Just as your organization’s external internet site needs constant care and feeding, so does your internal intranet. With strategic thinking about employee needs and organizational goals, the intranet can become an invaluable communications tool to inform and engage your workforce.
Key to maximizing the effectiveness of your intranet site is the use of compelling, useful content and the discipline to drive employees to this site for various information needs. The Activ Consulting Group suggests the following tactics.
- Focus the home page on timely news and information of interest to employees – from organizational news being promoted externally to internal news and memos directed to the workforce.
- Link news items to the external website as appropriate for more information.
- Link memos to a dated archive of memos for future reference.
- Produce a frequently updated “Did you know?” feature that offers a fact about the organization with a link to learn more, if appropriate. This feature could also serve to recognize deserving employees and/or departments for specific accomplishments.
- Create an organizational calendar with key dates and deadlines such as those for benefits enrollment, holidays, special programs and events.
- Post the organization’s Strategic Plan, with easy-to-reference facts and figures about progress made toward strategic goals each quarter.
- Store Policies and Procedures on the intranet with user-friendly search functions. Be sure that policies are updated on a regular schedule. Helping an employee find a 10-year-old policy is not good communication or service.
- Offer a Brand Ambassador page with easy-to-download templates for power point presentations, flyers and other items branded with the organizational logo. Offer user-friendly instructions for the appropriate use of all items.
- Offer an intranet “store” to order stationery items and other logo merchandise.
- Use the intranet to post CEO blogs, solicit employee feedback and more. The intranet can become a vehicle for two-way communication on key issues and accomplishments.
As with your external internet site, your intranet should offer easy navigation to help employees quickly find the information they want. To drive employee traffic to the intranet site, be sure all internal communications consistently offers links to this site for more information. Memos, brochures, flyers, all communications directed to employees should refer them to the intranet site for more information.