Is your company intranet really meeting the needs of your employees?

Mar 8, 2024 | Collaboration, Employee Collaboration - Information & Document Management, Employee Productivity, Lack of Employee Engagement, Poor Human Experience

Intranets have been around since the mid-nineties in one form or another and are still very much part of the workplace technology landscape. Most organisations have an intranet of some kind and choose to invest significantly in them.

Occasionally we hear observers declare that “Intranets are dead”, which is not exactly true; dig a bit deeper and what they are saying is that “intranets have now fully evolved” and it’s just the traditional, content-heavy (and largely unsuccessful) intranets that are in fact “dead”

The idea of an intranet, is, in the minds of many one which brings a vision of a static location, with links to applications and perhaps your HR policies and the staff handbook and some other key documents you might need at some point to do your job.

While the above functions certainly have their place and are in many ways, an essential component, the concept of what an intranet encompasses needs to change and, in fact, we are strong advocates of ditching the term intranet in favour of Employee Experience

An Employee Experience solution, at its core, is a portal that connects employees to their ecosystem of enterprise tools, apps, and content. It doesn’t replace a true modern intranet. Instead, it exists alongside it, providing users easy access to everything they need in a personalised interface.

Disengaged employees are costing the world economy $7.8 trillion each year

What may be wrong with it and how to fix it!

Poor Branding

The problem

Your existing intranet may well be using some elements from your company brand such as colours and imagery, but how up to date is this?

Does it reflect your current brand, and does it feel tired?

Remote workers can often feel disengaged from their employer, feeling little or no connection with your brand, your culture or indeed, to their colleagues.

How to fix it

Consider a visual overhaul, align this to your company branding and introduce high quality, refreshed imagery.

Take a look at current web design trends and seek inspiration, you’d be amazed at what can be achieved over and above what you may already have in place.

The team here at iglu. can help you with all of this.

Technology has given 44% of organisations greater insights into employees

Additionally, 53% said technology has also changed the way their communicate with employees

Outdate or irrelevant content

The problem

Seeing the same content, week after week, is a sure-fire way to disengage your audience, the same applies to content which is irrelevant to the end user.

How to fix it

Make it easy for and encourage your team to share their own announcements via SharePoint News features, this ensures that content is kept fresh. Consider the use of “audience targeting” within content to highlight specific pieces of news or information to groups of users, depending on their role, this kind of personalisation is simple to achieve but goes a long way to engaging an audience

Cluttered or confusing interfaces

The problem

It is very common for the front page of an intranet to be full of a list of links to myriad systems, while it is tempting to just throw everything onto the front page in the hope that someone will find it, this is rarely an effective strategy.

Add to this the common practice of nesting information in deep, convoluted folder structures which makes finding information difficult and time consuming.

How to fix it

It is estimated that we can spend up to 20% of our days simply trying find the right information, make it easy for your employees.

Break any links up into logical, grouped categories.
Consider the use of audience targeting to make links relevant to specific groups of users.
Free your content from folders and surface it in the right location, where it’s needed using the power of metadata and search.

The team here at iglu. can help you with all of this.

Employee engagement reduces absenteeism. In fact, a Gallup study shows that highly engaged workplaces saw 41% lower absenteeism.

Poor mobile experience

The problem

Much of the workforce use their phones to access company emails and messaging apps such as Teams, why limit them to these applications?

How to fix it

Out of the box, SharePoint is mobile friendly, you can augment this with a Viva Connections mobile experience, fully integrated into the Teams mobile app.

Lack of collaboration

The problem

Intranets of old were traditionally static affairs, with no way for users to interact or get work done.

How to fix it

Embed your Teams workspaces and documents within your Employee Experience, where users can co-author and engage with each other within documents.

Conclusion

The world of work has changed, and continues to change at an ever-increasing pace, are you able to meet the demands of your workforce, especially those of a younger generation who are digital first?

Speak to the iglu. Team who are experts in delivering collaboration experiences, with many digital solutions under our belt, we can tailor and deliver the solution that meets your needs.