The Importance of an Intranet

 A great intranet makes it easy to deliver information directly into employees’ hands. It should work seamlessly with other business tools and applications for a more cohesive employee experience.

Look for a dynamic intranet solution with user profiles that feature rich, dynamic information and integrate external profile sources. This way, workers can connect in real time and amplify company culture with peer recognition, leadership articles, and brand messaging.

Communication

A company intranet is the central hub for all internal communications. Employees can find important information and updates here, reducing the amount of time it takes for them to get their jobs done. It also saves the organization money by reducing the number of calls, emails and meetings that would otherwise be necessary to convey the same information.

Intranets work as a private network, only allowing authorized users to access it and its contents. They can contain a variety of different content, from files and databases to links and applications.

Modern intranet platforms are designed to be engaging and often resemble consumer applications, placing a heavy focus on user experience. A well-designed intranet can foster a sense of community within a team, encouraging employees to participate and connect. It can help to encourage communication through peer-to-peer recognition, leadership articles and brand messaging. It can also support a variety of other communication channels to allow workers to communicate the way they want.

Collaboration

A modern intranet can be a powerful tool for collaboration. With social features like newsfeeds, forums, and blogs, team members can easily share information and ideas. Plus, with tools like instant messaging, teams can communicate more effectively without relying on emails.

A hybrid CMS solution like dotCMS makes it easy for IT teams to build and manage their own intranets. But for those who prefer a pre-packaged option, platforms like Uintra and Liferay offer out-of-the-box solutions with a wide variety of integrations.

Intranets can also help boost productivity by providing access to centralized resources, tools, and services. With features like a searchable document library, calendars, and task management, workers can get more done and eliminate the need to navigate between different apps. This can particularly benefit remote or distributed teams that need to coordinate across time zones or locations.

Information Sharing

In addition to top-down communication, intranets can be used for information sharing and document management. Some solutions allow departments to share documents publicly, while others offer division or team-specific sections for easy access to relevant information.

Employees can quickly get notifications about company-wide updates and changes, and they can also easily connect with subject matter experts via discussion forums. This helps to reduce siloed knowledge and improve overall productivity.

With the right solution, it’s possible to make the intranet both user-friendly and highly effective. Start with thorough user research to understand employee needs and preferences. Identify goals and objectives for the intranet, and then build a governance structure with roles and responsibilities to guide development and maintenance. Ensure that the design and content are relevant to employees’ daily work, and encourage adoption through training and ongoing feedback. This can help to create urgency in change management and drive long-term adoption of the new intranet. It’s also important to consider how the intranet will integrate with existing systems and tools, including project management software.

Community

People can engage with each other on a more personal level through communities on the intranet, bringing a human element that can break down barriers that can come from working remotely or being part of a dispersed team. This also helps build a more connected workplace and a sense of corporate identity among employees.

In addition to encouraging engagement, a well-managed community on the intranet can provide valuable content that helps workers do their jobs better. For example, a discussion on a specific project could result in a FAQ page on how to complete a task within the project. Or, a technical question from an employee might be the source of a quick blog post on how to use an important business tool or feature.

Creating an active and engaged intranet community requires strategic planning and consistent effort. Make sure your intranet includes integration functionality that allows news and updates to automatically feed into your community so it’s always up to date.