Posts Tagged ‘Employee Communication’
Thursday, June 16th, 2011
Last week, I had the privilege of attending the Inbound Marketing Summit in San Francisco. It was a fabulous conference with enlightening speeches from influential marketing professionals. One of the speakers that hit home for me was Elyse Tager from Constant Contact. Elyse gave an insightful presentation about Engagement Marketing and spoke about customer engagement and the act of giving a great customer experience.
I believe that Elyse said it best, “there is no marketing cure for sucking, the last thing you want to do is ignore the customer experience.” This motto echo’s our customer service goals at Intranet Connections because we strive to continuously deliver positive customer experiences over the phone, with email and through social media.
These are three important things that our team does to nurture, connect and educate our connections:
>> At Intranet Connections, we cultivate relationships with our client’s by encouraging them to “talk to us”. We love that our customers feel that they can get in touch with us directly to receive assistance with tech support, sales, marketing, or if they just want to chat. We always answer the phone, no call routing, just personalized communication between our company and you.
>> Our customers give us permission to engage with them via social media, blogs, and emails, and we thank them for this opportunity.
>> We provide valuable information to our customers and prospects by sharing and commenting on articles by thought leaders in our industry.
Make sure you check out these cool initiatives that our Intranet Connections customers are participating in:
We recently had the opportunity to tour Fathom Online Marketing’s intranet where they are doing some amazing things to promote their corporate culture initiatives. Find out more about their intranet at IBF Live on Tuesday, July 5th
Are you interested in updating the design of your intranet? Take a look at Aggregate Industries Most Beautiful Intranet entry for creative ideas for your intranet.
Would you like to learn more about Intranet Connections? Come see what our customers are saying.
Tags: best practices, Client Stories, Collaboration, Customer Service, Employee Communication, employee engagement, Intranet Design, intranet development, intranet ROI, Intranet Success, Social Software
Posted in Best Practices, Customer Stories, IBF Live, Intranet Design, Intranet Software | 1 Comment »
Wednesday, May 11th, 2011
With the boom of tech-savvy employees in the workforce, companies are in search of unique engagement tools to keep the Gen X and Gen Y employees interested. In Dana LaSalvia’s article called “Building an Employee-Enriched Culture with Social Media” she wrote that “organizations should think about integrating companywide marketing messages and upgrading their employee’s recognition programs to be more virtual.” To do this, implement an intranet! An intranet will improve employee culture and collaboration and act as a central portal for important company information. When you position your company online, you are catering to a large group of Gen X and Gen Y employees.
An intranet is a virtual solution to inform and connect with your tech savvy employees. To do so, utilize Dana’s Electronic Tool suggestions on your intranet:
Blogs provide a platform for a constant flow of communication. It is a low-cost, easy-to-use method to implement. Keep content rich and employee-centered.
RSS Feeds (a.k.a. Real Simple Syndication) provide a stream of information for employees and can act as an update alert for recognition program news.
Widgets are small applications that can be installed and executed by an end user. Create a recognition wizard or a tip-of-the-day widget to supplement any program type.
Podcasts (or non-streamed webcast) are a series of digital media files that can be downloaded through Web syndication for training modules, off-site seminars and integrated communications.
With your Intranet Connections software, you can construct an intranet platform that offers a variety of collaboration tools to gratify the Gen X and Y employees. Here are some intranet initiatives that you can put into practice:
Show loyalty Allow all employees to post blogs that are related to the company so they can share your intranet initiatives
Promote give-back programs Give and Take Days are a great way to get employees to give back to the community. Advertise community initiatives on the intranet calendars and offer a free vacation day for every 8 hours of community service.
Offer employee perks Contests are a great social tool to promote workplace activity. You can offer gift cards, half days or extended lunches to people that contribute good content to social tools.
Feature outstanding work Use the What’s New application to highlight achievements that the entire company can see instantly. Give employees public recognition in a central area of the intranet.
Encourage employee engagement Use intranet collaboration tools to instantly send messages, share pictures and post blogs for the entire company or particular a department to view. Everyone enjoys sharing parts of their social lives with coworkers.
Build staff retention Do you permit using social media sites like Twitter, Facebook and Linkedin on work computers? A great way to maintain employee interest is to let them network on these sites while at work.
When you enable companywide communication on the intranet, you open up a large platform for sharing and engagement. How does your intranet help to facilitate your corporate culture and accommodate the Gen X and Gen Y users?
Tags: Collaboration, Employee Communication, employee engagement, facebook, Intranet Applications, intranet ROI, intranet software, Intranet Success, Intranet tips, Intranets
Posted in Intranet Software | 1 Comment »
Tuesday, May 3rd, 2011
Peter Barron is an Intranet Connections Fan; he provides significant feedback on our blog, Linkedin and Facebook pages and speaks candidly about our software as it applies to his organization. Over the past ten years, Peter has managed the Rio Rancho Public Schools intranet, which is internally called “Rionet”. With over 20 school district departments that use the rionet, Peter targets applications and widgets that make the intranet process fast and easy for thousands of users. We recently interviewed Peter to find out what makes his intranet so successful, and today we are delighted to share his responses with our intranet community.
Here are Peter’s six tips for an efficient intranet:
| Time: Seeing as Rio Rancho is a school district, the majority of intranet users are teachers. Teachers are incredibly busy with students during the day and they lack freedom of time to peruse their intranets. In order to overcome this timing issue, Peter leverages the notification capabilities of the “rionet” with subscriptions to departments that the teachers have invested interest in. This subscription service has been a big push for Peter and the Rio Rancho Schools because it decreases searching time on the intranet by targeting topics of interest for the user.
E-forms: Teachers must attend conferences, so Peter created PDF e-forms for them to request conference admittance and funding in rionet. Directly from their classroom, teachers fill out the request form, and it is processed right away. |
 Rionet Intranet |
Collaboration: Peter says that collaboration among teachers is a difficult task because teachers don’t have extra time to go on the intranet. To overcome this, he encourages them to set up subscriptions to get alerts and on topics that they are interested in. This subscription section of rionet gives them a place where they can share information and tools back and forth (blogs, docs, and forums) in an efficient way.
Calendars: All of the Rio Rancho schools and school districts utilize the calendar tool. This is the primary application on the rionet because all important events can be easily added and searched here.
Tech support: Peter uses the tech support and help desk application for all 20 districts and schools. Users love the ticketing process because the tickets route directly to education technology specialists. This way, the issue is taken care of right away and then it is documented in their secure intranet site.
Mobile: In school districts, mobile capabilities are not beneficial because staff use their own cell phone providers. Although most people now have smart phones, they are not accessing wireless through Rio Rancho’s provider, so it is unlikely that accessing their intranet via mobile will occur.
At Intranet Connections, we enjoy connecting with our clients and receiving customer feedback to ensure that our software is meeting your needs. The Intranet Connections team would like to say a gigantic thank you to Peter for taking the time to answer our questions with great ease and detail and we hope that his insight is helpful to your intranet development.
What are you doing to simplify your intranet’s ease of use for busy employees?
Tags: Client Stories, Collaboration, Employee Communication, employee engagement, Intranet Applications, intranet software, Intranet Success, Intranet tips
Posted in Customer Stories, Intranet Software | 3 Comments »
Tuesday, April 19th, 2011
Sharlyn Lauby, a writer for Open Forum, recently wrote an article called “5 Challenges for Human Resources in a Digital World” which shares the automation challenges that HR departments face today. Sharlyn explains that an array of automation tools is available to HR professionals; however, the adoption of this technology is slow. A great way to overcome computerization issues is to implement an intranet to share and store human resources information digitally.
Once an intranet is up and running, there are exceptional applications that can make HR documents and polices accessible to all business sectors securely.
Justin Olson from the Utah Credit Union, who has been on our intranet software since 2004, created two unique time-saving Human Resources tools on his intranet:
Non-salaried employees clock-in using Hyperlinked logos that are connected to their external time tracking system. Hours worked are tracked through one site so that HR does not have to login to another system.
Full time employees have a Human Resources widget for health benefits, medical, dental and 401K plan information. Justin said that providing all of the proper documentation in a central area has freed up Human Resources because less people have questions when all of the forms are easily available on the site.
Practical Intranet HR Tools:
- Encourage employees to use the intranet by solely providing HR forms and policies on the intranet
- Use the vacation application to track and manage absence requests from employees.
- Create HR e-forms; all files can be stored and managed in this secured area
- Manage employee course registration with the training application
- Obtain user feedback by adding comments and ratings to the bottom of each widget or application that you create. This way, employees can respond on how things are working.
- Utilize the anniversary and birthday widgets so employees can respond to their coworker’s special occasions
These are a few of the great ways that an intranet can automate HR in a protected and organized manner. How has your company enhanced Human Resources capabilities via your intranet?
Tags: best practices, Client Stories, Employee Communication, employee engagement, Intranet Applications, Intranet Design, intranet ROI, Intranet tips
Posted in Customer Stories, Intranet Software | 4 Comments »
Wednesday, March 16th, 2011
We often use social media, like Facebook, Twitter and Linkedin, to engage in conversation with our intranet software customers. We recently asked
Why do you love your intranet?
for the launch of our Facebook Fan Page. The response was great and one in particular stood out, from Jerrod Crouch at Coppermark Bank:
 |
“Coppermark Bank uses Intranet Connections as our go-to source for all company information. From company news to highlighting new products to sharing employee awards to staying inspired with our thought of the day… Intranet Connections does it all for us. And to have the support team there at the drop of a hat to handle our questions – it is truly the perfect fit.” |
|
One of the reasons they love their intranet is because it helps them stay inspired. Here are a few ideas to motivate and keep your employees enthused:
Share Your Corporate Values and Mission:
Your intranet is the perfect place to promote your corporate core values and goals for the organization. Ensure that your corporate mission and purpose are stated clearly on your intranet and use plain language. This keeps your employees aligned with your corporate goals and makes everyone feel like they are in the loop.
Recognize Employees:
What better way to inspire your staff than by letting them know about the achievements of their coworkers? If you learn of an accomplishment or award that an employee in your organization is receiving, write about it on the intranet. The achievements don’t have to be related to your organization at all. Highlighting your employees’ accomplishments not only shows that you recognize their contributions, but it can also help encourage others.
Information Bank:
Create an area on your intranet where employees can share blog posts and articles they find online. This can be a great source of information about trends in the market, best practices and innovation within your sector. You never know where a new idea will come from or what information with inspire others.
Thought of the Day:
Add a widget to your Home Page that cycles through a selection of pre-populated messages. The messages can be inspirational quotes, tips to help employees perform their daily tasks, answers to frequently asked questions and ‘did you know’ topics. The goal is to provide valuable content in bite-sized chunks, from the first page of your intranet.
Sometimes, finding ways to inspire employees doesn’t need to involve complex initiatives. Take a look at the tools available on your current intranet and provide avenues for employees to share, inspire and engage.
Read more about what Intranet Connections customers have to say on our Facebook page. Be sure to “like” us!
Tags: Client Stories, Employee Communication, employee engagement, facebook, linkedin, social media, twitter
Posted in Customer Stories | 3 Comments »
|
|
