“Through the passive and active feedback systems we have put in place, we can really say that the new digital employee experience is better, and it has made a really positive impact and improved efficiency throughout the business.”
Keith Austin
Knowledge Manager
Cundall, a global multi-disciplinary engineering consultancy, was established nearly 50 years ago in Newcastle-upon-Tyne, and now operates from 28 locations across Europe, Asia, Australia, and the Middle East. Cundall’s 1,200-strong team of engineers and consultants deliver projects worldwide for a range of sectors, driven by a dedication to innovation and sustainable design.
To support Cundall’s continued growth and innovative and solution-oriented employees, an effective internal communications and knowledge management platform was essential. Having utilised an older version of SharePoint for the sharing of essential information and documents, it was becoming increasingly difficult to locate content and manage. Additionally, metrics showed engagement with the old platform was generally low and feedback indicated that it was due to the separation of hubs for different disciplines (engineering teams) and a lack of connectivity, making it challenging for users to search, navigate, and find content effectively.
Keith Austin, Knowledge Manager at Cundall, identified an opportunity to enhance the digital employee experience by making the sharing of knowledge more efficient. This initiative aimed to improve employee engagement, foster connections amongst employees, and strengthen their internal communications strategy.
Keith Austin explained: “By leveraging Microsoft 365, Cundall recognised the potential to create a brand-aligned digital employee experience that seamlessly integrates company updates, communities, and personalised content for every team. This approach would assist employees to perform optimally by finding essential information when it was most needed. Our management team understood the value in providing employees with a single source for content that reflected our company culture and values of collaboration and technical excellence.”
In October 2023, Cundall partnered with us to deliver their digital employee experience project. Keith Austin explains why:
“We selected Addin365 because their products and services complement the Microsoft 365 services, bringing together SharePoint, Teams, Viva Connections and Viva Engage into an intuitive and integrated employee experience. This collaboration allowed us to smoothly deliver Cundall’s new digital employee experience, known as Dr. J, on Microsoft 365.”
Knowledge Manager
“There was great enthusiasm for the project as many people around the business had expressed their desire for an enhanced digital employee experience for a long time.”
Knowledge Manager
Recognising the need for intuitive navigation, Cundall aimed to provide a seamless user experience by facilitating simple access to essential company information and updates.
“It was becoming increasingly difficult to maintain the old system and add new content to the existing framework which was affecting the ease of navigation” – Keith Austin, Knowledge Manager
In partnership with Cundall, Addin365 consultants approached this in a task-based manner. Whether Cundall employees required details about their specific office location or critical business information for new hires, we provided a solution so that information was readily accessible through simple navigation. We implemented six distinct navigation patterns—Home, About the Business, News, Departments, Communities, and Locations— to achieve this goal.
These patterns were meticulously designed with a task-based perspective, considering what is most beneficial for users.
“Although the workload and tight deadline required to complete the programme were ambitious, the Addin365 patterns helped the project move quickly and gave us a great starting point.”
“The new digital employee experience has provided up-to-date office and team information and on-boarding materials. Employees are now able to self-serve their needs and easily locate relevant content.”
Keith Austin
Knowledge Manager
Employees across 28 locations globally
Active users per month
Monthly hub visits
Cundall preferred a self-service model, but with lots of guidelines already set out for them. As part of improving self-service, we provided them with our Site Builder tool, which can create SharePoint sites within a matter of minutes. This has allowed employees to publish, edit and keep their own content up to date.
“We didn’t want to remove people’s ability to edit their own content and keep it up to date but we didn’t want people to have to reinvent the wheel every time they were faced with a new SharePoint site and start from scratch.”
Keith Austin
Knowledge Manager
During the research phase, it was clear that employees needed an advanced search function to access current and relevant information. Searches conducted in the previous system identified issues with version control reducing efficiency and productivity.
To address this, we implemented a robust solution that optimised the Microsoft Search capabilities within Dr J. by refining the search algorithms to deliver a single source for content with easier navigation.
Cundall employees can now find the latest information more easily, improving workflow efficiency and overall productivity.
“Our goal was to make content much more searchable and discoverable, which we definitely achieved. We’re still receiving very positive feedback from colleagues about the search facility, on how it has improved their experience.”
Keith Austin
Knowledge Manager
As a growing organisation, Cundall emphasised the importance of supporting employees in their onboarding process. Specifically, they wanted the company’s internal branding and identity to align seamlessly to what was visible externally. It was important to them that the company culture and values were integral to the look and feel of the intranet.
Cundall possessed an array of excellent graphics they wanted integrated throughout the entire digital employee experience. Cundall aimed to engage employees with the brand identity, ensuring a sustained connection to the brand within the digital workplace.
Cundall used our Creative and Page Kit – a toolset of webparts designed to deliver brand alignment in Microsoft 365, while keeping it muted and as straightforward as possible. Bringing Cundall’s brand into the digital employee experience now allows for an emotional connection between employees and the Cundall brand and mission.
“We put a lot of effort into our company website. There is a lot of great thought leadership content and project profiles on there. We really wanted our intranet to offer the same level of quality and user experience for our colleagues. The goal was really about making sure we had a consistent look and feel across the site, so no matter where you were, you could access the content in a very similar way depending which team site you were visiting.”
Cundall is home to some of the world’s most talented engineers and designers. The company’s culture is shaped by projects undertaken globally. A brand-new digital employee experience would effectively communicate this exceptional work throughout the organisation. During the Discovery Stage of the project, interviews with stakeholders highlighted that many employees were unaware of what was happening in other teams and offices.
Cundall aimed to standardise communications across departments and regions to enhance employee engagement and foster a unified global workforce, emphasising their shared culture. This supports the ‘One Cundall’ ethos, aiming for collaboration as a single business.
To foster a sense of belonging and connection within the business worldwide, we provided features for conversations, knowledge sharing, and engagement in social communities. We also made their various communities more visible across the company, as many weren’t active. By using Viva Engage and our conversations web part across different community sites, we offered a framework for sharing more effectively throughout the organisation, encouraging greater participation.
The integration of Viva Connections allowed for a personalised experience on the homepage, tailoring content based on what employees engage with regularly. We also enabled capabilities for liking, sharing, and commenting on all news, creating a single source of information where employees can access company-wide updates and celebrate achievements.
“What we have really grown to like is the fact that we are starting to see notifications of new blogs come through to teams, so when anyone writes something, it’s not just published, but seen by many.”
Knowledge Manager
“We have numerous initiatives and awards throughout the year, resulting in a very active business life cycle with various events. The new platform provided us with the chance to showcase these alongside the daily news updates that appear on our site, so it gave us a much more dynamic homepage.”
Knowledge Manager
The achievement of the Dr J. project was made possible through the proactive partnership between Cundall and Addin365. Our mutual commitment to excellence has been fundamental to this success. The dedicated teams from both organisations continue to be committed to ensuring the ongoing success of the Dr J platform.
“Through the passive and active feedback systems we have put in place, we can really say that the new digital employee experience is better, and it has made a really positive impact and improved efficiency throughout the business.”
Knowledge Manager
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