In the digital age, an intranet is absolutely essential for a business to conduct its operations smoothly and ensure direct and clear lines of communication within the organization.
An intranet is a lot of things: an internal communication platform, a digital value to collaborate, a tool that streamlines business processes, and even a powerful file management system.
These days, choosing the right intranet service can be a real chore because chances are that you'll be bombarded with tons of features that you might not really need. But the fact is that these added features deliver stellar functionality, usability and relevancy to the intranet users.
The user journey matters the most when building your company intranet, and this journey should be at the forefront of your intranet strategy.
It is also important to know what intranet features are necessary for effective communication and organizational success in your particular case; what works well for others may not be right for you.
However, the following five features are the backbone of any good organizational intranet, so make sure you get these:
A user-friendly interface is absolutely key for an effective intranet service. A frustrating, difficult to navigate user interface will impact every employee productivity.
It is important that one action should follow the other, and all interface features be accessible for the relevant users. Additionally, the interface should make use of brand colors and fonts to increase brand cohesive on all front, the drop-down menus and icons should be distinctly marked for ease of use.
All in all, its users should get smooth access to business processes, applications, and tools.
Strong internal communication is necessary for team collaboration. It allows employees to effectively discuss projects and tasks to get the information they need.
Direct messaging and group chat features keep your people from wasting time waiting for emails. You could even have built-in file sharing and search options for greater usability.
Corporate communication should not have a one-way, top to bottom approach. Your employees should be able to communicate freely and feel empowered to make their voices heard, and a well-designed intranet can help you achieve these aims.
As workforces become mobile and remote working a reality for many of us, the days of tapping colleagues over the shoulder for some info are gone for good for many of us.
Digitizing the org charts and putting them up on the intranet is helpful for new emploees to understand your company structure. It lets them know who's who in the organization, displaying professional relationships in a clear manner.
Other employees can use these to experts within the organization, and connect to other teams and internal employees. These are also a great tool for HR to streamline employee info.
To ensure employee productivity, it is essential to provide them with dynamic and engaging content. Logging onto the same intranet with the same old content will dampen their interests.
Ensure that your home page is updated regularly with relevant information. For this, you can make use of widgets that pull in content from different areas of the intranet, such as blogs and forums.
Try to make use of "your content" widgets for your individual users to provide them with tailored and personalized.
An effective intranet should make it easy for users to stay on top of their tasks. A platform of quality will take the typical "To-Do" list and personalize it. Allow managers to assign tasks by priority, let the employees update task statuses and set system alerts for important tasks and due dates.
Proper task management will increase transparency in the organization. It will let managers check up on assigned tasks effectively and let the employees manage their designated tasks better.
Your intranet is your organization's employee junction and broadcast station for all information. Prioritize and improvise how you manage your organization's communication and information-sharing features and boost your productivity. Let Definity First introduce you to the many intranet options and choose the one that fits your organization the best. Learn more about our SharePoint Intranet services here.