Introduction
The average worker receives 117 emails and 153 Teams messages each day. Statistics like that open up a whole range of issues (including productivity!), but for this case study, we are going to focus on one – internal communication.
How you send internal communications matters, as you don’t want company messages relaying important information to be buried under the almost 300 emails/messages that the average employee receives each day. This is especially true in critical situations where information needs to be distributed quickly, and you need to be sure messages are read and acted upon.
Add compliance considerations into the mix, and the challenge of effective internal communication becomes even more complex.
This case study shows how a large government agency in the UK transformed internal communications to overcome these challenges.
The Project
The project that is the subject of this case study involved a government agency with 40,000 employees. As with any organisation of this size, effective internal communication is crucial.
As it is a government agency, critical situations such as operational incidents and service disruptions can arise. In these situations, the importance of communicating quickly and effectively with employees becomes even more crucial.
The problem was that internal communications, including critical situation messages, were missed or delayed. The agency needed a solution that delivered on several essential objectives:
- Transform internal communication to ensure messages are seen with minimal delay.
- Ensure the method of internal communication is secure to minimise cybersecurity and data risks.
- Ensure there is full visibility and audit controls for GDPR compliance.
- Facilitate the targeting of users by groups, such as regional office teams, remote workers, public safety teams, etc, to ensure internal communications are seen by the right people without unnecessarily adding to the daily message influx the employees receive.
- Ensure the solution can be effectively scaled across the entire 40k+ team.
What We Did
We implemented Access Symphony, the industry-leading collaboration and DEX (digital employee experience) platform from Access IT Automation. Symphony has a range of modules, but the focus of this case study is the Symphony Signal module.
Symphony Signal enabled the government agency to switch to real-time desktop notifications for internal communication, facilitating a move away from busy emails and Teams notifications. Symphony uses Microsoft authentication and security technologies, and it is built to scale across large, diversified, and complex enterprise IT environments.
We deployed Symphony Signal across all user endpoints in the government agency. We also integrated Signal with Active Directory to enable dynamic targeting of each message or communication. For example, management in the agency could target employees by department, role, or location.
To streamline communication, we created templates for common message types such as security alerts, planned maintenance, and real-time outage updates.
And we configured audit logging and compliance settings to align with the agency’s GDPR requirements.
Another key feature of Symphony Signal is that it is two-way, so users can respond to and interact with the desktop notifications they receive. This enabled the agency to, for example, receive incident acknowledgements and send employee surveys.
The Results
- 90% of internal broadcast emails were replaced with more effective and targeted desktop notifications.
- 94% internal response rate to emergency alerts, up from 30%.
- Fully auditable message history now available for compliance reviews.
The government agency’s Head of Infrastructure Ops said:
“Symphony has completely changed how we communicate during a crisis. Messages are seen, acknowledged, and acted on, all in real time.”
David Halfteck, CTO at Access IT Automation, said:
“Symphony proves that critical communication doesn’t have to rely on outdated tools. We were pleased to help the agency deliver a modern and compliant messaging system tailored to their workforce.”
