About Us
Trying to simplify and humanise your 9 to 5 lives, one day at a time!
In February 2023, we were presented with a seemingly simple challenge by the Municipality of Haarlemmermeer, which was:
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How can we facilitate the Gemeente Haarlemmermeer to become a smarter, more connected, transparent, and digitally inclusive organisation?
In large and diverse public organizations like the Gemeente Haarlemmermeer, communication can sometimes be hindered by silos. Different departments or teams in the organization may work independently leading to a lack of information sharing and coordination. With so many channels and platforms available, it can be difficult to filter out the information that is relevant and important to employees. This can lead to information overload and make it difficult for employees to stay updated on important updates.
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Our project was divided into five intensive sprints, wherein we used different methodologies and research tools to gather insights and co-create solutions with our client.
Sprint 1
What if you can’t reach anyone and struggle to find a link to join a meeting? What if you are in the office and everyone is working from home and don’t know who to ask and where to find the person?
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To get a general understanding of all these challenges in the Haarlemmermeer municipality, we designed a board game to learn about the experience and behaviour of employees in different circumstances between 9 and 5 in a fun way. This led us to design the interview guide to get more detailed and insightful information about individual collaboration experiences, data exchange processes, and communication challenges in the municipality. As expected, we discovered that employees frequently find it difficult to communicate with each other as they work in silos. How to find information about who is doing what? Also, how does an outsider communicate with them? A lot of time is spent on finding this out which makes the process less efficient.
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As employees said, “It’s a complete mess, don’t know when to use Sharepoint, Teams, and drives“. Upon getting these responses, we decided to conduct an online survey to capture how employee work in the given scenarios. The purpose of this exercise is to delve into the problems individuals face during work hours which will further help to design workflow.
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Sprint 2
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The findings of this sprint explained the challenges of an employee in the gemeente that wants to make a positive impact in their community. However, as soon as they open the portal to start their work or step into the offices, they would find themselves facing a range of challenges. Using digital tools seemed like a daunting task for all interviewed employees, so this employee wasn’t alone in feeling this way. Live surveys, external interviews, and IT walk-through exercises all revealed that other colleagues were also struggling with the same issues. It didn’t matter what role the employee had within the gemeente; all of them face similar challenges.
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Overall, our research revealed three main themes that were causing the most frustration for gemeente employees.
The first theme was training and support for using digital tools. Most of the interviewees felt overwhelmed and unsure of how to use these tools effectively.
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The second theme was communication within the gemeente. They often felt like they are working in silos, with little collaboration or information-sharing between departments.
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The final theme was clarity around job responsibilities and expectations. They often felt unsure of what was expected of them, which led to confusion and frustration. Despite these challenges, the employee stays committed to making a positive impact in the organisation.
Sprint 3
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Navigating through the multitude of challenges within the Municipality, and seeking a conclusive solution was a demanding task. By involving the employees in identifying problems and devising optimal strategies, we aimed to establish a clear scope for the solution. This scope was built upon considering the functional, emotional, and social needs of the employees within the Municipality. It led us to design an ideal workflow (Storyboard) for an employee in the municipality to complete a task more efficiently.
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This workflow optimization highlighted how it can enhance productivity and reduce unnecessary hassle. The designed workflow emphasized key touchpoints for employees and addressed the requirements of one interface (dashboard) for all employees, enabling them to access the necessary files and collaborate with other employees efficiently within an optimal timeframe.
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Sprint 4 & 5
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Based on research, it was realized that it is difficult to find people since employees don’t regularly update their profiles and searching for documents was a nightmare since employees were making their file lists and had no structured way of creating documents.
Additionally, there were many communication platforms and no guidelines on how to chat/ communicate internally.
Based on the above problems, a Dashboard (a single interface that combines all general activities of all employees in one corporate site was the solution. It demonstrates one place and one way of working on general activities like communicating, creating, sharing, collaborating, and finding employees and information within 1-5 minutes.
Essentially, this dashboard will be used in finding people, documents, and information; communication; creating and sharing file(s). Using this dashboard, employees will be able to see their team members, their projects and those of other employees and their to-do list.
