Creative Ways to Encourage Your Business’s Intranet Usage
Company intranets are designed to make internal communication best practices as seamless as possible. These internal networks make employee collaboration easier than ever, keep your staff engaged, streamline business processes, and build upon company culture. Intranets are also very useful for business scaling, because it ensures that even with staff turnover, instant access to documents isn’t compromised.
However, if your team members aren’t using your intranet effectively, the entire portal loses its value. If people aren’t using the system effectively, it’s time to rethink your execution. With that in mind, here are few creative ideas to build out your company intranet:
Build an Intranet Brand
Just like your business has a brand, give your intranet a brand. Why do this? For starters, consider what a brand is. Consumers relate to brands because it embodies the very core and essence of what a company or product is. It creates an experience and builds customer loyalty through familiarity and comfortability.
This same branded logic can be applied to your intranet. Start by giving your intranet a net. This adds characters and creates an identity around it. It also influences the perception and usage of the portal by humanizing it. To create a great name, draw inspiration from company specific lingo and attributes. For example, a company like Spotify might name their intranet “the Chord” or “Pulse.”
Create a Beautiful Design
For many organizations, the company intranet is the first thing they’ll see during the work day. If it’s clunky and outdated, the day starts with a grunt—suddenly, your intranet is a burden to look at. Go the extra mile to make your intranet visually appealing. This falls right in line with branding, too.
Your design should align with the company brand, and this added level of customization can really make your intranet unique. For a bit of a wow factor, consider changing your color scheme, graphics, or layout during holidays and other events.
Communicate Employee Accomplishments
Employee recognition is such an important part of company culture. Employees respond to appreciation because it validates their work and makes them feel valued. It also encourages them to continue on that path, and builds upon their productivity.
By acknowledging individuals and team members, your business is also less likely to have higher staff turnover, and more likely to retain quality employees. Lastly, employee recognition is especially important in today’s business landscape because it has become a cornerstone of management, and in today’s job market, competition for talent has increased.
Use your intranet to showcase employees that stand out and go above and beyond. Whether someone received a promotion, won an award, scored a high-value client, or simply worked extra hard on a proposal, communicate it on your intranet. Some intranet providers make this even easier with the ability to award badges or accrue points (this gamification method also helps engage employees and encourage use).
Host a Contest
Humans have a fundamental desire to win. So why not incentivize intranet usage by hosting an intranet contest? This is a great way to boost engagement and motivate employees. Your contest might be directly tied to company goals (such as sales), or might be a bit creative. For instance, you might host a contest for who can come up with the best intranet name (users submit their name with a brief description as to why they chose it).
Be sure to clearly outline the rules for entry and the process for judging. Sales contests might be clear-cut and numbers based, while creative contests will likely require a bit more thought and input. Winning prizes might include paid time off, preferred parking space, a custom trophy, gift card, or a prize relevant to your industry. For example, at a company like OpenTable, a prize might be a paid dinner for two at a popular restaurant.