Becoming Coleg Cambria: How Happeo United Campuses for Connection and Knowledge-Sharing

Coleg Cambria, a vibrant college with locations across North Wales, UK, faced a common challenge for institutions built through merger: a scattered legacy of information. Formed through the merger of three colleges over 15 years, Coleg Cambria needed a way to bring institutional knowledge across its five locations and 1445+ employees into one place.

Seeking a Solution to Support a Growing, Modern College

Before Happeo, Coleg Cambria used an in-house intranet hosted on their own servers. But their mergers revealed issues with their intranet setup. "The challenge we had in the mergers was communication and management of staffers [spread across locations]. We had a lot of information internally hosted," explains Adam Cleaver, Director of Technology at Coleg Cambria. "Finding anything was a chore, and maintaining it was resource-intensive with our limited web team."

The college's previous system simply wasn't built to keep information findable at the pace a growing institution needed. “It was very time consuming and administratively heavy”, recalls Owain Roberts, Head of Marketing at Coleg Cambria. Before Happeo, they used an internally hosted webpage for static information, as well as email for mass communications, including a monthly staff update newsletter that covered updates for different groups of staff across all colleges. “There wasn’t really a way to communicate and interact with staff. It was very much a one way travel of communication [...], which also created information overload”. Clearly, the old system was no longer working.

"We needed a cloud-based solution that reflected our ethos - simple, clean, and organized," says Adam. Fortuitously, only a month before the COVID-19 lockdowns, their search for a new system led Coleg Cambria to Happeo.

Coleg Cambria’s Must-Haves

Coleg Cambria had a number of requirements for an intranet solution.

Each college had their own information and knowledge cultures, which created a disconnect in how information was recorded, stored, and used. They needed a platform that could level these differences through effective and transparent communication.

2. Clean, simple, and organized.

The previous intranet had grown into a “monster” of unfindable information, having been added to for years. They needed attractive but simple pages, easy navigation, with straightforward and tailored Channel communication.

3. Moving to the Cloud

Hosting their intranet locally was an IT headache. They were looking for a provider that could host on the Cloud, removing the tech dependency and security responsibilities that previously burdened their teams.

Their one-way, top down communication was not working. They sought out a platform that would empower staff to create content and communicate with colleagues and leadership alike to foster an open communication culture and a larger sense of connection across colleges.

5. Google integration

As early Google adopters, it was crucial for the platform to integrate seamlessly with Google tools so that employees could benefit from centralized content.

Coleg Cambria’s Launch

Coleg Cambria’s has incredibly strong engagement, with a remarkable 95% of staff logging on regularly to their Happeo environment. This was partially possible, at least at first, due to the pandemic. But depending on the pandemic isn’t, and wasn’t, their strategy. “We stopped the mass emails because we wanted to drive people to the site.” By fully committing to the narrative that their Happeo environment was their central source of truth, it encouraged staff to check in regularly for updates.

Another significant impact was their leadership buy-in. “Our CEO provided frequent updates, 2 to 3 times a week, to share information and connect”. This was pivotal in establishing the culture and signaling that the new intranet was the place to go for updates.

In terms of longevity, Adam Cleaver credits Channels as one of the biggest reasons that staff members consistently came back to the platform. “There’s communities there that talk and engage. They discuss health and wellbeing, they have Channels for each location, and lots of little communities on there”. By allowing staff to opt-in to what was interesting or relevant to them, and consequently, allowing them to customize part of their news experience, staffers were naturally more interested in logging on and seeing what’s new.

"Happeo is just an invaluable platform for us. It has provided us with a platform to truly connect as one college. We have been able to bridge the geographical gap, streamline communication, and foster a culture of knowledge sharing. We're excited to see how Happeo continues to evolve and support our growth." - Adam Cleaver, Director of Technology, Coleg Cambria

Happeo in Action: Organizing and Surfacing College Knowledge

Since implementing Happeo, Cambria has seen a significant improvement in how institutional knowledge is organized, found, and shared, as well as its communication.

• Centralized Information Hub: Happeo serves as a central repository for vital college knowledge. Departments maintain dedicated content pages, ensuring policies, support resources, and pay & pension information are easy to find rather than scattered across systems.
• Streamlining Communication: Channels dedicated to things like news and notices or focused on student successes and events allow for targeted and engaging communication across departments and locations.
• Distributed Content Ownership: Staff have ownership of their content and the knowledge they share. This has not only empowered staff but has also eased the pressure on the college's marketing team, allowing them to focus their efforts on student recruitment and other key strategic aims.
• Keeping Policy Knowledge Current: During the COVID-19 pandemic, Happeo proved invaluable. "We kept all 1445 employees up-to-date with the latest policies through regular announcements," says Adam. These efforts were recognized during a recent government audit, with Happeo receiving high praise for its role in facilitating information flow.

The college also realized the importance of user education. Coleg Cambria has established a committee to drive platform maturity and launched user campaigns to ensure everyone feels comfortable navigating Happeo. This collaborative approach empowers departments to take ownership of their content, fostering a stronger sense of shared responsibility for the college's knowledge base.

Their platform leaders acknowledge the need to continuously reiterate and adapt. “We’re learning all the time, we continue to hone it down, and we’ll continue to do that as we review the platform and speak to staff on a regular basis”. They understood that running a successful intranet goes far beyond choosing the strongest fitting platform and guiding it to launch: it takes ongoing work and feedback to make sure that staff are getting what they need out of their home base.

Over the past few years, Coleg Cambria's engagement results have shown to be above industry average, with over 800 daily active users and an 85% search adoption rate — a strong indicator that information once described as "a chore" to find is now consistently easy to surface. The college's plans for the future of the platform include implementation of Happeo's AI offerings and ongoing measurement of content performance to align to user needs.