Supporting a culture that thrives on praise and positivity
Ofsted and Node4 have a successful, long-standing relationship that spans over a decade. During that time, Node4 has delivered managed services and support alongside day-to-day consultancy and collaboration on various IT-related projects.
“Node4 recently carried out a significant intranet upgrade,” said Athene Sherwood, Deputy Head of Internal Communications, Ofsted. “The work we’ve done with Node4 over the last couple of years gave us access to the latest version of Microsoft SharePoint and far more control over how our content was developed and shared. It was a great success and led to more employees using the intranet on a regular basis, as well as getting more from it.
“It got us thinking about other creative ways to use SharePoint to engage our staff,” added Sherwood. “We’d heard about wonderwalls – informal social media-style platforms where colleagues can publicly acknowledge and celebrate outstanding work. We thought our colleagues would value something interactive like a wonderwall, so we commissioned Node4 to build one on our new intranet platform.”
Alexa Traynor, Head of Internal Communications, Ofsted, said: “The wonderwall makes a great new addition to our reward and recognition package and, ever since its early days, has played an important part in making praise more visible, as well as more timely. It is also helping to connect colleagues, whether they are working remotely or in the office, and plays an important part in promoting real-world examples of Ofsted’s values and the important work colleagues do across the organisation.”
Growing staff engagement for Ofsted’s intranet
“We could have opted for an out-of-the-box solution, but we wanted something bespoke to our needs. Node4 certainly came through in that regard, finding a solution that works for us – and the end result is just what we wanted,” Sherwood said. “It’s colourful and engaging – and contributors can personalise their praise for colleagues for all to see. Plus, from a practical point of view, because it runs on SharePoint through our intranet, there were no steep learning curves, meaning we could manage it largely in-house from day one.”
Sherwood also noted that the wonderwall has given the intranet a welcome boost by enabling more dynamic content. “We hope people will come in to read the nice comments on the wonderwall as well as stay to explore some of the corporate information and announcements – and vice versa.”
The response from Ofsted colleagues has been very positive, too, with nearly 150 submissions in the first month that the wonderwall went live and over 350 in three months. One staff member commented that it gives ‘a fantastic feel-good factor’ and ‘is helping them to learn more about the work colleagues are involved in – which is also helpful from a networking and collaboration perspective’.
A collaborative approach with Node4
“We have built a really positive working relationship with Node4 over the years, and the consultants we work with genuinely feel like an extension of our team when we are working on a project,” said Traynor. “This consistency through working with Node4 over time means that they understand what we’re trying to achieve across our IT projects, and we have certainly benefited from their flexibility and creativity.
“We’ve had a very collaborative approach, too, which has worked well for us. Node4 also take the time to explain and train, not just implement. This means my team has greatly improved their IT knowledge and understanding, enabling us to be much more self-sufficient. As a result, I think we really do get the most out of SharePoint, and our entire intranet is the richer for it,” Traynor added.
