From the bulletin board to the digital workplace: How Stadtwerke Neustadt reaches 98 percent of their workforce

About Stadtwerke Neustadt an der Weinstraße GmbH

Stadtwerke Neustadt an der Weinstraße GmbH is the energy supplier (electricity, gas, water and district heating) for the city of Neustadt an der Weinstraße and its districts. The company includes, among other things, the Ordenswald I & II waterworks, the Stadionbad swimming pool, its own solar park, and another one in a joint partner project with PFALZWERKE AG. The portfolio is complemented by heat pumps, photovoltaics and electromobility, among other offerings. Stadtwerke Neustadt an der Weinstraße GmbH acts as a service provider for energy suppliers in the surrounding region. As a regional energy supplier, social commitment and sponsorship in sports, education and culture for kindergartens, schools and clubs shape the company's image.

Today, 206 people work at various locations of Stadtwerke Neustadt an der Weinstraße GmbH. Around 90 to 95 people work in the office, about 60 are fitters, 20 to 30 work at the Stadionbad, plus working students and temporary staff, explains marketing officer Margarita Hartard. The fitters are out and about with customers, in plants, on construction sites and rooftops, maintaining the electricity and pipeline network or taking care of the gas pressure regulation systems and the combined heat and power units. However, this diversity of workplaces and locations also resulted in a communication problem.

Lifeguards and cashiers at the public swimming pool work for us, just like fitters who maintain our pipeline and electricity network. There is a very colourful variety of activities. Sometimes this presented a challenge in terms of reaching everyone.

Bastian Bürcky, System Administrator and IT Trainer, Stadtwerke Neustadt an der Weinstraße GmbH

The initial situation: bulletin board, "office grapevine" and an intranet based on Excel

Before KenCube, official internal communication mainly ran through notice boards, so-called bulletin boards. Notices had to be compiled in Word and stored on the drive — a tedious, time-consuming task. And due to the different locations and areas of activity of the employees, every event had to be planned many weeks in advance. The old intranet was not much help in increasingly fast-paced times: assembled in Excel, converted into an HTML file, and merely the entry point to a folder structure with mostly old files.

Everything else ran via hearsay. Information spread through the informal "office grapevine" and through countless phone calls — with corresponding susceptibility to errors due to information distortion. The works council chairman, for example, was repeatedly besieged with questions because colleagues wanted to hear the same information again. "Every event had to be planned many weeks in advance. Organising a company outing alone was very time-consuming — until everything had been evaluated and entered," Hartard reports.

Many of our tasks used to be time-consuming and are now done in one go.

Margarita Hartard, Marketing Officer, Stadtwerke Neustadt an der Weinstraße GmbH

The idea for a new intranet arose three years ago. Hartard approached management and put together a project team. In a "what-do-we-want list", she collected what the workforce needs and, together with Michael Sprengling (Head of Shared Services) and the project team, evaluated the options and providers. After a test phase of around six months, the decision for KenCube was unanimous: everything on the list was already available. From an IT perspective, it was also convincing that KenCube is hosted in an appropriately certified data centre, among other reasons.

I don't want yet another machine standing around here that I have to take care of and update. This software-as-a-service methodology is simply better and more pleasant. If I have a question, I call KenCube support, an employee picks up. I can briefly describe my request and minutes later it is done.

Bastian Bürcky, System Administrator and IT Trainer, Stadtwerke Neustadt an der Weinstraße GmbH

"Which functions do you use?" – from the news portal to the info screen

News, breaking news and the automatic weekly newsletter

The heart of the intranet is the news portal. News items deliberately do not start with "Dear colleagues", but function like news: regular, short, without being overwhelming. For urgent matters there are breaking news items, which can optionally also be sent as a reminder via email or a push notification on the smartphone. Every Tuesday at 9:00 a.m., an automatic weekly newsletter is additionally sent out, listing what was new in the last seven days — a weekly summary for the workforce and a prompt to take another look at the intranet or the employee app.

The automatic weekly newsletter makes quite a few things easier — as a reminder of what has happened in the last seven days. We no longer have to compile anything with an extra tool, that saves a lot of time.

Margarita Hartard, Marketing Officer, Stadtwerke Neustadt an der Weinstraße GmbH

Info screens instead of a bulletin board

"The bulletin board was literally thrown away," Bürcky smiles. In its place, a screen now hangs by the coffee and snack machine — exactly where the fitters pass by anyway. It serves as an info screen on which the latest information runs continuously. A second monitor is in the customer centre, Bürcky says. It displays external content there so that waiting customers remain informed about news. Both are controlled via the KenCube intranet.

KenCube has these info screens. So we threw away the bulletin board and hung a screen next to the coffee and snack machine on which the latest news from the intranet runs.

Bastian Bürcky, System Administrator and IT Trainer, Stadtwerke Neustadt an der Weinstraße GmbH

Team overview and organisational chart with faces

One of the earliest wishes was to give everyone an overview of the Stadtwerke team. Everyone who wanted to be was photographed, so that today, internally, there is a face to go with every name, every function and every telephone number — helpful in the stairwell and at the same time ISMS-compliant, i.e. in line with the information security management system. The organisational chart is thus finally clean and no longer has to be maintained manually. A great deal of manual work has disappeared in this way. New colleagues also become directly visible in the "Welcome to the team" section.

I particularly like the team overview and the quick news overview, and also the speed at which our colleagues can find out something, including the interaction option.

Margarita Hartard, Marketing Officer, Stadtwerke Neustadt an der Weinstraße GmbH

Documents, knowledge base and read receipts

Documents are stored in the intranet as neatly as on a drive — with the decisive difference that the current version can be found there and no one falls back on locally saved, old templates, the marketing officer reports. For onboarding there is a knowledge base. And binding content such as sales agreements or new regulations is published and signed off by employees or acknowledged via read receipt, the IT administrator reports. This way, it is traceable that the information has reached everyone.

Important information is published, people sign it off or give a read receipt. This way we can be sure it has reached everyone. No one can say anymore: "I didn't know that."

Bastian Bürcky, System Administrator and IT Trainer, Stadtwerke Neustadt an der Weinstraße GmbH

Social intranet: commenting, liking, looking back

"Deliberately designed as a 'social intranet', posts may be commented on and liked," Hartard explains. The workforce approaches these functions at different speeds depending on the generation, but the development within a year and a half is clear. Reviews and photo collages after events, for which there was previously no place, are very well received. Registrations run exclusively via the intranet — from the company outing to work-life activities.

"What is the benefit?" – time savings, reach, motivation and a shared level of information

Two hours of paperwork become ten minutes

The most obvious effect is the elimination of paper. There are no more paper registrations and no effort for layout and printing. Where a notice used to take a good two hours, the task is now completed in ten minutes — with a significantly shorter lead time, Hartard reports. The response time has also changed: what is important is immediately visible as breaking news.

Over 90 percent reach – and active participation

The biggest surprise was general usage, both agree. Well over 90 percent of the workforce read the news items regularly, many of them react to them and good feedback is received, Hartard says. What stands out for Bürcky above all is that employees actively approach IT when access doesn't work for once — along the lines of: I don't want to miss anything anymore.

In fact, general usage surprised us the most. I also notice this from the fact that colleagues actively approach me when they no longer have access to the intranet.

Bastian Bürcky, System Administrator and IT Trainer, Stadtwerke Neustadt an der Weinstraße GmbH

Everyone on the same level of information – even before the press

The most important benefit lies in the shared level of information. The Stadtwerke see themselves as having an obligation to their employees, and this can be reliably fulfilled via the intranet. This is particularly noticeable, for example, with fitters who are approached by customers in the field about current topics, Hartard reports. Thanks to the intranet, news articles appear in time, before colleagues learn about them from the press.

Onboarding, employer branding and a more open tone

New colleagues can get into the company much more easily during onboarding. Hartard also sees the digital workplace as a good tool for employer branding and employee retention. This can also be used to show that the Stadtwerke are not the dry-as-dust municipal world. The tone has also changed: the atmosphere has become more open, and the formal "Sie" has internally become a friendly "you".

A new colleague can get into our company much more easily during onboarding, and knows what we do. You can dive in quickly in a short time. It is a good tool to show that we are an attractive employer and a modern training company.

Margarita Hartard, Marketing Officer, Stadtwerke Neustadt an der Weinstraße GmbH

An operation that takes the strain off the editorial team

The platform also pays off from the perspective of those employees who create the content: the editor interface works with drag-and-drop, photos do not have to be brought to specific dimensions or web resolutions, the result is there in seconds, Hartard is relieved. The intranet is maintained by six to seven people. Since the majority of the intranet is already set up, only light maintenance tasks remain. Some of this is gladly taken over by apprentices — one of them even wrote his final report on the introduction of the intranet.

The KenCube intranet is super intuitive. In the editor interface, everything can be dragged in very easily with drag-and-drop. I don't have to consider special dimensions of a photo or the resolution. I simply put everything I need in there. In seconds, it is ready.

Margarita Hartard, Marketing Officer, Stadtwerke Neustadt an der Weinstraße GmbH

Rollout: test phase, workshops and a decisive cut

The Stadtwerke went live in spring 2025, after a six-month test phase with a few employees. Training was carried out in small, department-related workshops. Within a month, practically the entire company had been trained, supplemented by individual support. It was important that no one left the appointment without a result: laptop, mobile phone or tablet were ready, login and password were set up directly in the workshop. For two months now, login has been unified via Microsoft. During the transition, the team remained consistent — nothing more verbal, nothing more handwritten. A feedback survey after a few months turned out very well.

Two months ago, we moved away from local authentication and switched to SAML login via single sign-on through Microsoft. That has unified everything a bit.

Bastian Bürcky, System Administrator and IT Trainer, Stadtwerke Neustadt an der Weinstraße GmbH

Looking ahead: more participation and more analysis

"We are far from finished with what KenCube can do," says Hartard. At the top of the list are more surveys and feedback to involve employees more strongly in the development of the organisation. For continuous further development, the project team would like to exchange ideas more closely with KenCube about which new functionalities and tools could be useful, such as the use of AI. The foundation is there: an intranet, an employee app and a digital workplace, firmly established in the everyday lives of over 200 employees.

Our KenCube intranet saves time, provides an incredibly good overview and brings people closer together.

Margarita Hartard, Marketing Officer, Stadtwerke Neustadt an der Weinstraße GmbH