2026 Best Intranet Award Winners

Through ThoughtFarmer’s Best Intranet Awards, our customers show us what’s possible when intranets are done right. They are so much more than just another workplace tool, but living, breathing digital workplaces that people actually enjoy using.

The number and quality of this year’s submissions blew us away. Our customers just keep outdoing themselves! From beautifully designed experiences to intranets that drive real business results, foster connection, and completely transform the way organizations work. Consider the bar raised. Each submission has been thoughtfully reviewed and scored by our judge panel of ThoughtFarmer team members across various departments.

Without further ado… Here are the winners of the 2026 Best Intranet Awards.

Best intranets for engagement

Highly engaging intranets create spaces where employees actively participate by sharing, commenting, and returning regularly because the experience feels valuable and relevant.

1st place: RICK

RICK‘s intranet, the RICK Hub, is a dynamic, culture-driven platform that turns staff into active participants rather than passive readers. RICK Hub is powered by a strong network of over 50 ‘RICK Hub Champions’ who help create and maintain content across the organization. Engagement is woven into every experience. From shout-outs and open photo galleries to forums like the popular “Good News Friday,” where employees share personal and professional wins. Regular competitions, polls, and gamification features further encourage participation, creating a vibrant digital space.

Using ThoughtFarmer, RICK’s intranet results speak for themselves:

• 86% of employees have earned gamification medals, with hundreds at top-tier engagement levels
• 93% of staff maintain active profiles helping the team stay connected
• The platform supports 42 news feeds and publishes 15+ articles each month, keeping content fresh and relevant
• 169 digital forms streamline everyday processes

The RICK Hub has become an essential, high-traffic destination.

Judge’s remarks: “It was such a treat to review RICK’s intranet, RICK Hub! I’m impressed by how they successfully introduced a new intranet to a long-tenured workforce, especially with clever touches like the homepage QR codes to encourage mobile app adoption. Their use of FormFlow as an engagement tool is a brilliant insight that we don’t see often enough. The team at RICK have built a remarkably supportive culture and the level of care they put into their staff experience is incredible. Huge congratulations on a well-deserved win!” – Carolien Dekeersmaeker, VP of Customer Success

2nd place: Prosperity Credit Union

Prosperity Credit Union’s intranet, Sprout, stands out for its balance of human connection and practical utility. It blends social spaces, staff-driven content, and a highly personalized mascot experience to drive sustained engagement, with comments increasing by over 580% and unique views growing more than 250% since launch.

3rd place (tie): ACCA

ACCA’s intranet, Arthur, excels as a global engagement engine, using employee storytelling and community-driven content to build emotional connection at scale. This is evidenced by over 24,000 likes, 3300 comments, and thousands of employee-created posts across its worldwide workforce.

3rd place (tie): New York State Department of Labor 

New York State Department of Labor’s intranet, DOLi, distinguishes itself through strong leadership-driven engagement and transparency, where active participation from executives has fuelled significant growth. DOLi has facilitated over 27,000 likes, 8,300 comments, and hundreds of staff shout-outs in a single year.

Best intranets for transformation

Transformational intranets show meaningful progress by evolving into more intuitive, useful, and impactful experiences that better support how employees work.

1st place: Northwest Regional Education Service District

Northwest Regional Education Service District completely reimagined their intranet with “The Nest,” transforming it from a static, public-facing site into a vibrant, people-first digital hub. Previously, employees relied heavily on email and struggled with outdated content, poor navigation, and limited opportunities to connect across teams. 

The Nest changed that by introducing a more collaborative, accessible, and engaging experience. It features rich staff profiles, community spaces, and shared ownership of content across departments. 

The impact has been huge. Intranet homepage traffic jumped from around 6,400 views to over 61,000 unique views in a single month, showing a dramatic increase in adoption. At the same time, responsibility for internal communications shifted from one person to a network of 50+ content editors, reducing admin workload and creating a more dynamic, up-to-date platform. Today, The Nest is a welcoming, living space where employees share knowledge, build community, and stay aligned with the organization’s mission.

Judge’s remarks: “Transitioning from a public facing intranet that felt like a static archive, The Nest comes out as a living, breathing hub for staff connection and collaboration. What really stood out to me when reviewing this submission is how the team brought people into every part of the experience, creating rich profiles, community spaces, and shared ownership of content. The attention to culture, accessibility, and belonging makes it feel personal and welcoming for everyone. The Nest truly lives up to its name as a place where people and purpose come together, and it shows what a thoughtful transformation can look like.” – Bradley Warrington, Manager of Technical Support at ThoughtFarmer

2nd place: MTE Consultants

MTE Consultants’s intranet transformation turned a clunky, outdated system into an invaluable daily work tool. The new intranet, Bruce, makes information easier to find. It’s helped deliver organization-wide benefits including less reliance on email and steady usage growth, with total views increasing from 52K to over 80K in a year.

3rd place: Didlake

Didlake’s StarNet refresh had one major focus: simplify how employees get things done. To achieve this, the team introduced clear, task-based navigation and a more engaging, brand-forward experience. The quick boost in adoption speaks for itself, with unique views rising 14% in just a few months.

Best intranets for impact

Impactful intranets make a difference by turning everyday work into measurable gains in efficiency, connection, and performance.

1st place: Western State Bank

Western State Bank’s intranet, The Vault, transformed how the organization communicates, collaborates, and accesses information by replacing fragmented systems with a single, centralized digital workplace. 

The Vault brings policies and procedure documents, employee directories, and department hubs into one intuitive platform. Role-based pages, shared documentation, and collaboration forums make it easy for employees to find answers quickly, connect across locations, and contribute to decision-making, turning the intranet into a true operational backbone for the bank.

The impact has been both measurable and meaningful. Internal communication scores rose from 6.32 to 7.32. That’s the highest on record. Employee familiarity across locations and overall effectiveness also reached all-time highs. Even better, frustration around finding resources dropped off the radar entirely, improving by 17%. Beyond the numbers, The Vault has become the go-to destination for daily work, with employees relying on it to find information, collaborate, and stay informed. Western State Bank’s submission demonstrates how a well-executed intranet can directly improve both employee experience and business outcomes.

Judge’s remarks: “I was so impressed by how Western State Bank used data to uncover key business challenges with knowledge management, communication & culture, and operational effectiveness, and then addressed each challenge through a thoughtful and methodical intranet design. The before and after measurements proved the impact they made and have really raised the bar for this category. Congratulations to Sarah and the team!” – Ben McConkey, Senior Project Manager at ThoughtFarmer

2nd place: DUCA Credit Union

DUCA’s intranet, The Nest, transformed a frustrating, hard-to-trust intranet into a reliable single source of truth. Frontline teams can now quickly find accurate information, with member-facing pages now driving the majority of usage and becoming essential to daily work.

3rd place: IHC

IHC’s intranet refresh focused on making content more relevant and easier to find by tailoring experiences for different teams. The team’s efforts produced impressive engagement gains, including a 19% increase in views, a 72% jump in likes, and a significant boost in mobile usage for frontline staff.

Best intranets for design

The best designed intranets use templates, cohesive color palettes and graphics, eye-catching iconography, and fun mascots.

1st place: New York State Office of Cannabis Management

The New York State Office of Cannabis Management created a thoughtfully designed intranet, STASH, that blends clean, consistent layouts with a warm, human-centered experience. Built to make staff feel supported from the moment they log in, STASH uses calming visuals, structured page templates, and a cohesive color system to reduce friction and make navigation intuitive. 

What truly sets it apart is its strong sense of identity, from its staff-sourced name to its friendly mascot, Sprout McScout, which brings personality and approachability into the digital workplace. By combining clear design standards with employee input and ongoing governance, STASH delivers a polished, engaging experience that reflects OCM’s culture.

Judge’s remarks: “STASH has the most cohesive intranet design in this year’s field. The teal-and-gold template carries with discipline from the homepage through to fourth-level content pages. That kind of consistency is rare. The before-and-after from SharePoint tells a dramatic transformation story. And the cannabis-themed naming throughout (High Vibes, Our Buds, Speak Easy) gives it a personality that’s impossible to forget. Sprout McScout ties it all together with warmth. Bravo to the team.” – Wil Arndt, Creative Director at OXD/ThoughtFarmer

2nd place: Harris County Department of Education (HCDE)

HCDE’s “The Portal” delivers a bold, space-themed intranet experience that pairs a distinctive visual identity with intuitive, card-based layouts. The design makes it easy for employees to navigate the intranet, find information quickly, and feel connected to a modern, forward-looking workplace. With over 540,000 total page views and 1,179 active users recorded over the past year, the data clearly shows staff enjoy engaging with the intranet.

3rd place: Winnipeg Airports Authority

Winnipeg Airports Authority’s “Flight Deck” stands out for its employee-driven identity. By combining aviation-inspired visuals with an evolving mascot and playful design elements, they created a dynamic intranet that feels like a community gathering place rather than a traditional corporate tool.

There’s more to come from the 2026 Best Intranet Awards

A huge congratulations to all of this year’s winners. Your work truly sets the standard for what great intranets can be. To everyone who took the time to submit, thank you. The creativity, care, and innovation we saw across every entry made this one of the most exciting (and toughest) years yet.

With more submissions than ever and an incredibly high bar across every category, our judges had no easy task narrowing it down. It’s clear that organizations everywhere are rethinking what their intranet can be, and the results are nothing short of inspiring.

We’re just getting started. Stay tuned for our upcoming edition of the Award-Winning Intranets ebook where we’ll take a closer look at the stories, strategies, and ideas behind these incredible intranets.

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