Association recognized for intranet-based digital workplace, developed with assistance from West Monroe Partners
The American Medical Association (AMA) and West Monroe Partners today announced that the AMA has received a 2017 Gold Trumpet Award in the category of Internal Communications-Employee. The award recognizes the AMA’s new intranet, AMAtoday, which launched in December 2016. AMAtoday replaced a 12-year-old intranet platform with a modern digital workplace that includes a news center, automated administrative forms, instant messaging, and other digital features. The new intranet has helped the AMA increase employee engagement, reduce email traffic, and decrease time spent completing manual forms. It also adds capabilities for groups throughout the association to publish and promote content, and it has resulted in 1300-percent increase in daily intranet use and a 12-percent reduction in internal email traffic. “Introducing AMAtoday brought our organization into the modern digital age, with a platform on which we can continue to build a true digital workplace that not only enables, but encourages collaboration, connectivity, and efficiency,” said Justin DeJong, AMA vice president for internal and external communications. “The platform leverages modern design principles, including employee personas that guided design and development to ensure that we have a portal that truly reflects the personality of our organization and workforce. Employee reaction has exceeded our expectations.” To design the site and then guide its development, West Monroe Partners used human-centered design frameworks and rapid prototyping to gather and incorporate input from AMA’s diverse employee base. The firm built AMAtoday on a Microsoft Office 365 cloud intranet and collaboration platform, integrated the intranet with other systems to provide a seamless login experience, enhanced search capabilities, and introduced digital forms with automated workflows to reduce administrative burdens and improve productivity. “AMAtoday is an excellent example of what is possible when you combine leading digital technology with design principles that draw on empathy for an employee,” said Greg Layok, of West Monroe Partners. “We enjoyed partnering with the AMA to bring this key element of its digital workplace to life and are thrilled to see it recognized as a leading application in the internal communications field.” Since 1959, The Publicity Club of Chicago has sponsored the Golden Trumpet Awards – the most prestigious awards program in the Midwest. The Golden Trumpets honor distinguished individual achievement in the planning, creativity, and execution of public relations and communications initiatives. This year’s contest drew hundreds of entries in 25 categories. Each category is judged by experienced communications professionals on a 100-point scale, with points awarded for objectives, techniques used to address the objectives, creativity, results, and return on investment. Judges are public relations representatives of leading organizations in the agency, corporate, for-profit and not-for-profit sectors. The Publicity Club of Chicago announced the recipients on June 1, 2017, at its 58th Annual Golden Trumpet Awards Gala at the Palmer House Hilton.www.publicity.org