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Intranet DASHBOARD Pilots Jetstar's Intranet

Intranet Journal - 6 March 2009

In the airline industry, where change is the only constant, effective internal communication is vital. In late 2007, after realizing its existing intranet was creating a communication bottleneck, Qantas Group airline, Jetstar, implemented Intranet DASHBOARD (iD) with the aim of passing ownership of the intranet from the IT department into the hands of the broader business.

Launched in mid 2008, the project has been a resounding success, with the intranet widely regarded as the "source of truth" by those whose opinions matter most -- Jetstar's employees. Adoption and usage of the intranet is close to 100 percent of Jetstar's almost 3,000 employees and contract staff, in just the fourth month of go-live.

Client Profile

Jetstar is a value-based, low-fares airline whose mission is to give more people the opportunity to fly more often by offering consistently lower fares. A fully owned subsidiary of Qantas Airways, Jetstar has tripled in size since its launch in May 2004 and has ambitions to grow ten-fold by 2011. It plans to operate a fleet of more than 100 aircraft inside the next decade.

As both a domestic and international carrier, Jetstar's 3,000-strong direct and indirect workforce including pilots, cabin crew, airport staff, engineers, and head office personnel are geographically dispersed across the Asia Pacific region. With two thirds of the company's workforce not office based and continuously on the move, effective communication is both a priority and a challenge for Jetstar -- in particular within a rapidly growing business within an ever changing commercial and economic dynamic.

Communication Challenge

In late 2007, Jetstar recognized it needed a more flexible and robust intranet solution that would allow for free-flowing communication and position it for growth. Jeff Martin, IT Project Manager for Jetstar, recalls: "We had simply grown up as a business and were starting to experience limitations in being able to communicate what we wanted when we wanted."

This communication bottleneck was a result of Jetstar's original intranet being designed using open source software which made it heavily dependent on IT's involvement at every juncture. "Even the weekly e-newsletter needed IT's involvement, which made such simple tasks both time consuming and expensive," Martin explained.

Jetstar wanted an intranet solution that was non IT centric, easy to use and that would always be accessible to its highly mobile workforce. It also desired an Intranet with a useable interface for its workforce to better present key corporate and operational information in a more interesting, user friendly way through to providing working tools and information that made day to day working life easier for its multiple users.

The specific goals for the new intranet were to:
  • Make life easier for pilots, cabin crew, and airport staff to build a more efficient workplace;
  • Move from paper based forms into the online world to save costs and improve efficiency;
  • Make it easy to find employee contact details across a geographically dispersed workforce;
  • Promptly update staff with important corporate and staff communications; and
  • Take IT out of the loop for publishing content and move the function to the carrier's Corporate Communications Department.

The Business Case

Martin conducted extensive research into intranet best practice and with the support of the Project Sponsor, Simon Westaway -- General Manager of Corporate Relations -- developed a business case centred on achieving efficient communications that meant staff would have ready access to accurate information at all times.

"We wanted the intranet to become part of people's day to day; the place to go to get things done," Martin said. While many of the desired benefits from the intranet were intangible, three KPIs aimed at measuring success were to:
  • Experience a steady increase in intranet traffic, measured by site statistics;
  • Generate positive user feedback, sourced from an intranet user survey;
  • Improve staff efficiency and behaviours and move many paper based functions to an online medium.

Requirements included reducing paper consumption, fax costs and employee turnover through mobile staff in particular being more connected and engaged with Jetstar.

In November 2007, a closed tender was issued to three potential suppliers, and in January 2008, The ADWEB Agency's Intranet DASHBOARD was named the preferred solution. Martin explained: "We had confidence that iD would live up to its promise and do what The ADWEB Agency said it would do. Its ease of use was a big selling point, especially the administration components as Jetstar's key drive was to devolve content administration and maintenance to the business functions that are already extremely busy.

"iD's pricing model also suited us, as you only pay for the number of administrator licenses you need rather than per user. From a technical perspective, the fact that it is built on Microsoft's .NET platform and leverages Active Directory was also important." Martin added.

"Last but not least, iD's external access capabilities were a huge benefit. With three quarters of our workforce regularly on the move, we needed the intranet to be easily accessible from hotel rooms, airport departure lounges or wherever our staff might find themselves needing the latest company information."

Solution Design and Deployment

While Jetstar was looking for an easy to use solution, they also wanted to utilize iD to its full potential so they worked closely with The ADWEB Agency over a three month period to design and launch the new intranet.

A key design feature included the introduction of role-based landing pages, dedicated areas on the site for cabin crew, pilots, and other staff groups that provides a centralized place for all the information they're likely to need, reducing the number of "clicks" it takes for a Jetstar employee to find what they're looking for.

Michael Curry, Jetstar's Digital Communications Advisor and the person responsible for populating the intranet with content, explained: "Pilots are required to consume a lot of important safety information and it changes all the time. The role based landing pages make it fast and easy for them to find exactly what they're looking for."

By the time the site was launched in June 2008, Jetstar already had 200 early adopters registered to use the intranet, which sent a strong message it was catering to a very real demand. Three months down the track in October 2008 and close to 100% of staff are currently using it.

Results to Date

While it is still early days for the Jetstar intranet, the management team feel confident it is achieving their objectives.

According to Simon Westaway from Jetstar: "An overarching objective, to deliver a vibrant and easily accessible intranet has resulted in a true step-change via its delivery with the support of Intranet DASHBOARD."

"The high level of engagement by staff now being achieved through our intranet, which was named JEN after a staff contest, has achieved both a personality and genuine acceptance within the business."

Key objectives have included:

Making life easier for front-line staff: Of the total staff currently using the intranet, a significant 1,500 have already logged on remotely. Safe and secure external access gives pilots and cabin crew the flexibility to access company information anytime and anywhere.

Moving from paper based to online forms: The introduction of online forms has streamlined and reduced Jetstar's heavy administration burden while introducing new efficiencies into the business. "It also enables us to significantly reduce our paper consumption levels, which is great from an environmental perspective and is a Qantas group goal," Curry said.

Making it easy to find employees across a geographically dispersed workforce: Prior to iD, Jetstar's staff directory was an Excel spreadsheet that contained the contact details of head office staff but only few details for staff at the ports.

"We invested a lot of time getting the staff directory right," Martin said. "Through iD's integration capability with Active Directory, all staff can now view the company's organisational structure, reporting lines and importantly, their colleagues contact details. Additional notes can also be provided to outline any special skills or knowledge their colleagues possess."

To promptly update staff with important communications: Jetstar makes extensive use of banner ads on its intranet homepage to successfully publicise internal initiatives. "In the case of an operational disruption, our plan is to use iD to advise people what's happening in real time," Curry said. "It's also being used to update staff on the airline's performance on a weekly basis."

To take IT out of the loop when publishing content: Jetstar currently has 20 administrators responsible for publishing content, of which only one comes from within IT. "Removing this IT bottleneck while maintaining governance and control over the intranet has been a significant achievement of this project," Martin said.

Future Plans

As Jetstar continues to evolve into a mature enterprise, it intends to look for new ways to streamline its operations. "Now that the intranet is bedded down, we are looking to integrate it into our back-end systems to further improve our operational efficiencies," Martin said.

"In many respects the future efficiency benefits that can be extracted by the platform are really quite limitless and uptake and enthusiasm for our relatively young workforce for our new intranet remains as high as ever."

Commenting on the project Connie Pandos, Intranet DASHBOARD co-founder and director said, "It was great to have the opportunity to work so closely with Jetstar and help them transform the way they communicate. Jetstar is really using iD to its full potential, which is great to see and the external access means staff can always be connected with the company, no matter where they are based at the time."


Click Here to view original article published on Intranet Journal on the 6th March.



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