Digi-digest | You need a hero: The Triforce of IT, HR and IC

Online rollouts live and die by who looks after them. Lead digital consultant Tony Stewart is a champion of our Eight pillars of digital success, but as he reminds us, victory starts with a hero leading the charge.

It’s all about ownership

Getting that flourishing digital community off the ground starts with clear ownership of your digital employee experiences. But what does that look like? To me, it looks like the Legend of Zelda video game series.

Hear me out on this! In the series, the protagonist Link goes after the Triforce of Power – three parts of a whole that represent Power, Wisdom and Courage. In your digital rollouts, Link is whoever’s driving the project – a Community Manager, Project Owner or someone in comms driving the change.

Without the Triforce, Link can’t be at his most powerful, and that’s where your IT, HR and IC teams come in. Without cooperation between these three vital business functions and the person owning the project, you’ll have a hard time getting your digital community off the ground in a meaningful way.

You need IT

They’re the ones who support the functionality of the platform.

You’ll need enough licenses for the number of employees you want to join and they’ll need to be able to toggle the features they need. And you’ll need to make sure the login procedure and access to the platform are as easy as possible.

Without IT, the platform could be a nightmare to use, or might not have the functionality you need to support your vision. And if it’s too difficult to use, your people will simply abandon it.

You need HR

Your people need to feel represented on the platform.

The HR team make sure things like the rules of engagement are protected and if there’s a wobble in the community, it’s appropriately responded to.

They’ll connect you to Employee Resource Groups, as well as being an important source of news, insights and discussion when it comes to matters that affect your people – e.g. diversity and inclusion, wellbeing and corporate social responsibility.

Without HR onboard, the platform can feel like a Wild West, with little to offer that actually represents your people.

You need IC

They make sure the behaviours you’ve defined in your vision are facilitated and encouraged.

In your online communities, the IC team can and should be helping drive:

• Better business strategy understanding

• Improved connection with leaders

• Better cross-departmental and geographic dialogue

• Culture ambitions

• Useful insights into what your employees think and feel about working for the business.

Without IC onboard, you’ll miss the opportunity to motivate your online communities in line with your business goals and objectives.

And you need a hero

You need your very own Link driving the vision. Your hero needs to ‘link’ these separate business functions together to support the ambitions of the platform. They could be in IT, HR, IC or the C-suite – where they sit in the business doesn’t matter. They just need the strategy and the drive to deliver it.

That’s a discussion to have upfront as part of your vision and strategy for your digital employee experiences. Those conversations can be tricky in any business, but I can’t stress enough how important it is to agree upon this role.

Then you’re truly ready to start building your ‘Eight pillars of digital success’ and see wonderful things happen across your employee communities.

Finding your Triforce Heroes

Need help navigating those conversations? If you’re building a business case for your hero role or getting naysayers in those IT, HR and IC functions onboard, we’d love to help. Get in touch.