The intranet is dead. Long live the intranet! 3 key questions to ask about your intranet

To be more specific, it’s clear that the “traditional” intranet is dead. Forget those archaic on-premise systems with no flexibility. Gone are the days of endless folders containing countless documents, which are not properly versioned, that don’t allow collaborative working, are probably duplicated, and are difficult to search and find what you’re looking for. No longer is the intranet a place of static, dry information with no engagement or interaction. 

The modern intranet is a different breed designed to counter workforce disengagement, lack of productivity and poor efficiency.

If you’re considering a project to breathe new life into your tired intranet, there are three critical questions to consider.

1. Why do we need an intranet in the first place?

While most organisations would agree they need some form of online space to provide corporate information to employees, it’s important to understand whether that’s all it is, or if it could actually be so much more. There’s a host of reasons to reimagine your intranet.

• We work in silos - there’s no vehicle for cross-organisation collaboration and conversation.
• We don’t manage our corporate information properly - it’s like a document black hole.
• We don’t share news and successes - people find things out on the grapevine and it’s not always accurate.
• We don’t make the most of our corporate experience - we don’t encourage people to share their tacit knowledge.
• We don’t promote a culture of sharing and learning - there’s no sense of belonging, or trust.
  
  

2. What do we want our intranet to help us achieve?

The intranet as a physical tool in itself is not going to be the thing that achieves your organisational objectives - it’s the people who do that. However, it is an enabler to help you. It’s critical you have in mind where you want to get to.

• We want better two-way communication to provide employees with a voice.
• We want to establish a culture of sharing and collaboration across the organisation to ensure we’re learning from each other and not duplicating effort.
• We want corporate documentation and news to be quickly and easily accessible and findable, so that everyone gets accurate and up-to-date information.
• We want our leadership to be visible and approachable to ensure everyone feels part of the team and understands our strategic direction.
• We want to create an online environment where our people feel comfortable sharing their knowledge, so that we can maximise our collective intelligence.

Ultimately, all these things support better employee engagement, which leads to greater productivity, improved efficiency, increased retention rates and better customer satisfaction.

3. How are we engaging with our people?

Your people are your greatest asset, so they are crucial when it comes to reinvigorating your intranet, particularly if you want to use it as a tool to grow engagement and collaboration. Involving your people in the process is essential and there are some important questions to ask.

• Do you have usage statistics and information about how employees currently use your intranet? What can you learn from the data?
• Have you asked your people about what they want to get from an intranet? What would help them in their work? 
• How will you involve your people in rebuilding your intranet? How will you ensure their feedback is considered?
• The Guardian reported that more than a third of workers said they would quit their jobs if their employer demanded that they return to the office full-time after the pandemic. With this in mind, how well does your intranet cope with the demands of a remote workforce?
• The 2022 Engage for Success survey found that organisations using multiple communication channels with employees had better levels of engagement. Besides email, top channels included online communication platforms and online community groups. How does your intranet cater for these kinds of communication and collaboration needs?

So, what comes next?

The modern intranet is not a one-size fits all solution, it is a tool that offers flexibility, scalability and personalisation, allowing an organisation to address the needs of its business and its employees. To achieve this balance, a digital platform solution can provide the architecture for organisations to create intranets that work to connect people, support the sharing of corporate information and news as well as the tacit knowledge you might not otherwise hear about, and ultimately increase cross-organisation collaboration, engagement and productivity.

Placecube’s Digital Place for the Workplace offers just that solution. It is a ready-to-use digital platform, whose open technology core enables it to work easily and securely across departments, teams and office locations. It is feature-rich, secure, customisable, scalable, mobile-responsive intranet that not only provides quick and easy access to corporate information, but also offers online communities, collaboration tools, powerful search, personalised content targeting and recommendations, and has the capability to integrate with other applications, systems and social media.

If you’re struggling with any of the challenges expressed here and would like to find out more about Digital Place for the Workplace, we’d love to talk to you. Contact our team today at enquiries@placecube.com or visit https://www.placecube.com/platforms/digital-place-for-communities/ for further information.