Launching Workplace: example guidelines and FAQs

Workplace is a business collaboration tool operated by Facebook, with groups, messaging and instant chat for open and easy communication.

Workplace allows users quickly look up team members, post about their work, follow a feed of colleagues’ updates, discuss projects in groups or watch a live video broadcast by the leadership team. The tool also supports features such as screen-sharing, file sharing, message reactions, mentions and other typical social media content actions.

As part of an ongoing digital transformation strategy at Hampshire Cultural Trust, we rolled out Workplace as an upgrade for our intranet, primarily to:

• Help create a culture of belonging, passion and commitment to nurture a sense of team.
• Provide a single source of truth for information and enable simple document retrieval.
• Efficiently disseminate information across our organisation.

We developed two documents to support the roll out of Workplace across our organisation: Workplace guidelines and a set of FAQs.

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Workplace Guidelines

A guide for staff and volunteers on Workplace, the trust’s internal communications tool

Why this guidance exists

Workplace is the chosen internal communications platform for staff and volunteers at Hampshire Cultural Trust. This guidance exists to explain how to use Workplace, when to use Workplace and to set some general guidelines around its use.

What is Workplace?

Workplace is an internal social media channel where HCT staff and volunteers can connect, communicate and collaborate.

Workplace is operated by Facebook, but staff and volunteer accounts are entirely separate from personal Facebook accounts. It is a great place to share knowledge and communicate with team members and colleagues across the trust about projects and events.

Workplace, email or Basecamp?

Workplace does not replace existing tools and systems, but it does help streamline and improve day-to-day communication and collaboration. There is still email, project management tools such as Basecamp, face-to-face meetings and, of course, the telephone!

When to use Workplace

Workplace is designed as a chat and collaboration platform, and can be used as a primary communications tool for team discussions, file sharing, internal events and knowledge sharing.

Typical scenarios – use Workplace when sending a photo to colleagues, sharing an interesting article, or hosting a video/audio meeting.

When to use email

Email still has its place in the Workplace world, mainly for formal and outward-facing communication. Critical, secure or legal communications which require proof of delivery and date stamps are well suited to email.

Sensitive information in particular should always be kept private and email is often the best option if sharing is required.

Typical scenarios – use email when responding to a customer enquiry, or sending a document to an external contact.

When to use Basecamp

Basecamp is a project management tool designed to keep everything in one place for projects which typically have a start and finish date.

It’s a great platform for big projects which include people across multiple locations, providing tools for discussion, file storage, to-do lists and schedules. There are also tools to manage third parties such as suppliers or freelancers, which can streamline creative project management and get things moving more quickly.

Ultimately, project management tools are designed to keep things in one place – project managers love Basecamp.

Typical scenarios – use Basecamp when planning an exhibition, or managing a specific project from start to end.

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Getting started with Workplace

HCT staff will receive an email from Workplace which will include a link. To activate your account, select the link. This will take you to the login page, where you will be able to log in using your email address as your user ID; your password will be the same as your HCT user account.

For volunteers that have given permission to be contacted, you will receive an invitation to set up an account. Volunteers and other users who do not have access to Workplace will be able to make a request to register for a Workplace account. This request can be made through the people team.

When you have set up your account, you will be able to create and populate your profile and add contact details.

Groups

When you join Workplace, you will automatically be part of a certain number of groups, including General, where important trust news and announcements will be posted. Within Groups, you can assign tasks, share feedback, tag colleagues and post updates. You can join or create as many groups as you like, your team, venue, work stream or specific projects – if you are not sure which groups to join, ask your manager, colleagues or Workplace champion to see which ones they belong to.

Chat

Workplace Chat is a simple tool you can use to communicate with colleagues via instant messaging, GIFs, stickers, emojis or an iconic thumbs-up. It can be used to host video conferences, send voice clips, run polls and even to share your current location with colleagues if you’re on the move. Workplace Chat can be used as a dedicated app or as part of the wider Workplace interface.

Knowledge Sharing

Workplace is a great tool for sharing content and posting links, particularly to groups. Monthly team updates will be shared via Workplace, giving you the opportunity to discuss current performance and provide regular feedback.

Policies, procedures and useful documents

Workplace is a central repository for HCT policies, procedures and useful documents. If you know the document you are looking for you can use the search bar, alternatively there are four dedicated document groups: Manager’s Tool Kit, Employee Tool Kit, Health and Safety Documents, Policies and Procedures. These groups can be pinned to your shortcuts for ease of access.

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General guidance

Workplace provides a safe internal communications environment for all staff and volunteers. This simple set of rules will help ensure it is used in a manner that is respectful to others and enables everyone to participate.

• Workplace is a work tool – Workplace is an internal social media platform that is intended for use for HCT-related matters only and not for personal use. Keep your comments and posts concise and to the point.
• Respect your colleagues – Workplace is a platform to connect and work together. Be respectful, courteous and civilised and behave as you would in a face-to-face conversation. Do not use inappropriate language, swearing and vulgarities.
• Do not post offensive content – Do not post anything that may be deemed to be offensive to a particular race, gender, nationality, ethnicity, disability, religion, cultural background or political leaning.
• Sharing sensitive information – If you have confidential or sensitive information to share, think about your group’s permissions and members – a private group (referred to as a secret group on Workplace) is good for sharing to a specific audience. Alternatively, a different platform, for example email, may be a better tool to use.
• Take part in the discussion – Workplace is all about collaboration, ‘work out loud’ by asking questions and offering knowledge.
• Tag colleagues in important posts – Tagging is a great way to keep the entire team involved and informed – update colleagues by tagging them in your posts or comments.
• Customise notifications – Customise your notification settings for groups and posts to make sure you know what’s happening and don’t miss important updates.
• Read content carefully before posting – Check for errors, tone and words that could be misunderstood – your posts reflect your professionalism.
• Is it urgent? If you want to contact a colleague about something that is urgent or requires an instant decision, call them – do not assume that colleagues are available instantly to respond to your posts.
• Update your profile – Please check that your profile information is accurate. If you have any queries about this please contact the communications officer. Uploading a profile photo is, of course, optional but helpful for your colleagues.

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Workplace FAQs

What is Workplace?

Workplace is a business tool operated by Facebook, with groups, messaging and instant chat for open and easy communication.

As well as being the go-to place for the latest news and team updates, to share information and to connect with colleagues across HCT, Workplace will be the primary platform to access the policies and documents currently held on the intranet, which will be phased out over the coming months.

Why are we using Workplace?

Spread across the length and breadth of Hampshire and concentrating on very different venues and projects, we work in a complex and diverse organisation – how we share knowledge and talk to each other is key to our success.

To achieve this, we need an effective, efficient and easy-to-use means for staff and volunteers to communicate with each other. Following a successful pilot period in 2019, Workplace will be our new home for internal communications.

Is Workplace the same as Facebook?

No – your Workplace account is totally separate from your personal Facebook account. Please read our Workplace guidelines to find out how and when to use Workplace.

How do I sign into my account?

You’ll receive an invitation email from Workplace to activate your account. Click on the activation link and log in using your work email address. You will login using single sign on (SSO) which uses the same password as your work account, so you only need to remember one set of credentials.

Volunteers will be able to request access via the People team.

How do I know which groups to join?

When you join Workplace, you’ll automatically be part of a selection of default groups where important news, announcements and documents will be posted.

You can customize your experience by joining and creating new groups; each HCT venue has its own group, as well as a number of role-based groups. If you’re not sure where to start, explore the groups that your manager and colleagues have joined. Alternatively, seek out a Workplace champion who will endeavour to assist you!

How do I download the mobile and chat applications?

Workplace has two dedicated apps; a mobile and a chat application. These are available for Android and iOS via the respective app stores. The Workplace chat app is great for audio and video calls.

How do I manage my notifications?

You can’t turn off notifications entirely, but you can adjust how you’re notified and what you’re notified about. Please read the notification settings support article here:

https://www.facebook.com/help/work/880591925360314

What if I have other questions or feedback about Workplace?

Workplace champions have been nominated from across the trust and have been trained to assist staff and volunteers in getting started and becoming confident in using Workplace.

We want to know what you think about Workplace, so please ask questions and give feedback in the HCT Workplace Help Desk:

https://hantsculture.workplace.com/groups/hct.help.desk/

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