The answer is everyone. You maybe the intranet manager or project manager ultimately responsible for its performance and content but at the end of the day, every single user is responsible for making it succeed. Ownership needs to be monitored and advice offered as to how, what, who, when and why the intranet should be owner/managed in a particular way. If you follow this to its natural conclusion, the result is a governance policy that everyone owns, knows and works within.
Letting go of the control of content might be difficult for some, but by encouraging everyone to own their intranet, it empowers content contributors to freely write and all users to engage as they want to rather than how they are being told they should. If managers police the intranet too tightly, the governance policy may stifle the creation of new pages, posting new content and generating new ideas. This may result in an intranet that is doing everything you didn’t want it to do.
So the big question is how can you encourage everyone to take ownership of their intranet, whilst having a governance policy in place? Here are some thoughts that might give you some ideas.
- A great place to start encouraging ownership is with new starters. By making the intranet part of their induction process, new starters can update their profiles, access key induction information.
- The intranet steering committee is THE place to encourage engagement and ownership. Each member of the steering committee is an intranet ambassador and should be encouraged to promote the intranet to their colleagues. Regular meetings should be held to keep the momentum going.
- Content contributors are invaluable when it comes to helping colleagues engage with the intranet and take ownership. Their great content can really help drive intranet traffic, Meeting regularly with these very important people is essential.
- Using video to convey important elements of your governance policy could help people understand it and reference it when needed. By chunking the policy into small videos on topics such as “Where do you fit in?”, “Everything you need to know about content”, “What’s the intranet steering committee?”
- Consider writing microblogs about some of the key elements of the governance policy. Subjects like roles and responsibilities could be transformed into mini blog interviews or get to know your colleague. This way everyone will be digesting important content without realising it.
There is no getting away from the fact you do need a governance policy and it should be accessible through your intranet, but I hope these ideas have given you some food for thought when it comes to encouraging everyone to take ownership of your intranet whilst being aware of the guidelines.
If you would like to find out more about intranet governance policies, download our free intranet governance guide.
