How WERTGARANTIE boosted engagement by involving every employee in the intranet

Key stats

1200

employees

650

daily users

+300%

posts

Industry:

Banking & Insurance

Use case:

Intranet

Partner:

ACP

As a group specialising in insurance and warranty services, the WERTGARANTIE Group insures everything from household and consumer electronics, bicycles, smart home systems and domestic pipework. Whether a washing machine breaks down, a smartphone is damaged or a bicycle is stolen, WERTGARANTIE takes care of it.

The group’s headquarters are located in the heart of Hanover, centrally at “Aegi”, where around 770 employees work. In addition, the WERTGARANTIE brand operates in Austria, Luxembourg, Belgium and the Netherlands. The group also includes Société Française de Garantie (France) and Garante (Spain). In total, the WERTGARANTIE Group employs more than 1,200 people.

The challenge

The biggest challenge was finding a replacement for the previous intranet solution as quickly as possible. The old system was no longer functional on new servers, so the WERTGARANTIE Group decided to implement a new intranet alongside the server migration.

This presented an opportunity to modernize the intranet. The “old” solution, for example, could only be used on mobile devices to a limited extent. Employees had to connect to the server remotely via Citrix. This was cumbersome, uncomfortable and prevented spontaneous interaction, especially as the system was not designed to be responsive.

The new system was intended to take internal communication to the next level, improve (mobile) collaboration and team exchange, and strengthen employee engagement.

Why the WERTGARANTIE Group chose Haiilo

Thanks to the demo version, the decision to choose Haiilo as the new intranet solution was very easy for the WERTGARANTIE Group. This gave the company an early impression of what its future intranet would look like.

Ease of use was particularly important to the team. All relevant information needed to be quickly accessible on mobile devices in the new social intranet. An integrated app was included alongside the desktop version on the requirements list.

The new system needed to be easy and intuitive to use for employees, as well as for communication managers and administrators – even without any programming knowledge.

At the same time, the system had to be adaptable to new requirements. Haiilo met all of these criteria.

Fast implementation thanks to a strong partner

Given the circumstances, speed was essential when implementing the new intranet. Thanks to the support of Haiilo partner ACP, and the flexibility of the Haiilo platform, the process moved at pace. Less than five months passed between project start and the go-live in October 2021.

How Haiilo was rolled out across the company

In addition to technical and time-related challenges, one key aspect of introducing the new system was ensuring that all stakeholders were involved early on. To achieve this, the WERTGARANTIE Group created a project plan that included all relevant stakeholders:

• The Executive Board, managers and Works Council were involved in selecting the right system.
• Editors, who had previously been mainly responsible for intranet communications, were also engaged early.
• A test group made up of employees from different departments was formed. They tested the Haiilo platform, both the web version and the app.

The project plan accompanied the introduction of Haiilo through three key phases:

1. Enablement

Editors and content creators from the various departments were trained on the new communication platform. Raising management awareness of the new communication approach and responsibilities was also part of the agenda.

2. Roll-out

During the first two months after go-live, the old and new intranet systems ran in parallel. This gave employees time to familiarise themselves with the new platform and gradually migrate relevant data and content. From day one, Haiilo was set as the standard system and opened automatically when the browser started.

To make onboarding easier, Haiilo was visually and structurally aligned with the old system. The name “connect” was also retained (aside from the switch from capital to lowercase letters), ensuring a high level of recognition. There was no need for extensive launch campaigns to familiarize employees with the new intranet.

The WERTGARANTIE Group also opted for a smart Microsoft 365 integration, allowing employees to access their familiar collaboration tools directly from the Haiilo platform.

3. Real-time support

In the first few months after the roll-out, the internal communications team organized live presentations across ten sessions. These gave employees a detailed insight into the structure, functionality and features of the Haiilo platform.

In addition, the communications team made it their mission to support colleagues at all times with any questions, concerns or challenges relating to the new system. They guide employees through the platform, explain features and provide editorial support for posts.

A platform for all user types

In its first year alone, the WERTGARANTIE Group’s Haiilo platform “connect” reached around 650 daily users. To ensure that all employees were reached, user groups (personas) were defined in advance: Interested Users, Drop-offs, Informers and Networkers. The goal was for every employee to be able to use the intranet in a way that best supports their day-to-day work.

For example, “Interested Users” have their own start page with links to engaging magazine articles on the website and the latest blog posts. Information from bodies such as the Works Council and the Representative Body for Severely Disabled Employees is also collected here.

A dedicated page was also created for “Drop-offs”, providing links to other portals and relevant pages.



For field staff, the mobile app is particularly valuable. It improves connectivity for employees working outside the office. In a dedicated sales community, they collect important information and share it with the wider organisation when relevant.

The full-text search is another major plus for everyday work. This Haiilo feature ensures that everyone can quickly find exactly the information they need.

Haiilo and the WERTGARANTIE Group: real-life use cases

Haiilo has not only improved information retrieval and collaboration within the company, but sustainably strengthened employee engagement. One way the WERTGARANTIE Group achieves this is by actively using thel intranet to recognize employees and give them a voice.

Lived appreciation through a birthday community

Birthdays and anniversaries have always been celebrated at the WERTGARANTIE Group, complete with “birthday sponsorships”, decorated desks, gifts and cake.

With the new intranet, the celebrations have moved into the digital space as well. A widget on the main homepage highlights upcoming birthdays so no special day is forgotten. In addition, there is a dedicated community called “Birthdays, anniversaries and more”, which is regularly used for congratulations and thank-you messages, whether in text or image form.

Celebrating success together



WERTGARANTIE’s 60th anniversary was, of course, also celebrated on the intranet. To mark the anniversary year in 2023, a dedicated page was created featuring videos from the kick-off event and blog posts on the topic. Employees could also take part directly in the interactive campaign “I think WERTGARANTIE is brilliant because …”.

Information straight from the source

With the intranet page “Board Updates”, the WERTGARANTIE Group ensures transparent top-down communication. Through the written format “First-hand”, the Executive Board provides employees directly with all important information and updates.

Real stories from everyday work

Haiilo also serves as a stage for employees at the WERTGARANTIE Group. Through the format “3 questions for …”, colleagues can share their stories and talk about people, projects, tasks, challenges and successes.

Overall, the intranet’s blog module is very popular and widely used to tell stories and share knowledge.

Results: increased active intranet usage

Thanks to the strong support of the Haiilo team and partner ACP, the transition to the new intranet ran smoothly. Employees at the WERTGARANTIE Group responded very positively to the new format from the outset. In an internal survey conducted after one year of using Haiilo, 97% of participating users said they felt confident navigating the new system.

Usage is also very active. More and more teams, departments and business units want to introduce themselves on the intranet and keep colleagues informed about projects and progress. In the old system, content creation was largely handled by the marketing department. Today, the entire workforce is involved, and the internal communications team increasingly takes on a moderating role rather than creating content themselves.

Using the integrated analytics tools, the WERTGARANTIE Group can directly measure and evaluate employee engagement and intranet activity. Within the first year, the following KPIs were recorded:

• Three times as many posts (around 4,000 in total)
• Twice as many interactions (around 36,000 in total)
• Around 650 active users out of 800 user profiles (daily peak)
• 13 information pages
• 42 communities