If you’re from an organisation that cares about keeping employees engaged and up to date with important internal information, you’ve probably implemented an employee intranet. In short, an intranet is a computer network for sharing information, encouraging collaboration and increasing employee engagement.
Your staff intranet should be at the beating heart of your organisation, it’s the place where employees should go to find out key information, interact with colleagues and collaborate on key projects. The possibilities of what an employee intranet can do for your business are far-reaching. But, like most big projects, it’s not a case of distributing your intranet to your workforce and letting that be it. The work on your intranet should never stop. In fact, they require regular monitoring, updating and maintenance.
If you’ve noticed a drop in engagement on your employee intranet, it could be time to overhaul your platform and give it a refresh. So, let’s take a look at how to keep your intranet relevant and engaging to your employees.
Recommended Reading: What is An Intranet? The Ultimate Company Intranet Guide
Establish the Purpose of Your Intranet
Here at Oak, we’ve seen many organisations through their intranet journey. We’ve noticed that organisations who achieve impressive results are the ones who have an established purpose for their staff intranet. The main purposes of an intranet could be;
Internal News and Information Distribution
Probably the most common purpose of a staff intranet is to distribute news and information. According to Gallup, 74% of employees feel that they are missing important company news, which shows that communication in organisations is a big problem. If the sole purpose of your employee intranet is to solve miscommunication issues, make sure that this is represented throughout your platform. Storing information in external places will confuse your employees and they’ll switch off from your intranet straight away. An article by The Hub, explains that some intranet projects derail because they don’t make their platform the central ‘hub’ to information.
Social Interaction
It’s important to remember that your employee intranet doesn’t have to be all about work, your platform can also be a place to encourage social interaction and improve workplace relationships. Organisations that value good employee relationships are more likely to see higher retention rates, increased productivity and fewer workplace conflicts. Key staff intranet features like instant messenger, main timeline feeds and blogs can help encourage social interaction in the workplace. We understand how important it is to maintain great workplace relationships which is why our employee intranet covers all social aspects. Our Hubs feature allows employees to create a space to collaborate and interact on almost any topic.
Productivity and Collaboration
As many businesses had to transform the way in which they worked overnight, some might have experienced a productivity gap. An employee intranet can improve productivity in a number of ways; it can give employees easy access to tools they need to do their jobs, employees can reach their colleagues instantly and they can use the platform to contribute ideas and feedback.
Ways to Keep Your Employee Intranet Relevant and Engaging
Content Planning Should Never Cease
You probably spent months planning before your launch for content to populate your employee intranet but to make your project a real success, the content planning should never stop. Without relevant and regular content you will run the risk of your staff intranet going stale and losing the interest of your employees.
To create a consistent flow of content, be sure to assign content captains to contribute to your employee intranet. Your content captains should populate your site with engaging and informative content and they should have an understanding of the content your audience enjoys interacting with.
Understand Your Audience
To create engaging content your team will love, you need to make sure you have a good understanding of content your audience wants to see and will relate with. Analyse your audience from age to demographics and interests. Research shows that people respond positively to a story they can relate to.
Open the Floor for Feedback
Feedback should play a huge role in your employee intranet. Without feedback, your platform wouldn’t be able to develop, evolve and achieve its main objectives. We know that feedback is used to facilitate personal growth and development and it’s no different when it comes to your staff intranet. With Oak, the easiest way to gather valuable feedback from employees would be to use our pulse Survey tool. A Pulse Survey can be set up in minutes and allows you to gather valuable data that you and your team can act on. We would suggest distributing a survey to your employees about every three months.
Recommended Reading: 31 Intranet Features Your Company Needs (Ultimate Checklist)
Track Analytics
As with any other project, you’ll need to keep track of the analytics within your employee intranet and measure results. Keeping on top of the analytics will confirm whether your intranet is hitting its objectives and provide a better insight as to what our employees like to see the most.
Whether you measure analytics weekly or monthly, getting a better insight into what your employees are interested in on your staff intranet will make it easier when it comes to content planning and should increase engagement across your platform.
Make It Mobile Friendly
Did you know that 80% of the global workforce are deskless employees? This means only 20% of the world’s workers have access to a company computer. This makes staying on top of important company information and announcements difficult. So, what’s the solution to this?
It’s no secret that the mobile phone has become an integral part of everyday life. Currently, 3.6 billion people own a smartphone. This accounts for almost half of the world population. Making sure your employee intranet is mobile friendly is essential to making it a success. With a staff intranet, mobile app employees can access their platform at any time from wherever they are. And the ability of Push Notifications means that an important message will always be received.
Conclusion
With the right approach and the right methodology, your employee intranet has the power to achieve skyrocketing results; from engaged and productive employees to a better-structured business model the results of a successful intranet are far-reaching. At Oak, we’ve been helping businesses for over 20 years engage their employees and improve their company culture and we know what it takes to create a successful employee intranet.
If you’d like to learn more about how Oak could help your organisation achieve its internal communications goals, get in touch today.