Unily first to win four Nielsen Norman Group best intranet awards
Four intranet solutions built on Unily's employee experience platform have been selected by the Nielsen Norman Group as the world's best intranets of 2021. Johnson & Johnson, Baker Hughes, Cathay Pacific, and Commonwealth Care Alliance have all been recognized by the global UX institute for delivering world-class digital employee experiences.
Unily's employee experience platform first to win four NN/g best intranet awards
Unily has enjoyed unprecedented success Nielsen Norman Group Intranet Design Awards this year, with four customers selected as the best intranets of 2021. Johnson & Johnson, Baker Hughes, Cathay Pacific, and Commonwealth Care Alliance have all been recognized for best-in-class employee experience platform solutions designed with Unily.
The Nielsen Norman Group (NN/g) design annual is highly regarded as the most notable showcase of intranet designs, providing prospective buyers with yearly insights into intranet design innovation. The winning intranets are chosen by UX experts from an anonymized list of entries and are selected based upon design and usability measures.
This is the seventh year that Unily’s intranet designs will be highlighted and bring Unily’s total of NN/g award wins up to 10 in ten years.
Engaging employees and enhancing employee experience has become a key business priority for enterprises coming out of the pandemic. As we become more reliant on enterprise technology to deliver those experiences to employees, the design and UX of the systems we deploy is more significant.
"To see four more clients recognized for delivering exceptional employee experiences with Unily confirms that our commitment to designing a platform with UX at the core has been worthwhile. The digital experiences we give our employees have never been more important, and to see our product helping enterprises to keep employees engaged and connected in challenging times is a proud moment."
A look at the winning intranets
#1. Johnson & Johnson: Uniting a global enterprise with a single hub
Johnson & Johnson is an American multinational corporation that develops medical devices, pharmaceuticals, and consumer packaged goods. Its intranet is built for its global audience across more than 60 countries, representing a workforce of more than 150k. A key challenge was to provide a balance of core foundational structure with the flexibility to be creative. It is truly designed to serve a global enterprise with more than 200 operating companies, each with their own individual needs, but all belonging to Johnson & Johnson. The ability to personalize based on an employee’s sector, function, and location have truly set it apart from other employee experience platforms.
"Johnson & Johnson’s new platform allowed the team to rapidly respond to changing business needs amid the pandemic. The team was able to adjust the layout of the main page to highlight key COVID-19 links and information in less than five weeks. On their old platform, this task would have taken months."
#2. Baker Hughes: Enhancing employee experience in the energy industry
Baker Hughes is a global energy technology company. The Baker Hughes intranet, known as My Baker Hughes, was launched in April 2020 amid the beginnings of the global pandemic. The challenge forced Baker Hughes to pivot and build an intranet that supported an unprecedented work environment in a historic market downturn. An increasing number of employees were working from home, facing challenging situations, and seeking information on how Baker Hughes was managing as the pandemic was reshaping our world. The success of an intranet is ultimately based on employee adoption rate and usage. During the first 24 hours post-launch, Baker Hughes saw over ten times the average visits of its previous intranet.
"Our new intranet, My.BakerHughes.com, has revolutionized the way we communicate with our employees. Our employees now have a central communications hub where they can learn about our company, access resources, and collaborate with their colleagues. It has provided a world-class experience that enables us to build our culture and drive change."
#3. Cathay Pacific: Connecting frontline and HQ with a mobile airline intranet
Hong Kong-based Cathay Pacific has secured its status as a premium airline for nearly 75 years. The enterprise sought a digital solution to connect its diverse workforce of 20k employees, many of whom work in the air and at airports around the globe.
"The introduction of Unily has transformed the way we connect with and interact with our employees globally. The technical qualities of the solution itself and the great care we have taken in its design have combined to enable us to engage with previously hard-to-reach employees. With personalized and interesting content, alerts, and notifications, it has become a platform from which we host all of our key business apps and tools in one place. It has provided a brand-enhancing addition to our employee experience and become the primary vehicle for all internal communications."
#4. Commonwealth Care Alliance: Transforming care with a healthcare intranet
Commonwealth Care Alliance (CCA) is the not-for-profit, community-based healthcare organization whose mission is to improve the health and well-being of people with significant needs by innovating, coordinating, and providing the highest quality, individualized care. Its Unily intranet was developed and implemented as an accessible, intuitive solution to boost employee engagement, foster collaboration, and communication, and increase productivity and efficiency. CCA launched the intranet in early 2020, and it proved to be especially valuable to its entire workforce during the COVID-19 pandemic.
The result of the data-driven design process was an intranet that CCA’s workforce received extremely well and even loved. Employees voiced that they did not know an intranet could be “life-changing.” The accolades from employees on the usability of the system and the ability for them to feel more connected to the organization’s mission and to each other made it particularly rewarding for the product team.
"Commonwealth Care Alliance’s workforce is dynamic, with distinctly different roles, demographics, disciplines, and geographies, yet we centralize with one mission and one heart. Unily has helped to further unify us."
What's our winning formula?
Having received ten Neislen Norman Group awards for best intranet design in ten years, Unily has developed a reputation for delivering employee intranet software solutions that workforces love. So what is our winning formula?
As an author of Nielsen Norman Group's design annual, Kara speaks with more than a decade of experience reviewing intranet designs from around the world.
"What’s interesting about Unily is not so much the out-of-box solution but the customization it affords enterprises to make what they truly need."
Enabling platform configurability has long been a core part of Unily's roadmap, and recent business expansion has focused on increasing investment in product development.
“Part of Unily’s recent growth is due to the investment in product innovation and understanding user needs,” explains Tom French, Head of Product Marketing at Unily.
"Our goal has always been to create an agile platform that can be easily adapted to solve core employee experience challenges. To do this, we take time to consult our customers and review consumer trends to ensure that our product continues to evolve to meet the needs and expectations of employees. The release of our major updates like our Feature Store has made way for the level of configuration you see in the designs selected by the Nielsen Norman Group this year."
"No two customer requirements are ever the same, which is reflected in how different each of the four winning platforms is. This is an outstanding achievement, and we are thrilled to see our customers recognized as leaders in their fields.”
About the Nielsen Norman Group Intranet Design Annual
Now in its 21st year, world-renowned user experience (UX) expertise firm Nielsen Norman Group analyses the evolution of digital workplace platforms across the globe, putting a specific focus on UX. The awards are given to only 10 outstanding intranets worldwide, and Unily’s continued success is recognition of the company’s investment in creating usable solutions with highly-considered UX. Each of the four Unily client platforms have met NN/g’s high standards for intranets with a clear vision, agile development, and the goal to connect co-workers, particularly in current working circumstances.
Nielsen Norman Group, founded by UX pioneers Don Norman and Jakob Nielsen, is a UX expertise firm. Their reliable guidance on user experience—through UX research, consulting, and training—has gained the trust or leading organizations world-wide for more than 20 years. They are responsible for training thousands of UX professions, plus more than 10,000 have completed NN/g’s UX Certification Program.
Nielsen Norman Group's Intranet Design Annual 2021: The Year’s 10 Best Intranets, co-authored by Kara Pernice, Patty Caya, Maria Rosala, and Anna Kaley is available to download from the Nielsen Norman Group.
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