Good intranets provide an invaluable resource to employees. A one-stop location to find everything from policies, guidelines, forms, departmental information, people search, calendar events and company news. But like all good intranets, over time they can get bogged down by the sheer volume of content distributed throughout the site. Sound familiar? It may be time to do a spring clean on your intranet.
A spring clean should renew, reconnect and revive.
Renew
If your users are complaining that their search for policy 50602 results in a file added in 2002 that could be a clue to outdated information. It happens to the best of us. Dated information is a fact of intranet life. To renew your intranet, you first need to roll up the sleeves and weed out the obvious junk.
Put some procedures in place to keep the site regularly maintained. To streamline the archival of content, ask publishers to set an appropriate archive date at the time of publishing. Intranet Connections has an automated clean up tool where the site will automatically remove archived data after an amount of time defined by the admin. Archiving and enabling a clean-up facility prevents obsolete content from appearing in current search results, reduces confusion for end users and keeps prevalent and timely information at the forefront.
Another way to renew your site is by taking on a research project. Get out there and talk to your employees. Find out how they use the site, what are their challenges, are there common obstacles faced when looking for content. Could FAQ s be added? Take the feedback you get and make efforts to address the issues. While you are out there talking to employees, don’t forget to take this face time to sell your intranet and encourage participation.
Reconnect
This is a hot topic for next generation intranets. Find ways for your employees to connect, collaborate and build community through your intranet.
- Build a discussion forum
– encourage users to post a topic or question
– ask co-workers to respond with suggestions
– promotes knowledge-sharing
– opens lines of communication within departments and groups - Enable comments and ratings
– offer a system that gives voice to your intranet users
– use the feedback to review, revise and clarify site content - Offer engaging applications
– add a suggestion box for employees to post their ideas
– vote for an employee of the month
– feature them on the intranet home page
– create areas where all employees are welcome to contribute - Offer live chat via the intranet
– employees can instant message co-workers
– easy access to groups such as your support techs
– quick & simple way to promote conversation
– tap the knowledge of users online
Revive
It may be time to give your intranet a face-lift. Although some employees are averse to change, growth is a fact of life. Things change and evolve, and your intranet is no different.
Revamp Your Navigation
Give some thought as to how your navigation is laid out. Keep it simple. Intranet Connections strives for no more than 3 clicks to any content. Who is going to navigate 12 layers deep to find something? Think SEO when advising content authors on how to set metadata and provide descriptive titles. How have you named your applications? Is it descriptive to what the function is of the tool? Make it easy for employees to find what they need on your intranet. We’ll say it again. Keep. It. Simple.
Theme Your Intranet
When you first brand your intranet, the tendency is to use your corporate colors. It’s a great start and can help build internal brand and lend to corporate culture, but remember your internal customers are different than your external customers. Go for lighter colors – they look fresh and it promotes easier reading online. Keep the graphics interesting but simple. Employees don’t need a lot of flash. Moving components are distracting unless they lend to functionality and ease of use. Adding white space can show a less cluttered look without having to lose content. Create a catchy name & tag line for your intranet and use it as much as possible. The best advice we can give for building an intranet theme is to keep it light, clean and simple.
The Front Door
The intranet home page is your entry to the site, so make the most of it. The intranet home page should deliver fresh and new content (use widgets to automate the delivery of new information). Highlight popular areas, or content that is often searched on. Add chat widgets to chat with tech supports, the intranet manager, or members of HR. Remember the human element: we all want to read and hear about each other. Feature employees and be sure to include a photo.
Breathing new life into your intranet can seem like a daunting task but breaking it into smaller projects makes it a lot easier to handle. Schedule regular intervals to review your content, business processes and site design as the pay offs for your intranet can be huge.
Tags: best practices, Home Page Design, Intranet Design, intranet development, intranet ROI, Intranet Success, Intranet tips
