Wealthsimple

How Wealthsimple’s switch to Notion simplified org-wide alignment with a wealth of shared knowledge

By replacing Quip and consolidating a fragmented tool stack with Notion, Wealthsimple transformed how its teams collaborate at scale.

Insights from

Kathleen Cauley

Manager, Knowledge Management

Anne Steptoe

VP of Platform Engineering

Use cases
Wiki, Knowledge Base, Project Management
1

Knowledge isn’t power when it’s siloed in various tools or stuck in someones’ mind

Industry studies show that employees waste a staggering average of 9.3 hours per week just trying to locate the information they need to do their jobs in an average of 4 different tools.

It’s a scenario that was becoming all too common at Wealthsimple. "When we ran our pulse survey, nearly 70% of users found it difficult to find data across our various systems," says Anne Steptoe, VP of Platform Engineering at Wealthsimple.

The company's rapid growth had outpaced its ability to organize and share information effectively, and it became clear that Wealthsimple needed a better way to manage its most valuable asset: its collective knowledge.

2

Effective knowledge management is more than just a tool change

Imagine a bustling library where every book contains a fragment of your company's collective wisdom. This is how Kathleen Cauley, a former librarian herself, who now leads Knowledge Management at Wealthsimple envisioned the company’s solution. Just as a well-organized library enables visitors to quickly locate the information they need, Kathleen's goal was to create a digital "library" for all of Wealthsimple’s knowledge. Drawing from her background as a librarian, Kathleen understood that effective knowledge management goes beyond just implementing a new tool.

"Knowledge management is about people, process, and technology," Kathleen explains. "It's not just about having a place to store information, but creating a system that makes it easy for anyone to find, use, and contribute to our collective knowledge."

Creating that system required a thoughtful change management strategy that Kathleen says starts as soon as you start assessing tools, bringing your team along for the ride from evaluation to trial to see how they’re using each tool. “Our pilot group really loved the user experience in Notion,” she says. “The interface is sleek and easy-to-use. Plus we can use databases in so many different ways, from project management and planning to syncing content across different tools with Notion’s API and integrations.”

Library Tall
3

Sharing (knowledge) is caring

Kathleen started by anchoring the transition around a company value at Wealthsimple: “Take Care of Each Other”. This was critical to Wealthsimple's change management strategy because it helped everyone at the company re-imagine documentation and knowledge sharing as an extension of taking care of each other.

With a staged approach to rollout, Kathleen initially limited editor access in their Notion workspace to a few key teams that could showcase the power of Notion when set up properly. This not only built excitement organically but also ensured that teams understood the importance of the content management lifecycle and behaviors supporting trustworthy knowledge.

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Notion was first introduced to Wealthsimple employees as read-only with a rollout strategy that gradually granted editor access to key teams in phases.
4

Faster timelines and hours back each week

Wealthsimple's People Ops team, responsible for "employee products" used company-wide, was the ideal starting point for the the phased rollout. Using Notion's importer tools, they migrated policies from Quip and immediately noticed how organizing these policies in a Notion database would be easier for everyone to navigate and much easier for their team to maintain.

Rather than digging through scattered documents in various folders, everyone could now filter and sort every policy by various criteria. Criteria like the policy page’s owner, last updated time, and the next review date, meant the People Ops team could easily track who needs to update what and when. When updates get made, synced content blocks ensured that these updates were reflected anywhere else that particular part of the policy might be referenced across their Notion workspace. This streamlined approach to information management, coupled with Notion Enterprise's advanced security and compliance features, allowed the People Ops team to cut the time to complete audits in half.

The time savings didn’t stop there. With policies that were easier to find and trust were still up to date, employees started to use Notion as a self-serve resource and viewership soon hit an all-time high. As a result, the People Ops team saw the volume of employee help tickets their team previously spent hours each week fielding dwindle to occasional requests.

WealthsimplePolicyPage
Wealthsimple’s Policies Library is easy navigate, maintain, and keep up-to-date with database features like page owners, last edited dates, and review schedules at a glance.
5

More consistent and informed decision-making

Building on the success of "employee products" in Notion, the next stage of the rollout focused on Wealthsimple's business products. With product development spanning multiple specialized tools, the Product team was eager to centralize planning in one shared space where all these tools could be embedded.

"Before, we had a mishmash of docs, decks, and spreadsheets floating around that only offered snapshots or links to work happening in function-specific tools like Jira and Figma," says Nicole Chiavacci of Wealthsimple's Product team. "Now, we're making more consistent and informed decisions faster because everything is connected and accessible to everyone in our Notion workspace."

The team now develops roadmaps and sets strategic direction for products in alignment with company goals, all centralized in Notion. This approach soon expanded, with every team's planning, OKRs, and work streams connecting to these same company-wide priorities.

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Notion transforms Wealthsimple's product roadmap into a living, breathing ecosystem where everything that goes into product development is centralized and connected to the work of cross-functional teams and specific company priorities.
We saw a ripple effect transitioning to Notion. As more teams began using it, they naturally became advocates for how it improved their workflows and empowered them to share that work with the rest of the company. This inspired more and more teams to do the same, which helped knowledge sharing really take off like never before.
Kathleen Cauley
Kathleen Cauley
Manager, Knowledge Management
6

Improved alignment and productivity across the board

Inspired by the examples the People and Product teams set using Notion, other teams across Wealthsimple were completing trainings Kathleen had set up so they could gain editor access to start contributing their specialized knowledge and team plans. Teams that once operated in silos now find themselves interconnected, with a clear line of sight to company-wide objectives.

By bringing company planning and product roadmaps into Notion, Wealthsimple wasn't just sharing information—they were creating a living, breathing ecosystem where every employee could see, understand, and contribute to the company's direction.

The impact of this alignment was reflected in Wealthsimple's pulse surveys, which showed a marked improvement in employee understanding of company goals and their role in achieving them. Usage of Notion skyrocketed, with employees spending less time searching for information and more time contributing to the company's mission.

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What started as just knowledge consolidation is now tool consolidation overall. Notion saves our employees time trying to find what they need to know and reduces the cognitive load of context switching between different tools, which makes us all more productive.
Anne Steptoe
Anne Steptoe
VP of Platform Engineering

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