“Reflecting our workplace culture digitally has been important, so that we can reinforce how we work and engage with one another to showcase our environmental and community efforts, whether we are at home or in the office. Having delivered this successfully means that when our employees are using the new digital workplace, they are better equipped to perform at their best to deliver on our company strategy and support business growth areas. In addition, they are more informed with easily accessible information.
Head of Communications
Gatehouse Bank is a pioneering Shariah-compliant UK regulated bank offering a range of ethical savings products as well as finance for UK residential and commercial real estate.
Gatehouse Bank wanted to develop a new digital employee experience on Microsoft 365 to reflect their culture and produce a one-stop shop of useful content. Gatehouse Bank had a SharePoint 2013 intranet in use that was primarily used as a document repository.
The internal communications team led by Rachael Snelling and Head of Transformation & MI, Mike Beckford, went to market for a partner that could help them to deliver a next generation digital employee experience. In summer 2022, following a tender process, Gatehouse Bank selected Addin365 as their digital workplace partner.
Gatehouse Bank’s value proposition is unique for being ethical and Shariah-compliant. As a values-led organisation it was of critical importance that these values, communicated through brand, would translate to their digital employee experience.
“We wanted to maintain consistency about who we are at Gatehouse Bank when we looked to develop our new Microsoft 365 digital workplace. We have been able to achieve that consistency using Addin365’s Creative and Page Kit for brand alignment, to enhance SharePoint Modern.”
Head of Transformation & MI
Total deposits growth
Assets under management
Increase in income
Gatehouse Bank’s workforce are hybrid, with employees working from home and from the office flexibly. Gatehouse Bank’s communications team required the ability to share regular updates on company events, news, success stories and employee achievements. This has been possible using SharePoint Modern capabilities. Using Viva Connections Boost function, Gatehouse Bank have been able to ensure ‘must read’ content is received in a timely and concise manner by the right audience.
Gatehouse Bank wanted to deliver community spaces for employees as part of the new digital employee experience. Using Viva Engage, Gatehouse Bank have launched their new digital employee experience with Wellbeing and Sustainable and Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) communities. For every Woodland Saver account opened or renewed, Gatehouse Bank plant a native UK species tree in a UK woodland. Their sustainability work is therefore both extensive and a primary talking point for their employees.
Gatehouse Bank have made use of Addin365 templates for About the Business, News and Community to deliver intuitive user experiences for these content experiences.
“Using the Addin365 templates as a starting point to iterate from has made our project straight forward, as we have been able to start from best practice and make it Gatehouse Bank specific, rather than starting from a blank sheet of paper. This has enabled us to get the best out of SharePoint Modern, Viva Connections and the Addin365 Creative & Page Kit.”
Internal Communications Officer
Gatehouse Bank wanted to create a one-stop shop for business utilities such as payroll reports and booking annual leave. Furthermore, Mike and Rachael wanted to ensure Gatehouse Bank employees could easily navigate policy and procedural information.
“Using Addin365 templates we have provided Gatehouse Bank with task-based architectures, such as product offering information, showcasing community efforts and improving Gatehouse culture. We placed emphasis on quality of content rather than volume of content. This has led to a well-honed body of knowledge being produced, that is useful and relevant to Gatehouse Bank employees.”
Addin365 Consultant
As part of improving self-service, Addin365 have provided Gatehouse Bank with a new employee centre to help colleagues find policy and wellbeing information they might be looking for. Information has been presented in clear pathways for the audiences it is intended to serve – against the activity it supports.
As a growing organisation, Gatehouse Bank are able to support and maintain the services that Gatehouse are traditionally known for, whilst supporting development of new growth markets.
We have delivered our project quickly and to a high standard thanks to Microsoft’s Viva Connections, Viva Engage and Addin365’s products and services approach.”
Head of Communications
Addin365’s analytics product, Addin Analytics, will help Gatehouse Bank to make future decisions about content optimisation based on content use. The next phase of Gatehouse Bank’s digital workplace journey will focus on using the content created to support a standardised way of working in Microsoft Teams.
“We look forward to the next phase of our digital workplace journey, which will focus on standardising our way of working in Microsoft Teams, bringing to bear the latest innovations in automation and AI. We look forward to delivering this with our partner, Addin365.”
Head of Transformation & MI
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