Interact Excellence Awards – the winners announced!

The beginning of 2019 heralded the Interact Excellence Awards, our annual celebration of organizations from around the globe who have delivered remarkable intranets for their users.

The awards, which are in their ninth year, uncover the world’s leading digital workplace solutions, alongside the individuals and teams that inspired them. As always, the entries we received spanned from small non-profits to international enterprises – all giving unique insights into the challenges of today’s digital workplace, and the many creative ways that intranets are used to overcome them.

Meet the Judges

Our awards are judged by a group of external experts. This nine-strong panel – professionals in communications, engagement, and digital workplace strategy – were able to evaluate every application on the company’s ability to solve business challenges, foster collaboration, improve two-way communication, engage employees and increase overall productivity.

Their wealth of experience and insight has allowed them independently evaluate and score each entry to determine those who exemplify the best in their category.

“We were pleasantly surprised by the intranets and companies competing in the awards,” remark Steve and Cindy Crescenzo of Crescenzo Communications, who served as judges.

“We are finally making the transition from intranets that are glorified print publications with awkward design, one-way information distribution channels, and sterile, corporate content…to thriving communities with tons of interactivity, conversations, cool graphics, creative content, and multimedia! Judging this contest gives us hope for the future of our profession!”

Andrew Wright, Australia – founder of the Worldwide Intranet Challenge (WIC), the world’s largest intranet and digital workplace end user satisfaction study.

Elizabeth Lupfer, USA– a globally recognized thought leader and keynote speaker on employer brand, HR and internal communications, social collaboration, and transforming traditional HR functions from transactions into interactions.

Ellen van Aken, Holland – Consultant and trainer Ellen has built a reputation as the largest curator of intranet launch content in the world.

Simon Dance, UK – CEO at Interact. Simon has 15 years of experience within the content technology arena.

Sam Marshall, UK – owner of ClearBox Consulting and specialist in intranets and the digital workplace for over 18 years.

Ephraim Freed, USA – Employee experience strategist and leader Ephraim has spent over a decade working on the cutting edge of internal communications and intranets.

Cindy Crescenzo, USA – President of Crescenzo Communications and brings over 15 years of experience to the communications industry.

Steve Bynghall, UK – freelance consultant and writer, specializing in intranets, collaboration and knowledge management.

Steve Crescenzo, USA – A consultant, writer, speaker and seminar leader, Steve has helped thousands of communicators around the world and voted #1-rated speaker at the International Assocation of Business Communicators World Conference seven times

The awards are a great opportunity to see the latest developments in intranets. But as we’ve discovered, with Interact’s support and advice, businesses are feeling empowered to show off their platforms and learn from the stories of other organizations.

Multi-national foreign exchange and payment solutions provider Travelex, for instance, were a winner at last year’s awards and have been recognized in three categories for 2019, including taking the winning title for Best Stakeholder.

“The Interact Excellence Awards were critical in giving us the confidence to showcase our intranet externally, allowing us to go on and win a range of international awards over the last year. The awards are a great opportunity to look at how other organizations are executing their intranets in a modern, innovative and exciting way. I also find it a great way to expand my network and share knowledge with some of the best intranet managers out there, even when that person might be in a completely different industry or country.”

Tricia Scott, global intranet manager at Travelex.

Simon Dance CEO at Interact adds: “A successful intranet connects both tools and people. It not only can help shape a company’s culture, but it can also play a critical role in impacting the overall employee experience. This year’s diverse roster of entries demonstrates that when an intranet is deployed strategically, it can drive tangible business results in everything from increasing productivity, to preventing employee turnover. Our company is proud to power these impactful corporate initiatives.”

Reading through the entries and learning the journeys that each organization has gone on is one of the great joys of the Excellence Awards. So much hard work, vision and co-ordination has gone into each project – and we learn something new with each submission.

The Awards

This year, there are eight categories, including the Judges’ Awards for Innovation which celebrates those intranets that demonstrate true innovation or creativity to address some of the more complex or niche challenges in their organizations.

Winners of this year’s awards program include:

Best Launch

Getting users excited and onboard with a new intranet comes with unique challenges. This award celebrates those who are innovative in encouraging adoption across their entire workforce.

Winner – Tallahassee Memorial Healthcare, Spark

Finalist – Wrightington, Wigan & Leigh NHS Trust, Wally

Finalist – FNZ Group, FNZ Connect

Best Stakeholder

Senior level engagement is critical to the success of any project. This award identifies those executives who have played a pivotal role in breaking down barriers and getting staff onboard.

Winner – Travelex, The Lounge

Finalist – Federation of Small Businesses, myfsb

Finalist – WABCO, @PACE

Best Offline Worker Strategy

Up to 75% of our employees are non-desk-based. This category recognizes creative or innovative campaigns that have overcome those barriers to engage staff who are traditionally hard-to-reach.

Winner – Magic Memories, Click

Finalist – International Rescue Committee, RescueNet

Finalist – Acadian Companies, Acadian Central

Best Use of Video

It’s the new medium of choice and an essential part of the internal communicator’s toolkit. This category showcases examples of video being used to change the employee experience of comms.

Winner – Wheatley Group, W.E. Connect

Finalist – Travelex, The Lounge

Finalist – Equinox, EQX Connect

Best Design

Celebrating the best-in-class for creativity, user experience and brand, the Best Design Award acknowledges intranets that push the boundaries of design to wow their audiences.

Winner – Institute of International Education, Eddie

Finalist – GBGroup, be/connected

Finalist – Curo Group, The Orb

Best Success Story

What does success look like for an intranet project? Entries in this category have gone above and beyond to achieve change, realise goals and deliver success for their organization and staff.

Winner – International Rescue Committee, RescueNet

Finalist – Family Service League, The Hive

Finalist – Avon and Somerset Police, Pocketbook

Essential Intranet

How do you make your intranet more than ‘just another piece of software’ ? This award goes to those pushing intranet functionality to the limits, making it critical and transformational to their business.

Winner – Sony Interactive Entertainment, Center Stage

Finalist – Federation of Small Business, myfsb

Finalist – Travelex, The Lounge

Judges’ Awards for Innovation

All entries into the Excellence Awards are considered for recognition in this category, with previous winners demonstrating true innovation or creativity in using their intranets to address some of the more complex or niche challenges in their organizations.

Wrightington, Wigan & Leigh NHS Trust, Wally

Mattress Firm, BEDpost

UFCU, UFCU Connect 

Midland Heart, Midland Heart

For more information about the awards program and all the winners, in addition to how you can get started with Interact, visit here.