400
Staff now connected
55
Articles & 38 contributors in one month
Bass Coast Shire is a municipality situated 130 kilometers southeast of Melbourne, Australia. Home to 36,000 people and spanning 860 km2, it is a unique combination of unspoiled coastline and picturesque rural hinterland. Bass Coast Shire Council is a local government agency employing over 400 staff responsible for building regulations, public health, waste disposal, and more.
Bass Coast Shire Council had an outdated, on-premises intranet that required a VPN connection. Intranet content was stale due to a lack of content creators with the necessary expertise, training, or permissions to add or update content. Overall, the platform was clunky, rigid, and difficult to use.
So Bass Council chose to work with Prometix, an Australian-based IT Consultancy with customers in the private and government sectors. Specialising in delivering cloud solutions, business applications, and integration projects – Prometix focuses on SharePoint, Power Platform, Dynamics 365, Office 365, and everything Microsoft. They are a Microsoft Gold-certified partner company.
Challenges
There was some resistance to change, which the team overcame by gathering employee input and making every decision with the end-users in mind.
The next hurdle was to gather content, such as user headshots and department content, to populate the new intranet.
Finally, the Business Transformation team had to change the perception that the intranet needed to be 100% ready on the launch date. They understood that the intranet would be a living space that would develop over time and not just a ‘launch & leave’ project.
”Listen to what people want, your project will be a success if you can deliver what was asked for”
Johanna Radford
Transformation Officer
Carrefour Voyages
Objectives
Connect people: Share news & spark conversations that lead to collaboration
Easy to use: Provide a simple platform that departments could self-manage
Decentralised: Lessen the reliance on the Comms team
Bass Coast chose Powell Intranet because of its clean and easy-to-use interface. A key requirement of the project was the ability to self-manage the intranet once it was up and running, and Powell Intranet would allow just that. The Council also appreciated that Powell Intranet is built on SharePoint Online, leveraging the full Microsoft Office 365 suite.
Implementation process
The implementation process took around four months.
1. Internal workshops
First, Bass Coast had internal workshops to define what employees wanted and set up an internal project control group for decision-making. Johanna Radford, Transformation Officer, and Nicola Glassey, Business Transformation Lead at Bass Coast Shire Council, spearheaded the project with Prometix.
2. Structure & content gathering
The first 6 weeks of the project were demanding and decisions had to be made around the design of the site structure of the intranet. This was done to ensure project success, laying out the correct foundation. From there, Bass Coast gathered content and started to build the first iteration with Prometix.
Results & impact
Bass Coast Shire Council now has a centralised intranet portal that everyone is proud of. Feedback from employees has been excellent, and adoption rates are greater than expected. Bass Coast describes the intranet adoption as “fast, natural, and straightforward.”
Powell Intranet and Prometix were able to answer Bass Coasts number one need – an easy-to-use intranet that allowed anyone to be a contributor. Five months after launch, departments were still eager to add content, with 55 new articles from 38 contributors in one month alone.
TORI plays a key role in employees’ day to day. It opens when staff logs onto their computers, and it is the primary source of information internally.
Employees have a better sense of connection and can easily find each other through the people directory.
”Focus on the things that will build culture, share news, and celebrate, see new joiners – anything that connects people.”
Nicola Glassey
Business Transformation Lead
Bass Coast Shire Council
The story behind the name
Bass Coast received over 200 submissions when trying to name their new intranet. After shortlisting and putting the final 10 to a vote, the Council decided on TORI. Why TORI? This short name has a lot of meaning behind it!.
- TORI stands for Trusted Organization Resource of Information
- TORI is also short for Victoria, where Bass Coast is located
- Bass Coast Council is an advocate of the #PutHerNameOnIt campaign, which aims to address the under-representation of women in place names
Remote & hybrid working
Like most organisations, Bass Coast moved to remote work during the initial lockdowns of the Covid pandemic. Now their policy is, “Work in the place that’s best for you.” Staff are empowered to make their own decisions about where they work best, so employees are spread between in-office and remote work. Therefore, it was important for Bass Coast to have a desk booking app, like FlexDesk, that allows employees to reserve a space in the office.
Next steps
Now that Bass Coast has TORI up and running, the next step is to add and utilise more of the employee engagement features Powell Intranet offers. For example, they will take the Kudos template and launch their own ‘Shout Out’ employee recognition space. The Business Transformation team is also excited to launch a new onboarding program with their intranet. They will use the intranet to create a more interactive employee onboarding experience.
Choosing the right partner
Bass Coast worked hand in hand with Prometix to make their Powell Intranet. What made the partnership a success? Flexibility, openness to ideas, and continuous support from Prometix, especially in the final stages of the project.
”Bass Coast were very open to ideas and allowed us to make nontraditional suggestions. There was also patience. flexibility & communications which helped make the project a success!”
Rahul Sapre
Engagement Manager
Prometix
Conclusion
Bass Coast Council successfully transformed its outdated intranet into the dynamic and user-friendly “TORI” with Powell Intranet and Prometix. This employee-first approach has resulted in high adoption, increased content contribution, and improved connectivity among staff. By creating a simple and self-managed platform, Bass Coast has boosted productivity and employee satisfaction, establishing a strong foundation for future digital workplace enhancements.
