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Businesses have been teching-up customer web sites with blogs, videos, rating tools and other interactive features for years. But it’s the rare employer that puts the same tools to work inside the company.
That’s where the McLean, Va.-based bank and financial services company Capital One stands out.
Impressed by explosive growth of social networking sites such as Facebook, MySpace and YouTube, Capital One added similar collaborative technologies to the company’s own intranet, Oneplace, in 2007-08.
Matt Schuyler, Capital One’s chief human resource officer
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“We noticed that the workplace was not as collaborative as it could be,” says Matt Schuyler, Capital One’s chief human resources officer. “We wanted a way to encourage open and honest dialogue.”
It was this innovation that resulted in Capital One receiving the Society for Human Resource Management’s Innovative Business Solution Award, which recognizes an HR department that successfully develops an innovative and ethical solution to a new or ongoing organizational challenge.
Earlier generation web sites, including most corporate intranets, allowed only select administrators to add content. Material usually has to pass muster with top brass and then be specially formatted and coded to be readable by a web browser.
But so-called Web 2.0 technologies—the hallmark of social networking sites including Facebook—allow virtually anyone with access to the site to instantaneously contribute and make changes. By integrating similar technology into Oneplace, Capital One’s HR team transformed the organization’s site from a static tool—mostly housing HR materials from benefits forms and training schedules to the employee handbook—to a lively forum for employees to post, share and critique ideas.
How It Works
The Capital One employee directory serves as the cornerstone of Oneplace.
In line with Facebook and MySpace, the site allows staff members to post personal profiles and photos. Currently, about 2,000 employees list themselves, including descriptions of their job duties and areas of expertise.
More recently, the company added an online bulletin board for employees to post messages on topics of their choice, work-related or not. One of the liveliest discussions centered on ways to make the company more environmentally friendly. But other recent discussions have focused on topics such as sports. So-called “Community of Practice” sites allow employees to post tips and discuss specific aspects of their jobs.
Employees can search the ever-growing site using a Google-type search engine.
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Timeline: 'OnePlace' Rollout
2007
March: Completed initial planning for the addition of Web 2.0 technology to the intranet site, Oneplace.
July: Redesigned the corporate web site in preparation for the introduction of new technologies.
November: Added the personal profile and people-search functions to Oneplace.
November: Added informal interactive videos to Oneplace, including a “Man on the Street” and “Meet an Associate” series.
December: Introduced collaborative technology that allows users to post changes and comments to online materials.
2008
March: Launch of online bulletin board with discussion threads; Google search tool enhanced.
May: Enabled employees to rate material posted on Oneplace.
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Growing Needs
As Schuyler sees it, online collaboration fits in with Capital One’s management philosophy.
“We view work not as a place you go, but a thing you do,” he says, noting that the company has a tradition of supporting flexible workplaces since many employees work at home or from more than one office.
In such an environment, he says, online communication, including state-of-the-art collaborative tools, become a business imperative.
The need for collaboration and networking was punctuated following Capital One’s acquisition of North Fork Bank of Melville, N.Y. Once the change was final earlier this year, Capital One’s HR professionals needed to quickly acclimate North Fork employees to the company’s culture. The addition of networking tools like blogs, videos and informal features—like “Man on the Street,” the video interviews that the HR department posted to the intranet—helped smooth the transition, Schuyler says.
A Self-Policing Forum
Schuyler admits the idea of giving employees unfettered access to the intranet raises some eyebrows among corporate traditionalists, including the company’s lawyers. But concerns about hurtful, inappropriate or potentially inflammatory postings have so far been unwarranted—in part because each posting includes the author’s name.
“Collaborative technology is self-policing,” says Schuyler. “If someone writes something inappropriate, the next person has something to say about it.”
Schuyler maintains that the success of the enhanced intranet is reflected in employees’ growing reliance on it and by the feedback employees are encouraged to provide. A recent survey found that in the previous month, 96 percent of employees used Oneplace at least once and the typical employee visited the site 14 different days and accessed 85 pages of content. Meanwhile, the site’s developers are using a model known as “agile development” that allows them to roll out features gradually and make improvements to the system based on user feedback.
For Capital One, Schuyler adds, this collaborative process is a natural extension of the culture.
Rita Zeidner is senior writer for HR Magazine.
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SHRM article: 
