SENTIA Community Award 2026: Four Swiss Organizations Show How Transformation Can Succeed

Implementing AI, collecting data, launching a new intranet: Technically, much of this can be done quickly. It’s more difficult to get people on board and create real change as a result. Four Swiss organizations demonstrate how this can be achieved: Männedorf Hospital, NZZ, the City of St. Gallen, and Clienia will be honored with the SENTIA Community Award 2026 on August 27, 2026. The winners come from the healthcare, media, and public administration sectors. While their approaches differ, what they have in common is that technology is not an end in itself.

Männedorf Hospital: AI as a Partner in Cultural Development

Männedorf Hospital has been awarded the AI Culture Pioneer Award. The award recognizes the hospital’s early and consistent use of AI in cultural and organizational development. The hospital is among the organizations that have integrated new AI-based coaching and insight capabilities into their development and leadership practices at an early stage. The key factor in receiving the award is not a single use case, but actual utilization: trying out new features, applying insights, and increasingly integrating AI into existing leadership and HR processes. In doing so, Männedorf Hospital is shifting its perspective: AI is not merely used to make work more efficient—it has become a catalyst for change and development.

NZZ: AI provides data—people turn it into insights

The NZZ received the Organizational Learning Excellence Award. AI-generated data and insights were not simply stored in a dashboard. The NZZ used them as a starting point for in-depth discussions during several executive management meetings. Results were analyzed collectively, different perspectives were brought to the table, and solutions for the organization’s further development were devised based on these discussions. AI did not make the decisions in this process—it created a new foundation for human reflection and collaborative learning. Data can reveal trends, and AI can identify patterns. However, a learning organization only emerges when people are willing to engage with these insights and collectively draw conclusions from them.

City of St. Gallen: Staying Connected in Our Daily Work Lives

The City of St. Gallen wins the «Most Active Intranet 2026» award. More than 2,500 employees actively use the intranet every week—making it an integral part of their daily work. With many departments, numerous divisions, and a wide variety of work environments, it is particularly challenging for a city administration to reach and connect employees across the board. Both the number of regularly active employees and their proportion of the total workforce were taken into account for the award. The City of St. Gallen thus demonstrates how internal communication can be successfully implemented even in a diverse and decentralized organization.

Clienia: The go-live is just the beginning

Clienia, Switzerland’s leading private clinic group for psychiatry and psychotherapy, has been named the winner of the Best Onboarding Campaign 2026 award. The challenge in launching the new intranet was to get over 1,800 employees—spread across more than 20 outpatient, day clinic, and inpatient locations, representing a wide variety of professional groups and with varying levels of language and digital proficiency—on board with the new platform. Many employees do not have access to a computer. Clienia therefore opted for a targeted, phased onboarding process that took different work realities into account and gradually introduced employees to the new form of internal communication. The award recognizes this approach as well as the successful use of the new intranet and the commitment shown in carrying out the onboarding campaign. After all, while the go-live of a technology may be the goal for the project, for employees it is only the beginning.

What the Four Winners Have in Common

Männedorf Hospital uses AI to support development. The NZZ uses AI-generated data as a starting point for collective reflection. For the City of St. Gallen, digital internal communication has become part of everyday life for thousands of employees. And Clienia shows how people can be won over to a new communication platform. Four different stories—with one common insight: Transformation doesn’t succeed simply because an organization adopts technology. It succeeds when people work with it, learn from it, and begin to do things differently.

«AI and data can highlight areas where an organization should take a closer look. But they don’t change a culture on their own. Change happens when people reflect on these insights, discuss them with one another, and take action based on them. That is exactly what Männedorf Hospital and the NZZ are demonstrating in two very different yet powerful ways.» – Dr. Yasemin Tahris, co-founder of flowit

«An internal communication platform is successful when it is no longer perceived as just another new tool, but has become a natural part of everyday work. The City of St. Gallen and Clienia clearly demonstrate that technology alone is not enough—you have to reach people and create real added value for them.» – Michael Trummer, Co-founder of ahead

SENTIA 26: Artificial Intelligence. Real Emotions.

The four awards will be presented on August 27, 2026, at The Circle in Zurich as part of SENTIA 26. The joint event organized by ahead and flowit is themed «Artificial Intelligence. Real Emotions.» and brings together executives and professionals from the fields of communications, HR, and organizational development. The program includes a case study by Jasmin Aziz, CEO of Visilab Group; various breakout sessions; the Community Award; and a keynote address by neuroscientist Dr. Barbara Studer. The award ceremony will be hosted by Yvonne Samaritani of Weleda.

More information: www.flowit.ai and www.aheadintranet.com