Intranet leadership and collaboration: how to drive digital workplace success

From freight railroads and cancer research centers to insurance companies and manufacturing firms, their success stories reveal that strategic vision from the C-suite, technical excellence from IT teams, and seamless partnership between HR and internal comms form the foundation of truly transformative digital workplaces.

The Simpplr Employee Experience Excellence Award winners featured in this blog prove that intranet leadership requires aligning digital strategy with business goals, removing technical barriers, and fostering collaboration across departments. Their approaches showcase practical strategies that any organization can apply to elevate their intranet from a basic tool to a strategic business asset that drives connection, productivity, and engagement.

Secure executive vision and sponsorship

Executive sponsorship plays a significant role in advancing digital initiatives. The winners for Most Visionary Executive feature senior leaders who champion their intranets and drive adoption through consistent engagement and aligning digital strategy with company vision.

Agero

Agero is a leader in vehicle lifecycle services, including roadside assistance and accident management, partnering with insurers and automakers to deliver fast, reliable support to drivers.

At Agero, fostering a connected, informed, and productive workforce is key to success. Keri-Lynn Pajer, VP of Business Partnerships and Change Initiatives, has been instrumental in driving significant positive outcomes across key areas. Her teams encompass Talent Acquisition, People Business Partners, Internal Communications, and Employee Experience, giving her a unique perspective across the entire employee life cycle.

Keri’s commitment to transparency and communication has significantly enhanced intranet adoption and strategic alignment across the organization. Agero houses resources within their intranet, the HUB, to help associates understand the company strategy, explore key elements, and recognize how they fit into the broader vision. 

These resources have driven consistently high engagement, with at least 80% of users logging in regularly. 

Her leadership extends to broader alignment events like town halls and All Hands Conferences, which further promote HUB resources and create valuable touchpoints for employees. Through quarterly engagement pulse surveys, she’s established a consistent feedback loop, with results shared on the HUB to influence future resources and offerings.

“Keri’s dedication to employee experience, transparent communication, and effective change management has driven tangible improvements in intranet adoption, strategic alignment, and productivity at Agero, with the HUB as a key tool in enabling it all.” — Ashley Anglisano, Communications Manager

Bernards

Bernards is a full-service builder based in California, offering general contracting and construction management with a focus on quality, collaboration, and community impact.

CEO Dave Cavecche demonstrates exceptional leadership through The CEO Corner on the company intranet, fostering open communication and transparency with employees. This dedicated space allows team members to engage directly with Dave, ask questions, and access valuable resources including meeting strategies, leadership readings, workplace tips, and coaching tools.

“By offering these resources, Dave actively supports the professional growth and development of our team while exemplifying our core value of continuous improvement. His approach to leadership inspires innovation and creates a culture where employees feel empowered and heard, making him a true visionary in leading the company toward its future success.” — Youngsin Kim, Multimedia Designer

Lozier Corporation

A leading manufacturer of retail fixtures and shelving systems, Lozier supports the evolving needs of retail environments through durable, customizable, and innovative merchandising solutions.

As a member of Lozier’s executive team, Hannah Bolte, Director of People, Marketing, and Communications, has transformed the company’s approach to communication through their intranet platform, LozierLink. Implementing a mobile-first intranet with an emphasis on enhancing the employee experience was one of Hannah’s first tasks when she started at the company in 2021. 

Enter Simpplr, Lozier’s chosen platform, intended to replace the manufacturer’s long-running quarterly printed newsletter. The platform enables Lozier to provide real-time news and information to employees across five states, with consideration to different types of work — manufacturing/deskless, office, remote, and hybrid workers, as well as different shifts and time zones.

Drawing on her journalism background, Hannah structured the story selection and editorial process like a traditional newsroom, with dedicated writers reporting on company events. Building on initial success, she expanded the team with video professionals and graphic artists to create impressive visuals and informative content. This includes news-style storytelling and fully produced quarterly town hall presentations featuring company leaders livestreamed through Simpplr’s platform.

She has led the communication evolution at Lozier through several key initiatives:

• Designating LozierLink as the primary communication tool and sunsetting other mechanisms, including mass email and quarterly printed newsletters
• Utilizing alerts and other features to inform of shift impacts in the event of weather or power outages
• Aligning their recognition hub to the company’s core values to create further consistency across the employee experience
• Driving consistency in content and messaging by leveraging digital signage synced with Simpplr
• Creating a unique collaboration between HR and Internal Communication
• Publishing multiple pieces of content daily, including new hire and promotion announcements and major company updates
• Prioritizing mobile-first access to accommodate a primarily deskless workforce 

“LozierLink is the realization of Hannah’s vision for cohesive corporate storytelling. The news is important, the features are engaging, the content is compelling, and the employees who utilize it truly enjoy it.” — Josh Gear, Brand Manager

Apply technical expertise for seamless experiences

Behind every successful intranet stands a dedicated IT team. The organizations with the Best IT Champions showcase technical experts who went beyond implementation to create seamless integrations, innovative solutions, and stable platforms that enhance daily work.

BNSF

One of North America’s largest freight railroads, BNSF plays a critical role in the supply chain, known for safety, efficiency, and cutting-edge logistics operations.

Asim Ghanchi, Assistant Vice President of Technology Services, exemplifies visionary leadership and technical expertise in driving forward the company’s digital employee experience. As a dedicated IT partner to the communications team, Asim has provided unwavering guidance, steering BNSF toward a modernized digital workplace strategy that delivers real value for more than 40,000 employees and contractors.

He has been key to their five-year strategic initiative to introduce myBNSF by:

• Casting an innovative vision for employee engagement and technical efficiency
• Guiding the selection of the optimal platform provider to replace BNSF’s legacy intranet
• Setting expectations for major content migration from legacy systems
• Overcoming technical obstacles through a year-long phased testing and rollout initiative
• Leading development of governance to protect the scope and integrity of myBNSF

“Asim has played an invaluable leadership role in our strategic initiative to modernize our intranet and introduce myBNSF. This has been a major change for us, and his vision for the future of employee engagement, strategic mindset, and common-sense approach to problem solving helped ensure a safe and successful rollout, introducing a new era of employee engagement at BNSF Railway.” — Jason Lamers, General Director, Internal Communication and Engagement

Option Care Health

A leading provider of home and alternate site infusion services, Option Care Health combines clinical excellence with compassionate care to support complex medical needs outside the hospital.

At Option Care Health, the IT department plays a vital role in aligning technology with their purpose to provide extraordinary care that changes lives. IT champions have collaborated across the organization to create a modern, dynamic, and intuitive intranet experience that serves their team members who, in turn, serve patients every day.

Their technical achievements showcase the power of strategic IT partnership:

• Integration of two separate Okta tenants for seamless authentication across domains
• Creation of specialized segmentation for a subsidiary
• Streamlined access to support tickets and knowledge base articles through ServiceNow integration
• Ongoing responsive support to minimize disruption during updates or acquisitions

These technical integrations ensure that their intranet serves as an efficient, effective, and engaging resource for team members across the organization. The collaborative approach between IT, HR, and Engineering has created what they describe as world-class support that enhances their ability to fulfill their mission.

“Our IT department is vital to ensuring the technology we put in place aligns with our purpose, mission and values, which includes having a modern, dynamic, intuitive intranet that is thriving, interactive and provides consistent communication and resources for our team members to do what they do best every day to serve our patients.” — Amy Eiduke, Vice President, Communications, Culture and Community

Foster cross-functional collaboration

Breaking down silos yields powerful results. The winners of the Best HR and Comms Partnership demonstrate what happens when Human Resources and Internal Communication teams collaborate strategically on initiatives from onboarding to engagement, creating cohesive employee experiences.

Moffitt Cancer Center

Based in Tampa, Fla., Moffitt Cancer Center is one of only 57 National Cancer Institute-designated Comprehensive Cancer Centers in the U.S., a distinction that recognizes Moffitt’s scientific excellence, multidisciplinary research, and robust training and education. 

The healthcare organization’s HR and Internal Communication teams have created a powerful partnership through their intranet, MoffittNet, driving employee engagement and action on key initiatives. Their collaborative approach has delivered impressive results for an organization with over 9,900 team members.

When implementing significant changes to their 2024 benefits package, the teams developed a comprehensive communications strategy executed through MoffittNet. 

The team’s intranet approach included:

• Using the newsletter feature for targeted updates
• Creating engaging video content to explain complex changes
• Building a dedicated Benefits Open Enrollment page

The Benefits Open Enrollment page received 18,751 views, and the overall Benefits site became the third most visited site on the intranet with 119,935 views.

This partnership extends to other critical compliance areas like mandatory education (Moffitt Mandies). By creating a dedicated page with visual progress trackers, sending newsletter reminders, and featuring updates on the homepage carousel, they achieved an outstanding 99% completion rate for required training.

“By strategically using MoffittNet as a centralized hub for essential information, Moffitt Cancer Center continues to enhance communication effectiveness, increase engagement, and drive meaningful action among our team members.” — Jonesa Rodriguez, Lead Account Coordinator, Internal Communications

Texas Mutual Insurance Company

As the state’s leading workers’ compensation insurer, Texas Mutual helps protect employers and employees through proactive safety programs and responsive claims support.

The corporate communications team at Texas Mutual partnered with HR to launch an innovative internal adoption campaign for their employee-led mentorship program as part of the company’s talent and development initiative. This strategic collaboration supports Texas Mutual’s corporate strategy focused on the employee experience.

The teams established clear objectives for phase one of their campaign:

• Engage at least 50 employees to sign up as mentors
• Garner a minimum of 50 active mentorships
• Report 50 completed mentorships by 2025

With their intranet adoption rate at 95%, they leveraged TXM Today as the primary communication channel, creating a dedicated talent and development site as the central hub for mentorship resources. Since launch, this site has garnered 46,660 total views. 

The teams collaborated on diverse content including mentor recruitment, Q&A profiles of available mentors, success stories, and promotion of career expo events.

This partnership far exceeded their initial objectives:

• 128 registered mentors (256% of goal)
• 62 active mentorships
• 92 completed mentorships well ahead of schedule
• 6,621 views, 228 likes, and 25 comments on mentorship content
• 20% of unmatched mentors found matches after their profiles were published

“The collaboration between Texas Mutual’s corporate communications and HR teams demonstrates the power of an effective internal communications strategy. By leveraging our channels thoughtfully, we not only exceeded all three campaign objectives but also reinforced mentorship as a key driver of our organizational success.” — Jeremy Windham, Senior Communications Specialist

Key leadership and collaboration takeaways

The success stories of these award winners reveal several leadership and collaboration principles that any organization can apply to make the most of their intranet program.

Align digital strategy with business goals

Establish clear connections between your digital workplace initiatives and business priorities, whether that’s improving operational efficiency, enhancing customer experience, or strengthening company culture. When executives can see how the intranet drives measurable business value, they’re more likely to encourage its adoption.

Champion executive visibility

Executive participation on the intranet significantly drives adoption and engagement. Create dedicated spaces for leadership communication, encourage regular contributions, and make executive visibility part of your content strategy. When employees see leaders actively using the platform, it signals the intranet’s importance to organizational success.

Break down departmental boundaries

Cross-functional collaboration, particularly between HR and internal comms, creates more cohesive employee experiences. Form working partnerships around specific initiatives like onboarding, benefits enrollment, or professional development programs. When these functions align content, messaging, and technical resources, employees experience a more seamless journey throughout their time with the organization.

Invest in technical partnerships

Technical excellence is foundational to intranet success. Build strong relationships with IT teams who can provide not just implementation support but strategic guidance on integrations, data management, and platform optimization. The most successful organizations view their technology teams as innovation partners rather than just service providers.

Demonstrate measurable impact

Track metrics that matter to leadership and regularly share success stories that demonstrate business impact. Move beyond usage statistics to measure how the intranet influences key business metrics like productivity, time savings, employee satisfaction, and strategic alignment. This data-driven approach helps secure ongoing investment and support.

Lead during organizational change

Intranets play a crucial role during transitions like mergers, leadership changes, or strategic shifts. Position your digital workplace as a vital communication and alignment tool during periods of change, showcasing its ability to unite employees around shared vision and values while providing clarity during uncertainty.

Promote internal partnerships for intranet success

The award winners featured in this blog demonstrate how strategic leadership and collaboration can transform intranets from basic information repositories into strategic business assets. Through Simpplr’s modern intranet, these organizations have created digital workplaces that drive meaningful business outcomes — from operational efficiency to cultural alignment.

Whether through executives who model engagement, IT partners who enable seamless experiences, or HR and comms teams who create cohesive employee engagement, these success stories prove that leadership is the foundation of intranet excellence. They have created environments where information flows freely, collaboration thrives, and employees connect to purpose.

Ready to learn how Simpplr’s platform can help you drive meaningful engagement and deliver measurable results? Request a demo today.