Discover built-in intranet features that make your business more effective and efficient.
Download WhitepaperSummary: One of the questions we frequently hear from new customers is ‘What can make my Intranet launch successful?’ Before diving into these tips, let’s review the foundation as to why you chose to use an Intranet software in the first place.
Some first pain points resolved should be related to the original reasons you sought out an Intranet in the first place. For example:
These may not list all of your pain points, but these are the common pain points we hear from our customers prior to seeking out an Intranet solution.
You’ve chosen an Intranet to be the key to bring things together and drive the change you’re looking to make. Collect your team internally and discuss what hasn’t been working and brainstorm ideas to come up with solutions.
In order to gain buy-in from your team and employees, it’s important to start with the key drivers for adopting an Intranet. If your key focus is on policies, forms, and culture, start with the basic structure to move you closer to launching your Intranet.
If you have a number of documents that may be outdated and not worth bringing over to the Intranet, then task yourself with finding the key documents and procedures that are needed. Are your documents primarily PDFs or Word documents? Those are quick and easy to upload to the Intranet! Just use the Multiple File Upload option available.
If your software has been freshly installed, it comes with some sample content to help give you ideas on how each application can be utilized. To remove this content, refer to our Help Center article on Clearing out your demo data.
To quickly reduce the number of emails currently going out to your employees, start building these announcements in your Intranet. Our Company News application is a great starting place for storing these announcements for you. Refer to the Company News article on how to get started.
Are employees still looking for an email notification? Setup subscriptions to get them comfortable with relying on this information until they’re ready to pull the plug on emails.
To reduce the physical paper trail and to automate workflow processes, building forms within the Intranet is a great way to streamline how processes can be handled. As an example, do you have a process around employee onboarding where multiple departments work together to add a new employee? Break down what it takes to bring on a new employee:
HR Related:
IT Related:
With this information, you can build out a form that helps drive this process and confirms that each step is completed along the way. Automated workflow will ensure that each person handles their tasks when it’s their turn to act on it, and a final approval will be made once everything is complete. When the employee starts, there’s no need to worry that they won’t have proper access to all the documents and policies they need to get set up or access to training and company information.
Customize the Intranet so that it matches with your brand. This can foster company culture, as well as give a sense of unity across your company (especially if you have multiple locations). Looking for ideas? Check out our Get Creative With Your Intranet article. Remember, the goal is to have the Intranet be informative and to make things easier to find for your employees – overwhelming them with large amounts of content on the home page may have the opposite effect.
When employees first access the Intranet, you want to WOW them with how great it looks, as well as how simple and easy it is to navigate and find what they’re looking for. Some best practices for building out your Home Page can be found on our Help Center.
Many of our customers have not just named their Intranet, but have given it a persona. Some examples include:
In today’s internet culture, we’ve adopted the phrase ‘Did you Google it?’. Within your organization, how cool would it be to say, ‘Did you go to Dwight for that policy’?
The Intranet can have so much to offer, but can employees find what they’re looking for? Successful navigation can be broken down. With your Intranet team, brainstorm how navigation should be built:
If your card doesn’t fit into a specific category, would another name for an existing category work better? Avoid being too vague! Categories like miscellaneous and general can create a black hole where users can’t find the information, or, duplicates will be created in the wrong places.
Put your navigation to the test! Prior to launch, set up a pilot group of users:
You’re almost there! Leading up to your launch date, plan a celebration within the company announcing the new Intranet. The key is to drive adoption with positive reinforcement.
Once you’ve launched, track how the progress is going! With Insights, you can see how many people are accessing the Intranet, and how long they’re staying engaged.
Post-launch activities can help reinforce using the Intranet. Launch contests for driving adoption, or offer small rewards through the Intranet. Some ideas can include:
Have you launched your intranet? Share your success stories with us! What did you do to celebrate?
Take the assessment to get a detailed report on the areas of strength and weakness in your internal communications efforts. Get valuable insights and resources to help you improve your internal communications strategy.