Transurban is an Australian-owned, world leading toll-road operator that builds and operates toll roads in Australia, Canada, and the United States.
Client
Transurban
Industry
Infrastructure
Organisation Size
3,000
Country
Australia
Technologies
Microsoft 365
Context
Transurban’s ‘Flex with Tech’ Tech Expo is a full day event that offers staff streamed presentations and learning opportunities, the development of collateral and internal content, and the setup of an intranet site with registration capabilities.
The Tech Expo is aimed to provide greater visibility of how technology supports Transurban and to give staff an opportunity to build useful new skills. The sessions focus on the future of Transurban, developing an understanding of how to use the digital workspace effectively, and being ready for the future of technology.
Engage Squared was delighted to provide communications support and raise awareness of the Tech Expo to employees using M365.
The challenge
Transurban’s Tech Expo was an idea that blossomed from feedback received via a technology survey; the survey indicated employees had an appetite to learn more about the tools they used daily, as well as an opportunity to upskill on tools available to them they may not know about.
Transurban was quick to respond to this feedback and the Tech Expo was meticulously planned as an online event. However with many employees working remotely, it was important to provide everyone with enough time to organise their calendars and attend as many sessions as desired. Communication was key.
With hundreds of change and adoption projects under our belt and proven success in communication campaigns, Engage Squared was brought on board to tackle the challenge with only a few weeks until the day of the event. This was the perfect opportunity for our team of talented Adoption & Change Management (ACM) consultants to utilise our Change as a service offering, which provides customers with the flexibility to steer the direction of ACM activities with expert guidance on what we know will work well, ensuring we meet the needs of the team.
Our approach
To host the event, Transurban used WebEx which initially experienced difficulties integrating with Microsoft Forms, SharePoint and Outlook which were used for event registrations. Our technical consultant soon solved this issue using Power Automate and workflows. Users were able to register for a session via a Microsoft Form which triggered a flow to send a calendar invite in Outlook so attendees could add the selected sessions to their calendar and protect their time.
With their registrations challenge solved, our project team worked closely with Transurban on the amplification of the Tech Expo and began designing and developing the communications campaign, event collateral designs, and Power Platform workflow solutions.
The range of communication activities included:
- Defining key messages
- Creation of communications and engagement timelines
- SharePoint event page development
- Creation of invites, and pre & post event articles
- Design of post expo feedback survey including a report for guiding future events
- Digital designs for communications collateral including email banners and digital screensavers
- Design ideation concepts for promotional materials including Teams backgrounds, digital & printed awareness posters, agenda templates
To ensure longevity of session content, a SharePoint page was designed with dedicated areas for the team to easily store, access and view each session recording. Following the event, we also designed a survey using Microsoft Forms to receive feedback from attendees and measure employee engagement, including opportunities for staff to make suggestions for future events.
We assembled a skilled team of consultants to ensure we could deliver a high-quality engagement, which included individuals from across our ACM, Graphic Design, Development & Technical consultant teams. The team worked collaboratively to ensure the tight timelines were met, with internal and external meetings which increased in frequency the closer we got to the event, to ensure everything was on track and running smoothly. We worked closely with our key stakeholders at Transurban, Renee Hawkett and Susanne Novak, heavily relying on Microsoft Teams to communicate, collaborate and “work out loud”.
The result
There were high expectations for the Tech Expo, and we are proud to have contributed to the attendee numbers which exceeded everyone’s expectations. The overwhelming response from Transurban has been positive among the attendees and stakeholders, including the project sponsor, Susanne Novak.
The outcomes of the Tech Expo include:
- A chance for staff to hear and learn from leaders
- An opportunity to be upskilled in the tools and systems in place at Transurban
- Excitement built around the upcoming Microsoft Teams launch with a well-attended intro session
- Promoting a growth mindset and event inclusivity for all through remote facilitation
- Showcase Transurban’s digital workplace
End of event survey
The end of event survey was also overflowing with encouraging feedback and a clear appetite from the Transurban team to learn, upskill and hear more from leaders regarding technology in similar future events. Survey respondents indicated that this type of event was something that they would like to see again and was a great use of their time.
- “Fantastic day – I hope to see more of them in the future.”
- “Loved the concept and execution.”
- “Great day, enjoyed the sessions and found them interesting and insightful, a nice mix of strategic big picture topics and more granular how to do sessions.”
The survey also brought to light ways in which Transurban could make future events bigger and better, with two key themes identified surrounding the timing of the sessions and tweaking communication channels used to reach, the unreachable.
We are excited to be helping Transurban with their 2023 Tech Expo.
