The Intranet: Communication Portal or Employee Toolkit?

Over the last year or so, I’ve seen a quiet war waging between communicators and employees.  Communicators passionately want to share breaking news, org changes, evergreen stories and the not so timely letter from the CEO.  On the employee end they say yes, keep me in the know.  But there is another want, not yet verbalized. They are really asking for a place to find what they need.  Employees want to get their hands on the ever elusive employee policies, org charts, and all of the tools that will help them be good company citizens while allowing them to focus on the job they’ve been hired to do.

Yesterday’s Intranet
The typical intranet seems to have all the basic offerings with obvious issues.  Your navigation may look good, but at closer inspection one will notice the cryptic link definitions based on departments and project areas.  Somewhere in this labyrinth lies useful information. But first you have to figure out the department that manages the form you need.  Now throw in a dash of the public and internal (if you’re lucky) company news.  Then there's a showcase of a new employee or new project in the company.  As you scroll down further you’ll find hidden gems like about us, bad clip art, a pointless integration of SharePoint or similar tool, and way too many animated graphics – all not updated in months. Lastly, if you’re a larger company, you may have invested in an enterprise software that allows employee self service via your intranet. These functions will be somewhere clickable in navigation, hopefully.

How about search? Do you suffer from a case of badsearchitis? Have you ever surfed the intranet looking for an HR form or IT policy?  Or maybe you need to use the enterprise system to log in your hours worked, file an expense report, or view your paycheck.  These and many more tasks have filled company intranets for the last few years.  No longer do employees log on to the company homepage just to find out the company stock price or view the world clock.

We communicators have worked diligently on our editorial calendars, giving departments a voice, and creating a home for employees.  But that was yesterday.  Today came a while ago and it’s time to take the best of our world and combine it with enterprise software, collaboration apps and tools “to get the job done”.  It’s time to make the shift to an Employee toolkit.

Employee Toolkit – key essentials
Admitting the need to evolve from a communication portal to a blended approach is the first step of bringing real business value to your intranet real estate.  It’s time to load your space with all of the key essentials.  Here’s a list of the core basics that companies may find useful.  Based on the needs of your company, you may need to cherry pick the options.

1. Easy to use navigation & organization – make it simple, make it clear, and make it meaningful.  Do away with department pages and define the links by subjects.
2. Search – It should work!  This is the starting spot for most employees.  Make sure your meta data is correct and that your search tool is crawling all of your spaces (intranets, SharePoint, etc).
3. Resources – Group key forms, policies, guides, finance information and the like.  Imagine having a one-stop shop for all the things you need.  Life would be amazing. (It’s ok to have separate sections for benefits and large categories as long as they truly are large – remember, simple navigation)
4. Enterprise tools – This is an important one. If you use something like SAP or Oracle for self service, make it easy to find and use. Have a great user interface – it’s so important.  Employees want this to be a no-brainer and they will love you for it.
5. Company News – Share important news and share it timely. Employees shouldn’t have to read about key company changes in the external news.
6. Interaction/Collaboration – Create a space (as part of the Intranet) for employees to have a voice in the news, resources, and to also continually shape their intranet. Plant and tend this garden.
7. Mobile – Everything is becoming mobile. Your intranet should be the same. If you can’t make it all function on a smart phone or tablet, aim for core tools like highly used self-service functions, company news, and collaboration. More and more, employees are bringing their smart devices into the office.
8. Customizable – Let employees choose what is important to them. I’m a big believer in providing framework and the main elements. But let employees have a voice in their home. As consumers (yes, employees are consumers), we see this everyday with iGoogle and MyYahoo.
9. Help – Share contact lists, phone numbers, and email addresses for your help groups – HR, IT, Legal, Finance, etc. Employees will call the IT help desk if they do not know who to call. Talk about frustrating for everyone.
10. Emergency Information – If you’re company is large, you’ll need a space to share what’s happening if an emergency arises. Think real-time and easy to see. Employees should and need to be safe.

The trick here will be in placement and design. If you make 3/4 of the page news, then you’ve lost the Employee Toolkit idea. Intranets should not be the CNN of your company.  Design the page so it’s truly the place to find the tools and information employees need to stay informed and get their job done.  Your home should be a resource employees want and need to visit daily.

Questions to stir the pot

What other essentials would you add to the list? What are your barriers in making the right intranet change? What has worked and what has failed?