For most employees, not just new hires, it’s crucial that they get the information they need quickly and easily. Orientation in the company environment, internal documents and processes is essential, especially at the beginning of the employment relationship. Previously, it was difficult to find relevant and up-to-date information in the OKIN Facility – the existing internal storage did not meet our needs. We decided to change this and create a modern, user-friendly environment that serves everyone.  Since we have colleagues spread across the country, it made sense to create an online platform that is accessible from anywhere. The goal was to create a place where employees could quickly find everything they were looking for. Incidentally, this remains the motto of the entire portal to this day.

How did we start? We asked the employees directly

We joined forces in HR with Marketing and first launched a survey in which employees answered three simple questions:

• 1. Where are you currently looking for answers to your questions about the OKIN Facility?
• 2. What information do you most often search for?
• 3. What information are you missing and would you like to have?

This helped us to map the current situation. The open-ended responses provided a wide range of suggestions, and after analysing them, we designed a first version of the homepage that included seven key components.

• Search field
• General information
• News
• Quick access to frequently used internal applications  
• Information by department
• Icons linking to the company website, blog and social networks
• Contact information

Then we consulted the basic draft of the homepage with selected colleagues from the operation who actively need to work with it. After reviewing the the portal comments, we had a finished draft that needed to be filled with content.

How did we proceed

We divided the process of creating the portal into three phases.
First, we transferred content from the outdated FM Wiki platform, updated all documents and created a document warehouse. The goal was to have the relevant document stored in one place only and avoid possilbe duplications and thus different versions of one document. For this reason we selected and ambassador from each department who was responsible for updating the content of an assigned subpage.

The second step involved training the ambassadors on how to use and update the o365 Sharepoint platform. We kept a consistent look of all subpages in order not to confuse useres with an unnecessarily varied design.  

At step number three we were almost at the finish line before the official launch of the FM Portal. Colleagues from marketing prepared a clear two-page user manual. The next information channel were team meetings and email.  The final step was to confirm the launch date, which was February 1, 2023. Our IT colleagues set the FM Portal as homepage and since February 1st, FM Portal became part of our daily work.

Portal as a living platform

This is not the end of the work on the portal.  
It is absolutely essential to keep the information up to date, otherwise it quickly becomes outdated and useless. We cooperate with the individual departments and new info and changes are being communicated via monthly infomail called FM News. In addition, we are adding new sections, such as a section dedicated to ESG, operations or sales.

The result is an attractive environment that enables to measuer portal usage, traceability of individual sections and fulfilling the goal that everyone finds what they are really looking for. And for us, there is also a great benefit in the fact that we can manage the o365 sharepoint ourselves, without the need for a Sharepoint external supplier, of course with the support of our IT.

What’s next?  

Until recently, the FM Portal was primarily in Czech language. At the moment we are creating local pages for the countries where we have our branches. This has the added value that headquarter can immediately see current organigram, contacts and directives of a given branch, and for the employees of a given country that they can find information in their local language.

FM Portal in numbers
· Launching February 1st 2023
· 238 unique visitors per month
· 6 556 visits per month on average
· 97.9% of employees access FM Portal from a PC  
· 1.7% of employees access the FM Portal from a mobile device