terms of supporting us in our work of restructuring and improving our information management processes.

80% less content with the new intranet

According to Elisabet, a vital element in the creation of the new platform and the intranet has been the refining and restructuring of all items of information, resulting in a greatly reduced information volume. This has been made possible by a new way of structuring and presenting content.

– We have slimmed down content by 80%. Its structure has been completely revamped. Previously it was primarily based on our organizational structure. Today, however, content is categorized in terms of subject area. Every department can adapt and refine content so that it’s relevant to their sphere of activity and its employees’ different work roles. This method has enabled us to streamline our information management and user navigation processes, effectively helping our employees quickly find information, collaboration areas and other resources. It has also made it easier for them to recognize which information is important to her or him since all information is now targeted, Elisabet points out.

Rigorous beta testing results in an award-winning digital workplace

One of the major challenges facing the City has involved the planning of resources and time for the implementation of the project. In fact, the launch date had to be postponed due to a longer beta testing process than originally planned. However, according to Elisabet, there was no downside in having a prolonged beta testing period:

– We invited 200 curious employees, managers and support personnel to participate in the beta testing. This turned out to be a most rewarding exercise, from which we learned a great deal. With our beta testers’ valuable input, we were then able to fine-tune the solution before the launch, which was consequently well received by our organization. The launch coincided with the Corona outbreak and the resultant increase in distance working. This gave many employees both a reason and the inspiration to learn new ways of working.

Apart from the positive reception given by the organization, the solution has also been nominated to DWG:s Digital Workplace of the Year, winning a prize in the User Engagement category, a prestigious award in recognition of a well-executed project and rigorous beta testing. Read more about this award.

Enhanced engagement and knowledge-sharing

The creation and use of the Office 365 integrated collaboration areas are rapidly growing on the intranet. A custom-made function for employee profiles has also improved access to internal competence.

– The employee profile function has made it easier to network and locate competence within the City, thereby supporting our objective of making more employees aware of the benefits of being active in the digital workplace, Elisabet concludes.

The challenge

The City of Malmö’s previous intranet lacked flexibility, functionality and accessibility. The municipality needed both to improve their internal communications and to modernize their digital workplace, enhancing its support for collaboration and making it more efficient.

The solution

In 2017-2018 the municipality implemented Office 365 and in early 2020 a new Omnia-based intranet was also introduced.

The outcome

The new platform effectively helps the City of Malmö to integrate internal communications with digital tools as well as to increase employees’ participation, collaboration and engagement. The solution is role-oriented with an information and navigation structure based on the subject area of the content, facilitating faster and better searches for relevant information, competence, collaborations and other resources.