Boys and Girls Clubs of Canada Clubhouse Intranet
"I Envision... an Intranet that will emphasize collaboration, enhance workflow and encourage information exchange among staff of the Boys and Girls Clubs of Canada."
The Client
Boys and Girls Clubs of Canada (BGCC) is a leading provider of quality programs to children and youth that support the healthy physical, educational and social development of more than 200,000 young people and their families in Canada each year. BGCC is an association of over 100 clubs located in 700 communities across Canada. Clubs are in neighbourhoods where they are most needed – in large city centres, remote rural communities and on First Nations Reserves. Trained, dedicated staff and volunteers provide children and youth with programs in physical recreation, technology, the arts, personal development and more.
The Challenge
As a key part of their infrastructure, BGCC recognized the need for a technology platform for internal communication among its 30 head office and regional office employees. The new Intranet site was envisioned as a non-hierarchical, socially interactive and efficient online tool that would allow staff to facilitate collaboration on inter-departmental projects, improve communication and seamlessly share documents. The site would be highly relevant as a source of personalized and business-related information on the strategic priorities of BGCC. In the end, the Intranet was designed to foster an accessible, functional yet informal tool, encouraging broad participation for all BGCC internal employees.
The Solution
Microsoft SharePoint was an excellent fit for a single platform collaboration portal with built-in security. The Intranet for BGCC was created under the branded name “Clubhouse.” The informal feel of the tool is backed by a deep layer of core services offered in SharePoint – document management, content management, search, portal, collaboration and business intelligence.
SharePoint 2010 was chosen because of the platform’s flexibility in providing a fully functional Intranet site. Envision IT used out of the box web parts and features such as the content query web part, SharePoint Enterprise Search Centre and document libraries. These allow employees access to BGCC strategic priorities, tools for interaction and feedback, and opportunities for collaborative work projects.
Surveys, blogs, social profiles, wikis and incorporation of social media were all important requirements of the platform – features that are fully supported in SharePoint 2010. With SharePoint functionality, BGCC employees now have the necessary tools to collaborate inside a secure environment and store information and documents as required.
Well-structured navigation and enhanced search and tools all contribute to a vastly improved user experience for the Clubhouse Intranet. A novel navigation scheme is based on BGCC’s strategic goals – growth, impact, operational excellence and public policy.
The Results
- Better collaboration among BGCC staff, particularly for inter-departmental projects
- Improved information management and access to shared documents
- Enhanced social interaction, such as the ability to create social profiles, wikis and blogs for employees
- Streamlined communication, including newsletters, announcements, feedback mechanisms, surveys and group calendars
- Superior navigation aligned according to BGCC strategic goals
- Proper architecture, taxonomy and governance to manage and organize content
- Provision of support, expertise, quality resources and online training, particularly for new staff
- Online platform for optimizing internal communication, information sharing and innovation across the BGCC organization.