STO Building Group

How STO Building Group created its award-winning Intranet, CONNECT, with ThoughtFarmer.

STO’s company background

STO Building Group was established in 2017 and has grown into a thriving privately-owned construction company with over 14 firms and 54 offices across the United States of America, Canada, the UK, and Europe. 

What makes STO Building Group unique is their commitment to allowing each of their brands to operate as a local business, giving customers the best of both worlds – the experience and knowledge of a large-scale, global company with the service and customer-focused attitude of working with a local expert. 

STO’s existing SharePoint intranet made supporting multiple firms challenging

As STO Building Group expanded and added new firms to its portfolio, the existing SharePoint site they used for internal communications was no longer sufficient. Mainly operated by their corporate team, its limited functionality failed to provide their firms, departments, and employees the autonomy to create local company content. Put simply, the previous SharePoint platform just couldn’t keep pace with their growing workforce’s needs.

When searching for a new intranet solution, STO Building Group was faced with a unique challenge. They needed a platform that could not only equip over a dozen individual construction firms with their own customizable intranet, but also enable internal communications from the overarching STO Building Group that would keep all the brands looped in and connected.

Evaluating and choosing ThoughtFarmer

Having recognized this gap, the head office team began an exhaustive process of evaluating intranet providers. They had a vision of building an interactive intranet called CONNECT that would do just that: connect the firms across their growing company while empowering them to have their own separate intranet customized to their unique brand and needs. 

The team interviewed three vendors, evaluating each for functionality, user experience, and design, and ultimately chose ThoughtFarmer as their intranet partner. STO Building Group knew it had the potential to foster collaboration, innovation, and unity within their organization by leveraging ThoughtFarmer’s interactive features.

Ensuring a successful implementation

A strategic and well-thought-out implementation process was crucial to ensure a successful launch and good adoption. Here are a few key steps the STO Building Group Team took to ensure a successful implementation:

1. Organized training workshops to familiarize themselves with the platform.
2. Conducted a comprehensive content audit to streamline and organize information. 
3. Uploaded documents, and set up pages, sections, and news posts.
4. Provided training sessions to empower content owners with skills to use the platform effectively.

ThoughtFarmer’s Professional Services supported a mass file migration

ThoughtFarmer has supported countless clients on their unique journeys of setting up a thriving intranet. STO Building Group brought in the ThoughtFarmer Professional Services team to advise on an appropriate and methodical approach for document organization and governance. The team still uses it today.

Our team also helped STO Building Group pull off a mass migration of their files  from SharePoint to ThoughtFarmer, ensuring no important company information was lost.

How CONNECT is streamlining communications across the globe

CONNECT was developed to serve as more than just an intranet. CONNECT embodies STO Building Group’s core principle: “We are a family of builders where culture and legacy are intentionally preserved.” 

Here’s how the ThoughtFarmer platform helped:

ThoughtFarmer Groups supported 14 firms within one centralized intranet

With offices spanning multiple cities worldwide, maintaining overarching company culture and the unique identity of each of the individual builder firms is paramount. CONNECT needed to integrate fourteen distinct intranets into one cohesive platform, facilitating efficient communication and fostering engagement. 

Departing from the conventional top-down approach to corporate communication, CONNECT enables individual companies within STO Building Group to share news and updates directly on their own intranet without having to go through corporate. By providing a platform for brainstorming, vetting, and posting content on their respective local company sections, CONNECT fosters engagement and ownership. 

Using ThoughtFarmer’s Groups functionality, a user is sent to their individual firm’s landing page when accessing the intranet – instead of the overarching STO Building Group page. 

However, staff can still access information about other firms and STO Building Group as a whole. The corporate team even pulls content from firm and department pages to showcase news that the rest of the organization may be interested in. 

Staff love the updates – CONNECT’s homepage has received over 1.7 million views since launching in 2023.

Further, CONNECT can be tailored to each employee’s needs. Staff can opt-in to receive real-time notifications of news feeds from any firm or department of interest, keeping them informed about updates that matter to them.

CONNECT also has an easy-to-use employee directory. With over 135,000 views, the directory makes it simple for staff to look up who’s who. Best of all? The directory auto-populates, making maintenance easy.

A flexible design system enabled each firm to create their own unique digital space

Not only did STO Building Group’s new intranet solution need to allow each firm to share out their own information, it also needed to be easy to design with, so each firm could express their unique brand identity.

ThoughtFarmer’s easy-to-use design system simplifies navigation across the site for employees. To avoid uniformity, the CONNECT platform empowers each firm to craft their own unique digital space, allowing for a personalized experience that reflects their distinct identity.

With a focus on inclusivity and collaboration, CONNECT encourages active participation and engagement. Its flexibility in both design and content allows for essential updates and announcements to be accessible to all employees while preserving each company’s culture. 

A mobile-friendly intranet keeps staff connected on the go

The unique nature of construction and engineering firms mean that a large portion of staff are constantly on the go – meeting with clients, driving to and from job sites, etc. Because of this, a mobile intranet app was essential.

CONNECT is available on any mobile device, helping the team stay connected and access important information wherever they are, and promoting seamless collaboration and timely decision-making.

An automated newsletter makes it easy to highlight wins

Going a step further, the team wanted to develop an automated newsletter to consolidate key updates and wins across the company. They launched a weekly internal newsletter, ‘What’s New on CONNECT?’, that automatically consolidates updates into one email. The newsletter has concise teasers that link to news within CONNECT, driving staff back to the intranet. It’s accessible from both a laptop or mobile device. 

The newsletter helps push information out, but also streamlines communication and helps the team send less emails overall. 

Looking forward with CONNECT

CONNECT has been a resounding success. 

Not only has CONNECT been a hit internally, STO Building Group won ThoughtFarmer’s 2024 Best Intranet Awards in the Innovation Category for demonstrating a unique solution that breaks the boundaries of typical intranet usage.

STO Building Group has no plans to slow down. Equipped with their new intranet CONNECT, the company is well positioned for a future characterized by smooth communication, flourishing creativity, and enduring shared values.