The RICK Hub, our company intranet, has officially won first place in Engagement at the 2026 ThoughtFarmer Best Intranet Awards, an international recognition honoring the organizations that bring their intranets to life in meaningful and people-centered ways.
The ThoughtFarmer Best Intranet Awards recognize companies where the intranet is built into day-to-day operations, with employees using it to share updates, access information, and stay connected across offices.
The awards focus on how consistently the platform is used across the organization and how actively employees contribute to it.
“The RICK team won a very meaningful award on an international stage. What started as a goal to bring RICK a dynamic and interactive intranet has evolved as an entire journey of culture, connection, information, and organization that everyone has embraced and contributed to in very meaningful ways, helping us make an impact every single day. We’ve established an incredible standard for intranets that is now internationally recognized and will serve to be an inspiration for other companies across the world, not only in our industry, but in many others as well. Congratulations, Team RICK!” —Jennifer Shenefield, Communications Manager
What the Award Judges Had to Say
In their award write-up, ThoughtFarmer noted the network of more than 50 RICK Hub Champions, pointing to how the platform is used daily for over 90% of staff. They referenced features like shout-outs, our extensive photo galleries, the Good News Friday forum, polls, competitions, and gamification as examples of RICK employee engagement. The results spoke for themselves:
86% of employees have earned gamification medals
93% of staff actively maintain their profiles
42 news feeds and more than 15 articles each month keep content fresh and relevant
169 digital forms streamline everyday processes
The Hub has become an essential, high-traffic destination across the firm.
One judge summed it up best:
“It was such a treat to review RICK’s intranet, RICK Hub. I am impressed by how they successfully introduced a new intranet to a long-tenured workforce. The level of care they put into the staff experience is incredible. Huge congratulations on a well-deserved win.” —Carolien Dekeersmaeker, VP of Customer Success, ThoughtFarmer
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The RICK Hub has changed how information is shared across the company. Resources and internal processes that were once fragmented across different systems are now centralized, giving teams a single place to find what they need.
As the Hub has become more central to company communication, it has also become part of how people talk about sharing and finding information. Brian Laird noted that “It’s on the Hub” and “We will get it on the Hub” are now common phrases amongst leadership and staff. The efficiencies the RICK Hub provides for our staff directly increase efficiencies for our clients, giving staff the valuable time and resources they need to be effective and timely in their project work every day.
The platform has also supported larger company initiatives. During a recent ERP upgrade, it was used to distribute updates along with training materials and resources to employees across the company. As Mike Kessler noted, “The Hub was the Finance team’s primary medium in reaching over 400 employees and driving the socialization of our new system.”
At the same time, it has streamlined internal processes by centralizing them in one place. Many of the forms and workflows employees rely on are now managed through the Hub, reducing the need to track down information across different systems. As Jennifer Gaebe described, “It has become our single source of truth and brings greater clarity and consistency to our operations.”
Beyond day-to-day operations, the Hub has also become a way for employees to stay connected across our 11 offices. As Tim Henderson shared, “It’s the primary way I feel plugged into the pulse of the company, regardless of where I’m working.” For many employees, no matter where they’re based, the Hub is how they stay connected to the RICK team.
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RICK is grateful to ThoughtFarmer for the recognition and for the platform behind the RICK Hub.
Over time, the Hub has completely revolutionized our processes and the way our company successfully operates and stays connected.