7 Clues You Could Be Doing More With Your Company Intranet

Like many organizations, you may be using an intranet to connect employees to valuable company information. An intranet is a great way for employees to find coworker email addresses, internal job opportunities, announcements, and much more. Beyond that, however, maybe your intranet isn’t living up to expectations or doing enough to enhance the employee experience. If so, you’re not alone. According to Simpplr research, 93 percent of companies have an intranet, but 60 percent are dissatisfied with it.

When you want your company intranet to be more than a “set and forget” platform, you’ll need to look at ways to improve its functionality and relevance. More specifically, you will need to evaluate the content, design, and user-friendliness. Here are the key signs your intranet may be ready for an upgrade:

1. The intranet doesn’t reflect your culture

Positive personal interactions help employees feel they belong in your organization and culture. Your intranet can do the same. Instead of merely storing information, your intranet should have a tone and focus that reflects your organization’s purpose and way of doing things—your culture. If your intranet doesn’t reflect your culture, it can prevent employees from forming deeper ties to the organization, their coworkers, and work. 

2. New hires aren’t getting value from the intranet during onboarding

During the onboarding process, brand-new employees need to learn about internal processes and the people that operate them. However, if your intranet isn’t well-organized or comprehensive, new hires may not be getting the information they need from it. Key indicators might be low scores from new hire onboarding surveys or an increase in the number of emails from new hires seeking information already featured on your intranet.

3. The intranet isn’t optimized for mobile

These days, more and more of your employees may be working from anywhere. Therefore, it’s important to make sure employees can access core company platforms using multiple devices, including mobile ones. After all, you want employees to have equal access to your intranet, regardless of where they may be working. If mobile intranet users lack the functionality and user experience features desktop users enjoy, it’s probably time for a redesign.

4. It’s been a while since you’ve gathered employee intranet feedback 

If a year or more has passed since you surveyed employees about the usefulness of the intranet, or you’ve never asked, it’s time. Chances are, the feedback will provide insights to help you organize information differently and add what’s missing. For example, we recently worked with a leading home services technology firm to revamp their company intranet. After conducting internal interviews and user surveys, we created an intranet redesign roadmap that reflected detailed stakeholder and employee feedback

5. You don’t have access to actionable analytics

Like employee feedback, a lack of site analytics can leave you in the dark about how to position your intranet with employees. Site analytics provide useful information such as employee log-in frequency, usage time, and engagement in the form of comments, likes, and clicks. But without this data and reporting, it’s hard to see how employees interact with the content.

6. There is no intranet champion dedicated to making it great

If intranet responsibility has bounced around between multiple groups and doesn’t have a committed champion, it has likely fallen lower on the list of priorities over time. Without someone to take accountability for improving the intranet over time, it can quickly become outdated and stale.

7. Employees aren’t engaging with intranet content

Even if your intranet contains a wealth of information, it may not be attracting employees because of how you present the information. For example, an intranet without interactive elements such as videos, polls, and comments may not offer enough opportunities for employees to engage with the content and each other. Instead of relying on the intranet, employees may be finding it easier to ask around or just send an email.

Today, there are many ways to design a company intranet that enhances employee experiences and connections. If you’ve seen signs your intranet could be doing more to engage employees, now is a great time to consider a redesign.