A company intranet is essential for boosting employee engagement and fostering collaboration in the digital workplace. Start by choosing a software partner that offers a free trial or demo.
Then, choose a platform that has the right features to meet your business goals. Streamline internal communications with instant messaging, interactive blogs, and media-rich newsfeeds.
1. Content Management
When it comes to an enterprise intranet content is its lifeblood. An intranet is only useful if it’s updated and contains the information employees need, which means developing a content plan to promote user engagement.
This might include sharing key metrics like sales or operational performance, as well as communicating the strategic focus of a vertical or department. It might also involve distributing content such as presentations, videos, reports, and documents.
Another aspect of an intranet content plan is ensuring that the site is stocked with employee profiles and directories, which can help users connect with colleagues on a more personal level. This is particularly important for companies that have a significant number of remote or hybrid workers, and can help to boost morale by fostering an atmosphere of belonging.
It’s also essential to keep in mind how different employees might prefer to receive and digest content. For example, some may respond better to text-only updates while others might prefer more visual presentations or multimedia content. It’s also a good idea to consider whether the intranet should provide options for mobile use as many employees now spend most of their workday outside the office.
Finally, it’s worth ensuring that the intranet features easy-to-use collaboration tools such as discussions, wikis and frequently asked questions sections. This can help to reduce email overload, especially during onboarding days, and can provide a quick way to find answers for common queries.
2. Collaboration
In a business intranet, communication is critical to ensuring everyone has the same information. The platform should communicate important company updates, highlighting vertical strategic initiatives that have an impact on the whole organization, how they are progressing and what’s been achieved so far. Employees can then keep tabs on what is going on without having to contact a specific person or team for the information.
An intranet can also serve as a central repository for all the company’s essential knowledge management materials such as the latest versions of sales manuals, policies and board minutes. This way, employees can source the information they need with a single click, saving time and eliminating the risk of missing out on vital data.
An intranet should also allow employees to share and comment on content through powerful social features, promoting collaboration within the team. It can be as simple as a thumbs up or a response to an announcement or as complex as an open channel dedicated to recognizing employee achievements. It’s worth remembering that research shows people who feel recognized at work are nearly five times more likely to be proud of their job and their employer. An intranet can help you do this with a variety of tools including gamification, rewards and recognition functionality and social feeds.
3. Security
As workplaces embrace agility and redefine their ways of working, the need for secure intranet governance becomes paramount. A robust intranet platform supports responsible governance and meets the information and data management needs of a diverse workforce across time zones and locations.
A strong security culture requires a consistent emphasis on best practices, ensuring employees understand and practice the right behaviours to avoid risky content or potentially dangerous links. It also requires awareness of external threats, such as malware or phishing attacks. It’s important to communicate that everyone — including those who only use the intranet from home or on their own devices — should update their device software regularly, keep passwords strong and change them frequently, and only access the intranet via secure networks or approved devices.
Many modern intranet solutions have built-in encryption capabilities that are effective at protecting sensitive company data. This works by sending each piece of data in an alternative, practically unbreakable code format that’s decoded when it reaches the intended destination. Happeo, for example, encrypts all data stored within its platform. It’s a simple way to improve your intranet’s security, which is especially crucial for regulated industries like healthcare or finance. But it’s not just about improving intranet security; establishing a good security culture involves promoting and rewarding those who take the lead in upholding these standards.
4. Searchability
If an intranet’s search isn’t powerful, it drives up costs for the development and knowledge management teams, as well as creating digital friction and frustration for employees. A recent literature review found that 80% of the time, search on enterprise intranets fails to provide the right results.
Employees need to move fast in the workplace and often don’t have the time to browse through a list of search suggestions. Quick, automatic search suggestions are a key component to improving the user experience and boosting productivity.
Search engine optimization is another key element of a winning modern intranet. It takes a thoughtful approach to the design of search boxes, results pages and the metadata that drives them. It also requires a deep understanding of the content that is being indexed and the ways in which employees search for it.
For example, search logs can tell you that some users search for ‘career’ while others use ‘jobs’. A robust intelligent search can anticipate typos and automatically show the correct term, as well as allow the user to revert back to their original keyword.
In addition, the way search terms are structured in titles and paragraphs is important. Search tools can’t always guess what an intranet page or document is about, so having clear descriptive metadata and structuring that metadata in a way that aligns with users’ mental models of the content they need will help them select the right search results.