Summary
Improved employee engagement: employees are excited about their new intranet and volunteer to administer their team pages.Increased productivity: Florence Bank could easily double the number of forms they create and maintain every week with the online forms feature.
Trusted support: during implementation and beyond, the team at Florence Bank knows they can always rely on IC’s responsive support team for help and best practices.
- David Limero, Vice President and Information Technology Manager, Florence Bank
About Florence Bank
Florence Bank, headquartered in Florence, Massachusetts, is a mutually owned savings bank chartered in 1873. Currently, the bank serves the Pioneer Valley through 12 full-service branch locations in Florence, Northampton, Easthampton, Williamsburg, Amherst, Hadley, Belchertown, Granby, Chicopee, West Springfield, and Springfield. Additionally, Florence Bank offers 25 ATMs and a wide range of financial services, including investment management through FSB Financial Group (FSBFG) to consumers and businesses.
The 215-person team at Florence Bank is proud to have been consistently voted best local bank by the readers of the Valley Advocate and the Daily Hampshire Gazette.
The problem: an aging & cumbersome company intranet
Florence Bank knew that the organization had a problem with their intranet. Their custom-built company intranet was aging and becoming problematic to maintain. It also had a steep learning curve and required the support of the IT department for content updates and design changes.
Because of these challenges, the intranet was becoming stale over time and was lacking the employee engagement and social features of newer platforms. Users also struggled with:
- Organization of important documents and content
- No search or indexing capabilities
- Sharing essential updates and events with the team
Florence Bank knew it was time to make a change and explore more engaging and intuitive options.
The solution: IC’s feature-rich company intranet
In 2017, Florence Bank began evaluating company intranet providers. Having heard of IC through several references, they were impressed with the intranet solution’s feature-rich platform and intuitive interface. Ultimately, they decided to become partners with IC and began implementing their intranet solution at Florence Bank in 2020.
- David Limero, Vice President and Information Technology Manager, Florence Bank
The result: a powerful & intuitive company intranet
After implementing their new company intranet, Florence Bank is thrilled to be using a robust and easy-to-use modern intranet platform. Here are some of the key features that the team is using to improve employee engagement and productivity with their new intranet:
“Like a pizza” customization options
With IC’s intranet platform, the team at Florence Bank was thrilled to discover that they could take advantage of the platform’s out-of-the-box features (such as their powerful, “Google-like” search functionality) and then pick and choose which add-on features and widgets to use. This meant that Florence Bank could build a solution that was tailored to their wants and needs rather than overflowing with unneeded applications.
For example, the HR department at Florence uses several of the ready-to-use widget options to draw attention to announcements like employee anniversaries and new hires. It has been a fun and valuable way for their team to get to know each other, especially during the COVID-19 pandemic when employees cannot physically be together. In addition, each of their team sites features a “meet the team” widget allowing people to easily find each other and connect in ways that were not previously possible.
- David Limero, Vice President and Information Technology Manager, Florence Bank
Online forms
Several departments at Florence Bank created operational efficiencies using their new company intranet’s online forms feature. These forms require zero coding knowledge, and the form workflows have allowed Florence Bank to eliminate several antiquated forms previously built in Word and Adobe. Although the team is relatively new to online forms and workflows, they’ve already replaced several cumbersome processes, such as email approvals.
What’s more, all these forms and workflows can be built and updated by non-IT staff. This empowers all intranet users to build and maintain the forms they need themselves. For example, with their legacy intranet forms, the IT department at Florence Bank was dealing with three to four calls per week related to forms. However, David Limero could now easily see his organization creating and updating double that number without the need for IT support.
The team at Florence Bank plans to create many more online forms and to use the survey, quick poll, and other social features to keep employees coming back to the intranet in the future.
Identifying opportunities for improvement with analytics
Now that Florence Bank has launched its new company intranet, the next phase of the rollout involves identifying opportunities using IC’s advanced analytics feature. This analytics feature is a powerful way to identify gaps and highlight what’s working and what isn’t.
- David Limero, Vice President and Information Technology Manager, Florence Bank
Support from IC Thrive throughout the journey
Migrating to a new intranet platform is a journey, no matter where you start. The team at Florence Bank was thankful to have the IC support team on board to help them throughout their journey. Here’s what they had to say:
- David Limero, Vice President and Information Technology Manager, Florence Bank
Discover the benefits of IC’s company intranet for yourself
See how our company intranet solution could benefit your organization! Simplify your processes, drive employee engagement, and save time by switching to IC’s intranet solution. The first step starts by booking a no-obligation call with our team to see our software in action. See how much easier your processes could be by booking a call now!
- David Limero, Vice President and Information Technology Manager, Florence Bank
