Finnish Tax Administration

Intranet as the centre of information work

The revamped intranet of the Finnish Tax Administration serves nearly 6,000 users in their daily work. It was also successful in an international communications competition in autumn 2021. Gofore and Cloudriven were their partners in the renewal process.

Intranet as the centre of information work

The revamped intranet of the Finnish Tax Administration serves nearly 6,000 users in their daily work. It was also successful in an international communications competition in autumn 2021. Gofore and Cloudriven were their partners in the renewal process.

“Renewing the ways to interact and do information work is part of the Tax Administration’s extensive organisational and cultural change,” say Päivi Annala, ICT expert, and Katri Riekkinen, Communications Manager.

“We needed new methods and tools to move from local data management and the partly siloed, although open and active interaction, towards a more network-like, self-governing and agile way of working which is in accordance with our strategy.”

Intranet covers the most important needs

To enable new kinds of encounters and new ways of working, the work was started to build an intranet offering the smoothest possible user experience. Gofore led the concept development work in spring 2021 to find the best solution for this.

“New tools will only be adopted if they serve users in their everyday work. We looked for the key needs through interviews, questionnaires and workshops, extensively taking into account the various user roles from end users to content producers,” explains Katja Vaahtera, Service Designer at Gofore, who was responsible for planning the concept. As a result, the revamped intranet offers easy access to the information and tools considered most important for the work, as well as new methods for interaction within teams and between them. The technical solutions on the background are Sharepoint Online, Teams and Yammer. The intranet is visited nearly one million times every month.

“The intranet is a manifestation of our strategic renewal process and it supports it. It enables us to create communities and deconstruct silos,” says Riekkinen.

The new intranet is a manifestation of our strategic renewal process and it supports it. It enables us to create communities and deconstruct silos.

Katri Riekkinen, Communications Manager, Tax Administration

Automation enables both smooth use and overall management

The other side of smooth usage is hidden under the bonnet. A place where thousands of people gather requires rules regarding, for example, how work spaces are created and managed. Antti Jokinen, M365 Consultant at Cloudriven responsible for the technological solutions regarding the cloud transition and their implementation, says that the intranet must be managed in a way that doesn’t make it stiff or slow.

“This is where automation comes in. It helps ensure overall management that is vital for maintenance, as well as security. For the users, this makes everyday work flexible.”

In addition to the great concept and technical implementation, the quick and successful adoption of the new intranet required an atmosphere that was positive towards change, and enough resources for support.

“During the most intensive period of the adoption, we arranged several training sessions and bulletins every week. The atmosphere was positive and supporting throughout, even though the changes were truly massive,” describes Anu Kontiainen from Cloudrive, who was responsible for the training and user support.

Goal achieved quickly and successfully

Renewing the intranet took less than a year. Everyone who took part in the cooperation agrees that implementing a change of this scale on such a tight schedule is not for the faint of heart. However, Riekkinen and Annala are glad that there was enough courage to undertake this project.

“We made quite a leap in development by transitioning from a local model straight to continuous development and cloud technology. Presently, nearly 90 per cent of our personnel uses the intranet every day.”

This work was wonderfully recognised when the intranet won bronze at the international Digital Communication Awards 2021 in the category of Internal Channel.

“This would not have been possible without the seamless cooperation with our partners, so we would like to thank both Gofore and Cloudriven very much for this! We are happy to continue this journey together,” Riekkinen and Annala conclude.

Project highlights

Challenge

The tools for digital work used in the Tax Administration did not meet the strategic goals of improving agility, communality and self-governing at work.

Solution

A new intranet was conceptualised as the focal point of digital work utilising user-centred service design methods. The intranet offers access to the most essential information, conversations and tools. The transition from local tools to cloud technologies was implemented in one single step.

Result

About a year after its adoption, nearly 90% of the Tax Administration’s personnel use the new intranet daily.

Expertise

The skills & competences utilised in the project

Service design

Get in touch!

Ville Suvanto

Digital Society

ville.suvanto@gofore.com

+358 40 765 6158

Intranet as the centre of information work