Hubs and communities
Give every project, team, and community a digital home
Work is more than just getting through the day to day. It’s about finding friendships and making connections. Oak gives you the ability to create dedicated spaces that connect your people, whether it’s for work related projects, social events, health and wellbeing initiatives or book clubs. Nurture a buzzing digital workplace where employees stay informed, connect naturally, and thrive.
Key benefits
Create hubs for anything you want
Whether it’s health and wellbeing, diversity and inclusion initiatives, a hub to share photos of pets, work projects or social activities and events. The options are limitless when it comes to creating hubs that can be accessed via desktop or mobile.
Tailored spaces with dedicated timelines
Every hub operates as its own distinct ecosystem within your intranet. Give your communities their own dedicated timelines, custom layouts with a range of content options, and unique content feeds. Whether it's a fast-moving project team or a casual photography club, users can deep-dive into the spaces that matter to them without cluttering the main company homepage.
Safe, moderated, and inclusive environments
Maintain a respectful and friendly digital workplace with robust, granular permission controls. Assign local hub moderators, manage visibility settings, and determine who can view, post, or comment. This ensures your community spaces remain safe havens for collaboration, peer support, and constructive discussion.
Hubs and communities in action
Bridging the gap between HQ and the frontline
Streamlined project delivery
Keep deskless and office workers aligned. Project hubs bring timelines, files, and updates into one accessible space, ensuring frontline execution matches HQ strategy.
Vibrant social & special interest groups
From book clubs to running groups, give your people a place to bring their whole selves to work. Social hubs spark natural connections that transcend traditional team silos.
Dedicated diversity, equity, & inclusion (DEI) spaces
Nurture true belonging. Create focused hubs for employee resource groups, cultural celebrations, and awareness initiatives, allowing members to drive meaningful change safely.
Built for your industry
Retail
Bring disparate store branches together in a shared digital space. Retail workers can step away from the shop floor by connecting over shared interests, celebrating regional sales wins via short-form video, and instantly accessing mental health resources and company benefits right from their mobile devices between shifts.
Healthcare
With healthcare being a high stress environment, having social spaces or groups for hobbies can help connect everyone and give them a space to connect and have reprieve from work, as well as spaces that offer well-being support, clinical excellence forums that everyone can access instantly on the move.
Manufacturing
Bridge the gap between the manufacturing floor and HQ by giving frontline workers a true voice. Site-specific social groups let shift workers connect over shared interests, hobbies, and social events, while targeted well-being hubs provide 24/7 access to safety guidelines, occupational health resources, and spaces to share continuous improvement ideas.
Hospitality
Engage and retain your hospitality workforce by making them feel involved from Day One. Turn high staff turnover into high loyalty with vibrant social hubs and recognition feeds that celebrate hard work. Dedicated onboarding and training communities ensure new starters feel welcomed, connected to their teammates, and supported from day one.
Frequently Asked Questions
How can enterprise social networks and hubs improve employee engagement?
Intranet hubs improve employee engagement by replacing top-down corporate messaging with two-way communication and psychological safety. By giving internal initiatives, like Wellbeing, Employee Resource Groups (ERGs), and Diversity, Equity, & Inclusion (DEI), a dedicated community space, employees can connect naturally over shared experiences. This cross-department collaboration breaks down organisational silos and builds a stronger workplace culture, especially for hybrid and frontline workers.
Can employees become overwhelmed if we have too many hubs?
It all comes down to relevance and governance. Oak allows you to manage hub visibility and access based on user roles, departments, or locations. Employees only see and join the hubs that matter to them, keeping their digital workplace clean, targeted, and completely noise-free.
Is it a good idea to create hubs specifically for Wellbeing and DEI?
Absolutely. Wellbeing and DEI initiatives thrive when they feel like a community rather than a top-down corporate mandate. Dedicated hubs give these initiatives a distinct, focused home where employees can share resources, find support, and foster a genuine culture of belonging.
How do we ensure social hubs remain professional and respectful?
Oak is built with enterprise-grade moderation features. With granular permission controls, you can assign community managers or moderators to specific hubs. This allows teams to safely monitor discussions, manage membership, and ensure all spaces remain friendly, inclusive, and aligned with company values.
