Tourism New Zealand staff site named world’s best

Tourism New Zealand staff site named world’s best

Tourism New Zealand’s staff intranet has been named one of the top ten in the world amongst global giants like IBM. International user experience firm, Nielsen Norman Group announced the award this week with Tourism New Zealand the only Australasian winner.

The new site replaced one built in 2001 that had limited functionality and was not mobile friendly.

“We have staff based around the globe and staff who travel internationally working from mobile devices so it’s really important as an organisation to keep our people informed and connected to our global whanau. The intranet, was redesigned with these principles in mind so it’s great to see the site being recognised for being accessible and easy to use,” says Deborah Gray, General Manager Corporate Affairs.

“The site was also praised for its use of plain English and social interactive features. We made sure to integrate the ability for staff to post photos and have conversations, it’s been really successful in helping staff engage with each other and share information.”

The redesign project took around 6 months to complete and including reviewing all content and rewriting it to make it more accessible as well as removing unused or old content and making the site more visual.

“We have a number of staff who speak a range of languages so it was really important that the site’s content spoke to everyone. We also improved the navigation and search function so content was easier to find.”

“The site is well used by our 160 staff and contains information and news that is accessed on a daily basis with usage increasing significantly since the new site was launched.”

“It’s been really good to see staff generated content on the site take off, giving staff the ability to comment on content and ask questions.”

“Tourism New Zealand is tasked with telling the New Zealand story to the world to encourage people to visit. Storytelling is at the heart of what we do and our intranet now supports this by allowing staff to participate and encouraging them to share,” says Deborah Gray, General Manager Corporate Affairs.

Jakob Nielsen, Principal for Nielsen Norman Group describes Tourism New Zealand’s site as having "A clean design, rewritten content, and well-integrated social features turned Tourism New Zealand’s new responsive intranet into an essential tool for communication and collaboration, regardless of location or device."

On the back of the win Tourism New Zealand has been asked to do an international webinar about the project and been contacted by other organisations wanting to know more so they can improve their own intranets.

ENDS

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