No matter the capabilities you’ve endowed your corporate intranet with, if it’s not widely adopted across your organisation, most of those capabilities will not be realized. In the interests of empowering your intranet to reach its full potential, here are six tips for encouraging employees to not only use your intranet but also take ownership in its success:
1. Find out what employees want from their intranet
When you’re still in the planning stage for your corporate intranet, make sure to get input from a wide range of employees. It goes without saying that if your intranet is empowered with real utility for the specific processes and workflows of your organisation, it stands a much higher chance of being widely adopted.
You’ll also need to engage staff to find out what functionality is explicitly required for your organisation. Note that a massive advantage of engaging employees at an earlier stage is it that you’ll also be building anticipation (and emotional buy-in) amongst staff as you move towards launch.
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2. Integrate social features
There’s no getting around the fact that humans are social creatures. While it may not seem like a particularly productive use of work time when employees engage in the social features on your intranet, making such features available can be critical for the achieving enterprise-wide adoption needed to make your intranet genuinely useful. Some social features you may want to consider including are:
- The ability for staff to publish personal blog posts on the intranet (although for most organisations it is highly recommended that a moderator be put in place).
- The capacity to edit photos and tag other employees
- A bulletin board for buying and exchanging items.
Giving employees a way to share not only relevant personal news, but also work-related knowledge and tips will empower them to take ownership in the process of utilizing the true capabilities of your intranet.
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3. Build anticipation before the launch
In the weeks and months before the official launch, release teasers describing the features and capabilities of your new intranet. If you have the budget, a short video is an effective way to do this, but posters and emails will work as well. In addition to building anticipation, these teasers will also serve to start the much-needed education process for your new intranet (see tip 5).
Need help building your intranet?
Read more: Create an intranet that your employees will love
4. Launch in style
There’s a reason marketers put so much effort into the launch of a new product: people are attracted to the appearance of excitement around new things. And just as consumers are more likely to purchase a product after having attended a launch event, employees across your organization will be more likely to buy into the new intranet if the launch has been enunciated.
It doesn’t have to be a full-on “party,” but don’t be shy about introducing a little pomp and ceremony. One idea here is to set up a photo booth where employees can get quality photos for their new intranet profiles.
5. Provide workshops
Employees must know what’s included in their new intranet and how they can leverage its powerful features to improve their productivity. Provide interactive educational workshops and make sure employees are allotted specific time to fill out their profiles and get used to the new features.
6. Provide incentives for adoption
Despite all your efforts up to this point, weeks after launch, your intranet may still be languishing in a state of disappointing under-adoption. If that’s the case, you may want to consider giving it a boost by introducing a recognition and rewards scheme. An easy way to do this is to enable digital badges that employees can use to recognize one another’s achievements. Employees who accumulate enough badges could then later redeem them for rewards like gift certificates or privileges.
By engaging your staff early on, making sure they are informed of the new intranet’s capabilities and providing them with incentives to get on board, you’re taking the right steps to ensure your corporate intranet will bring a much-needed digital transformation to your organisation.
Need help building your intranet?
Create an intranet that your employees will love