Case Study: IT Transformation

Sponsored by CUES Supplier member Passageways. 

Long ago, traditional workspaces only had desks—desks stacked with (and filing cabinets full of) paper and folders. Office interactions were either in person or on the phone. The 21st century is seeing the evolution of a true digital workplace, and many organizations are struggling to keep up. However, $393 million Christian Financial Credit Union, Roseville, Mich., has made significant strides in transforming its organization and empowering employees with efficient and effective tools that leverage IT spend.

Employee engagement and collaboration have never been as important as they are today. There is a deep correlation between member experience and employee experience. These experiences are often not much more than moments, a majority of which occur in the digital world. With the increase of these digital “moments,” intranets have become the pillar of our digital workplaces, enabling organizations to be more agile, efficient, engaging and collaborative. While many organizations have not fully leveraged the evolution of digital technologies that are continuing to transform work and life at an ever-increasing pace, CFCU took the initiative to fill this gap.

“We really didn't care for our intranet before. We knew there was potential there, but it was a challenge to get people on the same page. We thought: ‘Why not make it more efficient, make it more productive and make it so people don't have to search for info?’ Let them have exactly what they need to work.” – Erlinda Seib, director/IT, and Rebekah Monroe, director/marketing and product management

The CFCU transformational journey began during a power-packed day at PowWOW, Passageways’ Annual Conference. During a peer-to-peer learning and best practices workshop, CFCU’s Director of IT and CUES member Erlinda Seib was exposed to the full breadth of a modern intranet platform: driving culture, engagement and growth. Inspired and galvanized, the CFCU team charted its course and started planning its voyage by identifying and defining the strategic importance of an intranet portal with the Passageways team.

This time around, the CFCU team had its mind set on success. Backed by data from an existing portal and driven by creativity, the CFCU implementation team set specific goals for the new OnSemble portal:

• drive employee engagement across all locations and branches;
• increase productivity through improved accessibility and search; and
• reduce paperwork.

With the strategic benefits of this internal IT project evident, it received immediate leadership buy-in. The CU dubbed its new portal the ‘Lighthouse’ and with all the drivers of success in place, the cross-functional implementation team took a mere three months to implement the new employee portal. The CU had quickly launched its digital transformation.

We asked Seib and CUES member Rebekah Monroe, director/marketing and product management, about the journey:

“We love how user-friendly and easy it is to customize and create pages without any IT support. The platform is intuitive, and we have been able to build our portal without paying additional dollars to developers and consultants. Now, with the launch, we are exhilarated to have exceeded our expectations with the portal. We have incorporated all that we need and have received an overwhelming response from our employees. The buzz of the new portal has even reached the board members, who have requested a special session to walk them through ...”

The new portal is packed with features and applications to help the CU meet the needs of strengthening culture, boosting growth and increasing efficiencies across the organization. CFCU’s creative use of themes, animations and videos make the portal experience even more memorable and drives employee engagement. The main banners provide customized quick links to meet every employee’s individual needs and job functions. The centralized resource library, quick links to third-party software programs, and reports done in the visualization data analytics solution, Tableau, have all brought essential information front and center for CFCU’s employee access. The implementation team did a brilliant job of ensuring easy access to relevant information. 

“The best part is that there are multiple ways to access what you need. I love that, I think that's one of the best things about it, and it's not even that you're having to reproduce any content and introduce redundancy, it's just that you're able to direct them to the page that's already made in a bunch of different ways, which is awesome.” – Erlinda Seib, director/IT and Rebekah Monroe, director/marketing and product management

What makes this employee engagement and digital transformation striking is the CFCU team’s dedication to its new portal’s success. The CU didn’t stop when the project completion milestone was hit. As the team worked toward launch day, they ensured the unveiling of the new portal was met with enthusiasm and excitement throughout all the branches. In the weeks leading up to the launch of the ‘Lighthouse,’ the implementation team organized training sessions for employees, walking them through the many new capabilities of OnSemble.

“We wanted all branch information readily available. So that people, if they're on the phone or if they're helping a member and need information or need to find somebody for something really fast, they can. Branch hours, Notary, HM, coin machine or anything—all information is readily available for everyone.” 

With the launch imminent, the CFCU team procured lighthouse-shaped stress balls with the CFCU logo, a giveaway to drive enthusiasm for the remodeled intranet. This was followed by a scavenger hunt on the portal to get employees excited, enthused and navigating around. The team went a step further, developing in-house training videos to help employees gain expertise in using the new portal. All these initiatives were crucial in driving widespread adoption.

CFCU achieved true engagement across all levels of the organization—from the board and leadership to the front-line employees. The best measure of the success of the OnSemble ‘Lighthouse’ portal is the employee’s appreciation and applause, which echoed across all branches during the unveiling. Here is what the employees had to say:

Paroon Chadha co-founded CUES Supplier member Passageways, Lafayette, Indiana, in 2003 and continues to lead its business strategy, as CEO. He serves on boards at Passageways, Big Brother Big Sister of Greater Lafayette, Indiana University Simon Cancer Center, and TechPoint. He was a founding member of Youwecan.org, and is an angel investor in several technology companies. Recently, Paroon was accepted as a member for Forbes Technology Council.

For more information from CUES Supplier member Passageways about OnSemble Employee Intranet and System Permissions, call 765.535.1882, email more@passageways.com or visit www.passageways.com.