Compass Minerals Intranet

It's a familiar scenario: an intranet built on SharePoint 2010, facing end-of-life for technical support, and struggling with outdated design and content. Compass Minerals decided to seize the opportunity to make both technical and usability improvements to their intranet, Compass Connect.

Deep Roots, Growing Changes

Compass Minerals was changing. The company, which has been around since 1844, is the largest salt producer in North America and the United Kingdom and the largest producer of sulfate of potash (a specialty fertilizer) in the Western Hemisphere. It has a proud history, but the company also struggled with opening the lines of communication among its employees.

The company had several new leaders who placed a high value on giving every employee a voice. They wanted to promote two-way communication among leadership and employees, particularly those in the field.

In addition, for those working on projects, accessing shared documents and information was cumbersome. The company used a combination of shared drives, email, and web-based repositories to house documents. Finding and managing information was difficult.

With the transition from SharePoint 2010 to SharePoint Online, the company was determined to address these challenges and more.

Making Connections

The company implemented changes to help the intranet live up to its name – to connect employees across the company. They enabled interactive features such as a Yammer discussion module, a poll, and the ability for employees to comment on news stories.

In addition, employees can now access the intranet on their mobile device – a huge step, given that so many work in mines, production facilities, packaging plants and other jobs that don't involve sitting in front of a computer.

Compass Minerals also integrated their North American and U.K. intranets, which had previously been operating separately.

Finally, they enabled a collaborative environment that allowed departments and project teams to more easily share documents and information.

A Bright Future

As the company's leadership continues to focus on growth and change, the intranet is now in a better position to support those efforts. Both the IT and Corporate Affairs groups continue to work together to make Compass Connect a valuable tool for communications and collaboration.