Weidner turns a static intranet into a high-adoption employee engagement hub

Seven months to a zero-friction launch

When Lena Maslova joined Weidner as Business Manager to the CIO, fixing the intranet was one of her first assignments. Her non-negotiables were clear: mobile responsiveness, intuitive search, speed, and a platform that wouldn’t need a full-time administrator to keep it alive. 

We wanted a more intuitive way to organize information, empower associates to share their voices, and provide leaders with meaningful insights into how content was being consumed and engaged with across the organization. We knew it was time to invest in a platform that could grow alongside us, and Workvivo was the right fit.

Lena Maslova, Business Manager to the CIO.

Workvivo checked every box, pairing the documentation depth of a traditional intranet with the familiar feel of a social network, plus a dedicated mobile app to reach field teams who rarely sit at a desk.

But rather than rush into the standard eight-week rollout, Weidner took seven months. Leadership’s mandate was simple: zero friction and make people love it from day one. The project team became platform experts and ran a September 2025 mini-launch with key departments, training multiple leaders so they could support their teams when Workvivo launched fully.

The comms team also migrated all the content from their former intranet to ensure the site was fully populated before going company-wide in January 2026. That way, it arrived as a finished home instead of an empty shell.

A few features became fast favorites of the early adopters:

• AI-Powered Search reads uploaded documents (like the separate US and Canada employee handbooks) and returns instant, location-aware answers in an associate’s own language.
• Regional, community, and program spaces keep each person’s dashboard relevant and cut the noise.
• Recognition Badges celebrate milestones and program participation on an associate’s profile.

We chose Workvivo because it checked every single box.

Lena Maslova, Business Manager to the CIO

A launch that landed

With a seven-month communication ramp-up, multiple groups of early adopters, and associate surveys revealing demand for feature requests, members of the rollout taskforce customized Workvivo to fit their associates’ needs. As a result, implementation was seamless:

• 60% company-wide adoption in the first week.
• ~99% adoption among office-based associates within a month.
• Employee handbook lookups cut from 10 minutes to under 60 seconds.
• Intranet-related support tickets dropped to almost zero within the first week.

The numbers tell a story of trust. Weidner braced for a flood of tickets when it switched off the old site; instead, after a small day-one bump, tickets fell to almost zero because the platform was reliable, the project team provided self-help resources, and people could find answers on their own.

AI Search did the majority of the heavy lifting. For example, an associate could now ask “Do we get MLK Day off?” and the system identified whether they were in the US or Canada, referenced the right handbook, and returned an answer in seconds, even translating the response into the associate’s first language.

For a lean HQ team, that gives immediate, tangible ROI. And adoption didn’t stop at logging in: associates post, comment, and react to content every day, giving the comms team genuine insight into what’s resonating – something Weidner’s old intranet could never do.

Seeing our office associate numbers hit 99% adoption a month later was just mind-blowing.

Lena Maslova, Business Manager to the CIO

Giving a strong culture its voice

Workvivo didn’t change who Weidner was; it gave its culture a megaphone. During a site visit to Anchorage, AK, approximately 2,260 miles from the home office, the team found a Workvivo post printed out and taped to an associate’s wall: a proud moment a property had shared, with a comment from the Chief Operations Officer underneath.

The associates hadn’t expected leadership to notice their post, but with Workvivo’s streamlined homepage dashboard, leaders now have greater visibility into team activity across locations, making it easier to recognize both major milestones and everyday wins.

Looking ahead, the Weidner team is expanding its use of Workvivo and finding new ways to connect with its workforce. Next, Weidner is bringing the platform to mobile-first maintenance teams, expanding AI Search, and consolidating more tools into a single hub, creating one launch pad for every associate’s workday.

From a static intranet with limited visibility to a dynamic employee engagement hub, Weidner Apartment Homes’ partnership with Workvivo is helping associates find information faster, connect across regions, and give leaders a clearer view of what matters to their teams.