The ability to effectively utilize employee intranets can be the key to a successful business. Employee intranets are a powerful tool for increasing productivity and collaboration and can have a significant impact on the performance of a business. This comprehensive guide will provide an in-depth look into understanding and effectively utilizing employee intranets. We’ll explore the basics of intranets, how to set them up, the benefits they can offer, and how to make the most out of the technology. Additionally, we’ll provide tips and best practices for ensuring that your intranet is being used to its fullest potential. By the end of this guide, you’ll have a thorough understanding of employee intranets and how you can use them to drive your business forward.
What is an Employee Intranet?
Employee intranets are largely similar to an employee or internal website, but they also include employee-only tools and applications. Social intranet tools and applications are designed for employees and are often used for workflow, communication, team collaboration, and other business needs. Because these tools and applications are designed for internal use, they can be more secure than public websites that are inaccessible to the general public. Plus, many of them can be customized to include policy restrictions that protect sensitive business information.
Benefits of Employee Intranet Sites
Employee intranets can provide a number of benefits for businesses, including the ability to:
- Simplify Workflows – By centralizing key business processes, an employee intranet can help streamline the way employees work. This can help increase productivity and free up time for other tasks.
- Reduce Costs – Businesses can centralize certain tools and applications, thereby reducing the number of individual computers they have to purchase, maintain, update, and secure. By using an employee intranet, organizations can also avoid the costs associated with managing individual computer networks.
- Increase Security – With more sensitive information centralized, an employee intranet can help businesses to increase their security by limiting the amount of sensitive data that employees can access.
- Reach a Broader Audience – An employee intranet can help businesses to reach a broader audience by making it easier for employees to collaborate with one another remotely.
Setting Up an Employee Intranet
Employee intranets can be set up in a number of ways, including:
- On-Premises – With on-premises employee intranets, employees access the applications and tools they need through a computer located at work.
- Cloud-based – With a cloud-based employee intranet, employees access their applications and tools remotely, through a computer hosted by the company.
- Hybrid – A hybrid employee intranet combines some of the features of on-premises and cloud-based solutions. Some organizations opt to centralize certain tools and applications using an on-premises solution while using a cloud-based solution to provide remote access for other tools.
Utilizing Employee Intranets
Once an employee intranet is set up, it can be helpful to hold regular intranet events. During these events, you can provide training on how to use the employee intranet, answer concerns about using the technology, and receive feedback from employees. It’s also helpful to share tips and best practices for effectively utilizing your employee intranet. For example, you might want to share information about which applications your employees find most useful on your employee intranet.
Tips and Best Practices
Employee intranets are a powerful technology that can have a significant impact on productivity and collaboration. The key to making the most out of the technology is to understand how it works and to follow a few best practices. By following these tips and best practices, you can ensure that your employee intranet is being used to its fullest potential.
Create a Strong Culture
One of the keys to effectively utilizing your employee intranet is to create a strong culture surrounding it. By setting a tone of excitement and positivity around the technology, you can encourage employees to make the most out of the technology. Additionally, you can promote the employee intranet as an opportunity to get creative, by encouraging employees to create content for the site.
Create a Centralized Hub
There are a number of tools and applications that can be helpful for an employee intranet. However, without a centralized hub for all of these tools, employees may find themselves looking for applications or tools in multiple places. One way to prevent this from happening is to create a centralized hub on your employee intranet. By including links to the tools your employees find most useful, you can centralize them within the site.
Make it Easy to Access
One of the biggest challenges that businesses face when it comes to effectively utilizing employee intranets is the challenge of finding them. By making it easy for employees to access your employee intranet, you can help to increase their level of engagement. One way to do this is to include a link in your employees’ work email.
Support the Technology
When it comes to employee intranets, it’s important to remember that technology shouldn’t be a barrier to using the technology. That is, if you want employees to effectively utilize their employee intranet, you need to make it easy for them to use. That means ensuring that your employee intranet is properly maintained, that all of the tools are functioning properly, that there are no security issues, and that it’s easy for employees to access the technology.
Conclusion
Employee intranets can be a powerful way to simplify workflows, reduce costs, increase security, and reach a broader audience – but only if you’re making optimal use of this relatively new technology. By following a few best practices, an employee intranet can be set up and used effectively in any organization.
