An intranet can help businesses both communicate more efficiently and reduce expenses. Employees, for instance, can use it to submit vacation requests instead of emailing HR directly.
Eye-tracking studies demonstrate that most online content consumers tend to scan rather than read it word for word. Headings and bullet points help break up long blocks of text while images capture people’s attention.
1. Information Sharing
Your company HDIntranet serves as a centralized information hub, sharing news and updates as well as documents, policies and procedures – creating one source of truth and eliminating confusion for employees.
With remote work arrangements expected to account for 48% of the workforce by 2023, it has never been more important that your people stay up-to-date on company changes, initiatives and news. Not only does this keep everyone informed; but it can also foster greater employee engagement by making everyone feel closer to their leaders.
Employees need a way to raise issues or seek further explanation when needed, without needing to wait for someone’s attention or wait in a queue for answers from management. An intranet discussion forum offers the perfect place for this – with search, autocomplete and filter options making finding what you need easier so people can focus on doing their work rather than searching for information they may already know exists.
2. Collaboration
No matter the announcement or news (Bring Your Pet to Work Day next Friday, for instance) intranets provide quick visibility of important notifications to all employees quickly. Furthermore, intranets allow employers to tailor news based on employees’ positions, teams, divisions or interests – as well as potentially making this content accessible in a personalized fashion.
Modern intranets provide the ideal environment for collaboration. By eliminating barriers that would prevent people from communicating and working together effectively, modern intranets allow teams to better collaborate and communicate. Messy email threads on project updates can be replaced with group chats which keep conversations contained and organized while video meeting features allow remote workers to meet in real-time with co-located colleagues.
Intranets can also integrate with third-party tools, like conferencing platforms, document sharing apps and survey tools – creating an all-in-one portal that reduces app clutter on employees’ desktops and provides easy access to business applications without leaving the portal – something especially helpful in an increasingly mobile workplace with distributed and hybrid teams.
3. Communication
An intranet provides your team with valuable support through tools like chat, forums and public conversation threads; indeed some companies have completely abandoned email in favor of an intranet for all communications needs.
An intranet provides an efficient platform for sharing announcements and news, keeping all employees up-to-date on organizational changes, events, achievements and more. Some intranets also enable employees to share their own experiences through blog entries or personal stories on the intranet.
An intranet can also help improve communication by offering private, group or team chats and forums – eliminating messy reply-all emails and lengthy threads which clog our work inboxes. Furthermore, self-serve customer service becomes much simpler by giving users a central location to find answers to frequently asked questions as well as helpful resources and guides – creating an open, transparent and collaborative culture within your organization. With more workers operating remotely today than ever before, an intranet provides the ideal way for everyone to stay aligned with strategic organizational goals!
4. Social Networking
Companies who fail to use social intranet tools are missing an incredible opportunity for employee engagement and productivity improvement. Companies which successfully incorporate social features on their intranet may experience improvements in employee satisfaction, collaboration/knowledge management and overall communication.
Modern social intranets differ significantly from old-school portal solutions in that they act more as constant companions that meet employees wherever they’re working – this is especially crucial for remote and hybrid teams where employees switch between 13 tools at work; with each new tab, app and channel increasing cognitive load on employees’ brains.
Social intranets offer employees an alternative to frequent portal refreshes by providing news, updates and notifications directly to their timeline or desktop computer. They allow role-based personalization so users only see information relevant to them; as well as social features to encourage networking between managers and workers as well as two-way communication between managers and workers. Trimble leadership sought a solution with these community features as well as universal search functionality and analytics to measure engagement; they found what they needed with Happeo.
5. Project Management
Intranet software can make project management simple for employees by providing a centralized source for communication and collaboration on tasks requiring multiple team members. Instead of sending numerous versions back and forth via emails, Intranet tools enable project leaders to share a structured version of truth that everyone can quickly access – saving time, eliminating duplicate efforts, reducing frustration – all while expediting key tasks faster.
As with any project, involving stakeholders early in your Intranet initiative is key to ensure their commitment and excitement about it. Establishing their goals for their Intranet is crucial in selecting an effective solution and ensuring its successful deployment post-launch – goals such as increasing productivity, improving internal communication, organizing information or digitizing workflow processes might all be desirable goals to consider when selecting an Intranet solution.
Make sure your Intranet software vendor has an established track record in delivering quality solutions and offering reliable customer support. At CentricMinds, we offer a free 14-day trial that will help you evaluate our platform and learn about its potential advantages for your team. As part of this trial period, we suggest initiating a pilot program so your new Intranet can be tested before going live organization-wide.
