About UK Sport

UK Sport leads and invests in the UK’s high‑performance sport system, helping British athletes and teams succeed at the Olympic and Paralympic Games and other major international competitions. Their 150-strong workforce spans performance advisors to major and mega event advisors, through to events teams and office-based staff. That’s a lot of people to coordinate and keep informed in the fast-paced world of elite sports – particularly when they have such different looking workdays.

They have successfully created Inside Track – the employee engagement platform that’s the dedicated go-to for all things internal at UK Sport. From behind-the-scenes content at major sporting events to nurturing internal networks, streamlining onboarding and providing on-the-go access for field-based colleagues, they can now reach 100% of their workforce and regularly maintain over 94% engagement.

Prior to the launch of Inside Track, colleagues relied on a mix of all-staff emails, WhatsApp groups, Teams and occasional face-to-face meetings. This fragmented approach risked key information getting lost or misconstrued when passed on through chains of communication rather than direct to each employee.

B Hunter, Strategic Communications Lead was involved at the outset and explains: “A lot of tools had sprung up in the response to Covid while we adapted to new ways of working which became more permanent as we adopted a hybrid working model. Firefighting throughout the pandemic meant that we ended up with an ecosystem that wasn’t particularly well designed for the direction of our organisation – it was just a way of getting information to people. We needed a cohesive strategy with the tools in place to support it.”

Employee feedback highlighted that staff wanted a single place where they could connect and collaborate with one another. B continues: “Recognising that they were coming back into this hybrid world and weren’t necessarily going to go into an office every day anymore, they were looking for better engagement tools to support that.”

UK Sport wanted to create a digital front door via their intranet – a central space to source all key information, where colleagues across the organisation could share insights from the exciting worldwide projects they’re working on. Leadership also needed to find better ways to engage the workforce in their 10-year strategic plan and to live out the values of their High Performance Framework every day.

A restructure shortly after implementation meant that ownership of Inside Track came to HR. To ensure maximum adoption and longevity of the platform, they made a conscious effort to encourage employee-generated content to solidify their new intranet platform as a source for all things employee related.

Previous reliance on shadow communications had resulted in diluted messaging and inconsistencies. The key was to pivot the look, feel and purpose of the platform from what appeared like a corporate site, to something community centred and motivational for all corners of the workforce – especially those out in the field.

What started as an HR-led initiative has evolved into an employee-owned intranet platform to share exclusive insights and content with colleagues.

On-the-go access for field-based colleagues

Launching the Inside Track platform as both an app-based and desktop version has opened up connectivity that didn’t exist before between field-based staff and their office-based colleagues.

Performance Advisors and others who spend their days out in the field and on the go can now access everything they need to do their job in the palm of their hand. Every colleague, no matter their job type, can access the same things via the mobile intranet app as they can on a desktop, so nobody is at a disadvantage when it comes to finding the right information and resources or sharing their own updates on the move.

While it has always been optional to download the digital workplace app, their field-based colleagues really do see the benefit. Mobile accessibility has enabled field-based colleagues to share exclusive, behind-the-scenes content direct to Inside Track, live from key calendar events such as the Olympic Games, the Women’s Rugby World Cup and the Boxing World Championships.

Leadership buy-in

Leadership regularly reinforces how Inside Track is the single source of truth at UK Sport. From the outset they have been keen to establish the intranet as the go-to for everything with the motto that if you don’t have the information, look on Inside Track – and if it’s not there, make sure it goes on.

Bethan explains: “Our leadership team are Inside Track ambassadors and they have a lot of influence on making it our central point of contact. They’re really big on having everything on there and they’ve always encouraged that within their teams. Our CEO and directors are known to like and comment on things without us having to prompt them – they just do it.”

Involvement from leadership doesn’t stop there, though. At the Summer Olympics, they became ‘on-the-ground influencers’ creating their own content and sharing insider videos from the unique access and experiences they encountered throughout the event. From interviewing the head of swimming to interviewing two Gold-medal winning athletes who addressed UK Sport directly with a video message, it’s these little nuggets of personalisation across the digital workplace app that can make a world of difference in showing that extra appreciation.

Shared content ownership encourages a diverse share of voice

It’s not just the leadership team who are keen to contribute. A quick scroll through the homepage and you will see the diversity in voices who are sharing content via Inside Track. From People and Strategy updates to sporting news, event highlights and on-the-ground events content, it’s clear to see that each area of the business has ownership of their own content creation across the intranet platform.

Bethan comments: “Each major team across UK Sport has a comms advisor who is responsible for linking back into the business with internal comms. I have created a comms co-ordination group which meets monthly and this enables complete visibility across the comms functions of what’s going on for each department. This ensures that we have advance awareness of key events, initiatives and news while being able to decentralise management of these internal updates, relieving pressure on myself as the platform manager.”

B explains how “democratising content production and sharing” to empower colleagues at all areas of the business to contribute was a challenge at first but has organically grown as people have become more confident with the platform. She continues: “Whether it’s informal, personal updates such as charity fundraising or higher-level corporate updates about the end of the financial year and actions to take, it’s not all relying on one person. We can work with teams to get that information out but ultimately, people enjoy having their own say and it helps to build more of a community feel in our comms.”

Performance Advisors and field-based colleagues who attend major events are always keen to share their own behind-the-scenes experiences with colleagues via their mobile intranet app too. Whether it’s an interview with a winner, a coach or a unique perspective that at-home viewers would never get, it provides a real, exclusive peek behind the curtain that keeps driving people back to Inside Track to see what’s new each day. Engagement around events often sees spikes of up to 80%!

Andy Bradshaw, a field-based Performance Advisor, explains: “The most valuable thing about Inside Track is that it connects the Performance Advisor team specifically with the wider organisation, it’s great to be able to share stories about performances/competitions that inspire and celebrate the great things happening across the sports we support. After all that’s why we’re doing what we’re doing!”

Breaking down barriers to comms creation

One interesting technique that UK Sport implemented to encourage more people across the organisation to share updates was to remove vanity metrics from news feeds on their intranet homepages.

Bethan explains: “We had a handful of people that were keen to share their own content. Some people were scared that no-one would care about their content, so we took away the feature on the homepage where you can see how many people have liked and commented, making it less of a popularity contest and a safer space for people to post on. We just turned it off and it was honestly really useful.”

Following this tiny tweak, a load more people came forward willing to share their own content because there’s less pressure to have the most likes and comments versus other colleagues. Of course, those stats are still visible when you click into the updates but at a glance on the homepage, there is no competition for reactions.

She continues: “We generally went from having to strongly encourage people to post, whereas now, honestly, Inside Track almost runs itself. I never have to desperately look for content now that we’ve made it more inviting to post on.”

Inside Track as the digital front door

Well-established within the culture of UK Sport, it’s clear that Inside Track is the go-to for everything work-related. It’s the hub to access everything, from HR policies and personal development to event RSVPs and a comprehensive directory of people within the organisation.

This employee engagement platform is the home of onboarding for new starters and the central source for up-to-date branding when communicating externally, whether writing a bid, planning an event or delivering a presentation.

Intranet implementation was a cross-team effort, involving collaboration between IT and non-technical staff, with the Oak team on hand to assist with everything UK Sport needed along the way.

The IT team’s involvement from the outset was crucial in ensuring that the Oak platform fitted with UK Sport’s IT ecosystem for sleek integrations and a seamless go-live.

Phil Samuels, UK Sport’s IT Development Manager comments how Inside Track “has filled the gap left by hybrid working practices to connect people with the big and small stories that are going on around the organisation.”

Increasing participation with a greater share of voice

The stark shift in change of behaviour is reinforced by such strong data around employee generated content. By empowering colleagues to share key updates from their own business areas and encouraging employee-generated content around events with unique and exclusive insights, year-on-year employee content generation has skyrocketed by 89%.

Monthly engagement is sustained at 94% which demonstrates the value in a diverse share of voice and variety of content to build up a FOMO culture that people want to regularly check back on.

Significant reduction in all-staff emails

All-staff emails are now strictly reserved to communicate the most significant changes and key updates in the organisation, while everything else has its home on Inside Track. Formerly communicated via mass email, end-of-year results, performance reviews and other HR related information are how housed and communicated about through the intranet so they don’t get lost in inboxes.

Beth comments: “The main piece of feedback that we’ve heard is the decluttering of inboxes. I would say there is now one a week, often even once a fortnight, which is such an improvement. Not only are inboxes less cluttered but messages that were previously lost in emails are now front and centre on Inside Track and more visible for longer”

Connecting and inspiring colleagues across sites with employee networks  

Inside Track is ingrained into the culture of UK sport. It’s the hub for employee networks to connect and to share employee-only events including live sessions with internal speakers and key resources to help colleagues get the most out of their time at UK Sport and share what matters most to them.