Sodexo Intranet Redesign Global Pilot Project

My Proudest Accomplishment/Campaign/Project: Gold Award Winner: Spirit of Team 2010

Project Lead & Editor-in-Chief for Canada: Bobbie Smith

Accomplishment:

I won Gold in the category of Spirit of Progress Award at Sodexo for leading the

organization through a company-wide Intranet redesign project.

One of my key strategies was to establish a robust multidisciplinary team of core content

managers specialized in their own areas and conversant with the appropriate

communications standards and technologies for keeping their components of SodexoNet

up to date and relevant.

I created the SodexoNet Communications Network: a group of individuals who acted as a

sounding board for electronic internal communications while acting as informal

champions for their areas for the project rollout. They were a core group of individuals

whom I had selected to audit and post material, as well as monitor their area’s presence

on SodexoNet.

Any website redesign project is messy, so the work was challenging, but I used my

engagement and management skills to make it happen and ensure they all enjoyed it as

much as possible, since it was an add-on to their positions. In addition, I worked with

their managers so the members could be 'freed-up' to take on the work, indicating

regularly how important it was for the organization.

Action:

I led the way to be the first out of the 80 countries in the Sodexo world (5 of

who were pilot countries) to post our Intranet site with very little budget provided. With

me, the team accepted the risk of going live first as a team, no matter how much content

the members managed -- all members worked together to be inclusive and available.

Internal Communications did not have a budget, so by managing this project and doing the job by cross-sharing the work, we saved the organization about $50,000+ and put Canada on the Global Sodexo Map.

We continuously coached and helped each other through learning, developing and

overcoming the multiple challenges of launching without the well-established path of

success in front of us including acting as an example for multiple language sites.

We set the example for publishers around the world by being the first to tackle the huge

challenge of converting old archaic SodexoNet pages into user-friendly content and pages

for users, from content audit, to site map development to posting and updating material

online in English and French.

We learned & embraced a highly complex and intricate Content Management System (Tridion) in the Spring of 2009 -- the first group trained -- when no one else fully understood the implications, business applications and communications issues associated with the rollout with a positive and determined team spirit.

We saved multiple hours and dollars for publishers around the world by painstakingly

taking the time to discover, track and share issues, bugs and interdependencies within

Tridion, helping shape future training and application, despite the sometimes emotional

and technical obstacle of using a complex content management system designed for

programmers.

We contributed significantly to accelerating the progress of other pilot countries and to

actively communicate and establish best practices for Canada and publishers in general,

going forward. We actively supported each other and continued to maintain our full-time

workloads above and beyond the more than 2,200 hours it took to build, convert and

launch the site in two languages. We recommended relevant improvements and changes

to Internal Communications to influence national messages and improved use of internal

communications vehicles.

Outcome:

Because I was able to mobilize people who are non-managers and non-communications

professionals into a leadership role for their respective areas, I was able to save the

organization time and money and set an example for other countries about to embark on

their turn to launch their respective sites, and finally,

Both Tim Mott in IT and Gabriele Maltini in Group e-comms said

we could not have achieved success for the NorAm launch if it were not for Canada.

I was able to both contribute and see incredible results based on my own performance through this group of employees. Both Tim Mott in IT and Gabriele Maltini in Group e-comms said we could not have achieved success for the NorAm launch if it were not for Canada. IT was able to

rigorously test tools such as the search engine on live data to ensure premium usability in

advance of the Go Live date.

Upon launch in Feb/10, traffic to SodexoNet in Canada shot up to 5,212 hits and 1,582

unique visits, whereby on the old SodexoNet, the monthly hits wavered between 1,100 and

2,100 during peak season. Unique visits to the old SodexoNet are unknown at this time.

Internal Communications did not have a budget, so by managing this project and doing

the job by cross-sharing the work, we saved the organization about $50,000+ and put

Canada on the Global Sodexo Map.