Uniting Teams Through Viva Connections:

Bedfordshire Police, Cambridgeshire Constabulary and Hertfordshire Constabulary (BCH) have been collaborating to reduce costs and provide a better, more efficient service to the public across these three counties.

Their intranet was key to this collaboration. Used to keep people informed and share critical information between the different forces. While functional, it was no longer fit-for-purpose. Staff, especially those on the frontline, were not engaging. Search and navigation was complicated and confusing. And many still relied on a high volume of email communications to digest information.

It was our job to come in and change that. Bringing everyone and everything across BCH together in one place. This was a project with employee experience truly at the centre.

What Hable Did:

Following workshops and recommendations, we began working on creating a modern intranet environment using SharePoint and Microsoft Viva Connections.

We’re proud to say this marks the very first Viva project within policing.

With employee experience being central to this migration and build, we prioritised the things that people would most want and need from their new intranet. We streamlined navigation, modernised the structure, and ensured the new environment was fully accessible across multiple devices.

All while running learning sessions across BCH to improve understanding of SharePoint. Both for admins and the everyday user.

How BCH are Benefitting from Viva:

Where people across the various forces once had an outdated and complicated intranet, they now have a slick, modern working environment.

Through the powerful tools within Viva Connections, we have introduced content targeting, ensuring forces and departments are only seeing the information most relevant to them.

“Audience targeting is very helpful in making sure people get the right, relevant information. And the integration of the other Microsoft 365 tools like Yammer is a real plus point too."
- Stuart Luff, Principal Technical Architect, BCH

News, messages, and critical governance information can now be accessed on any device, wherever people are working from. Police Officers no longer need to trek back to the office to access these things. It can be done, seamlessly, on-the-go, from any device.

Most importantly though, BCH finally has an effective mechanism for getting mass messages out to everyone. The first ever post on Yammer/Viva Engage received 7,500 unique hits. The most they’ve ever had.

And it doesn’t end here.

Now that the foundations are in place, Viva can do so much more for BCH.
Things like bringing in HR data to book annual leave. Creating a carousel of ‘most wanted’ photos based on location driven data. Or providing a space for key updates from the Chief.