It’s hard to believe the intranet only became mainstream in the mid-90s, right around when the SPI Group came to be. Since then, we’ve revamped and migrated more intranets than we can count, always beginning with an intranet audit and review of metrics.
While our findings have evolved over the years, four have remained fairly consistent, highlighting some basic opportunities for delivering a better employee experience.
If one of your 2020 goals is to make your intranet more useful for employees, consider these findings and how they apply to your intranet:
Finding #1: The most viewed content is rarely the company news. There’s certain reference information that employees look for every day – like the cafeteria menu – and even multiple times a day – like the employee directory. Similar, oft-visited content includes the gym schedule, holiday calendar, and site pages with basic information like a location’s address, site services, etc.
Make this content easy to find and employees will regularly return to the intranet where they’ll see company news by default (highlighting the importance of strong headlines and abstracts – but that’s a topic for another day).
Finding #2: Mobile use is growing. Slowly but steadily, the percentage of employees visiting the intranet from a mobile device is on the rise. This may be driven by the uptick of non-desk and remote workers, or the mobile-first mentality of millennials, or both. Regardless of the reason, it’s happening.
If your intranet isn’t optimized for mobile, start engaging with IT to find out what’s needed to make your site mobile-friendly.
Better yet, consider an employee app that connects employees to the company in a way that seamlessly fits into their existing communication habits.
Finding #3: Local content gets more views than global content. This content is more relevant to employees so, not surprisingly, it gets more clicks.
Make sure your intranet has pages for departments, locations, or whatever breakdown makes sense. Then, give departmental and site communicators an easy way to post content on the intranet. A bonus: Giving them a channel for sharing content may contribute to a decrease in email.
Finding #4: Outdated content continues to plague most intranets. While most intranets allow publishers to set an expiration date for content, it’s often not a required setting. As a result, employees are left searching and sifting through years of stale, outdated content.
The first step toward cleaning up your intranet content is to catalog the site’s pages in a spreadsheet. For each page, record the following information: file name, publish date, expiration date (if applicable), and last use date.
Then, use this information to make decisions with respect to what stays, what goes, and what gets archived.
Lastly, plan for the future; to prevent outdated content from taking over your intranet again, make expiration date a required setting. This will prompt content owners to review and update/republish or archive content on a regular basis. If your intranet already addresses these findings, congratulations. You’re ahead of the game! If not, make plans to address them in 2020.
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