An effective intranet is the driving force behind enhanced productivity and an engaged and collaborative workforce. Therefore, ensuring your intranet is a big success is extremely important. While methods for achieving success will vary from one organisation to another, this blog sets out 10 general tips for an effective intranet. To find out more about how SORCE can help generate a tailored intranet to match your business needs, get in touch or attend one of our Showcases.
10 Top Tips:
1. Understand User Needs
A successful intranet responds to business and individual user needs. Ensuring that you do your research to find out what users want from an intranet is key to ensuring employees are engaged and make the most out of a new intranet solution. Too many businesses bypass this stage or don’t give enough time to undertake this fully. Time invested here is worth the effort and will enable you to really understand your colleagues intranet requirements. This should be an ongoing process so that, once implemented, the future of your intranet is shaped by those who will be using it.
2. Senior Sponsor Support
A successful intranet will be backed by senior suppport. Getting senior management on board will increase funds, promotion and momentum. Download our Business Case Guide for help producing a business case capable of convincing your management staff that a new intranet will fundamentally benefit your organisation.
3. Intranet Steering Group
No intranet can achieve success alone. A steering group representing key business areas is essential to ensure its managed and delivered on time, to spec and to budget. For more information regarding steering groups, check out our blog.
4. Phase Intranet Development
Not everything has to be achieved and launched from the offset. Success cannot be rushed. An effective intranet is achieved through continual development, reviewing and improving.
5. Ask the Experts
Getting advice, help and support from industry experts will ensure that your intranet project runs smoothly and is executed to the highest standard. For example, intranet design and user experience is a specialist skill and is unique to your business. Enlisting help form an expert will ensure your intranet is consistent with your brand and reflects your end user's requirements.
6. Central Hub
Intranet success is helped greatly by making the intranet the first point of call for information. The intranet should be the first thing employees see when they log onto their computer and they should go straight to the intranet for news, events and other information. Emphasising the social aspects, collaboration and centrality of the intranet will help achieve its success.
7. Get Feedback
Periodic feedback on how the intranet is performing and meeting user needs is essential to ensure ongoing engagement. Feedback can highlight new developments to add your continual development schedule or highlight existing functionality that doesn’t quite work as needed.
8. Engaging Content
Out-of-date and stale content is guaranteed to disengage employees. The continuous uploading of new, relevant and up to date content will ensure that your intranet remains effective. Your team of intranet contributors and editors should be briefed on content creation and management and also have sight and input into the annual content plan.
9. Focus on Intranet Strategy
A successful intranet sticks to business needs and responds quickly and efficiently to new requirements. Your intranet does not need to have all of the latest possible functionality, instead it should stick to the needs of the business and ensure it achieves the objectives it was set out to achieve. Don’t lose sight of your intranet strategy.
10. Humour and Celebration
Your intranet is a professional tool but it should still incorporate an element of fun. It should help engage staff and promote success of the business. Use the intranet as a platform to collaborate, celebrate success and promote events. A successful intranet is used to communicate positive news stories and will always celebrate key intranet milestones.
I hope this has got you thinking about how you can achieve intranet success in 2017. To inspire you further we would like to invite you to come along to one of our free intranet showcase events.
