Intranets: ten hot tips from the ARFS' kitchen
Date published: 12th May 2006
Tonya Hills, director of A Recipe For Success, gives us her top ten tips on what makes a good company intranet a great intranet. You don't have to have the big budget of a multinational corporation to run a quality intranet that keeps employees happy and information free-flowing. Here at A Recipe for Success, our ethos is to keep things simple.
Once the basic principles are in place - that is, straightforward and attractive design, along with clear navigation and good content - just a few useful extras will help turn your intranet from being a good one - into a great one.
1. Use your public website
Many employees simply won't think to look for information about their company on its public-facing website. This includes top-level information, such as press announcements and new appointments. So why not give them a helping hand by adding a link to the public site, or repurposing that content for internal consumption? We can do exactly that for you.
2. Get the training
Increasingly, companies are seeking training to enable employees and site administrators to contribute quality content to intranets. The better quality the content, the more likely it is that people will come back to it, and then they will want to contribute to it even more. We can offer this service - and feedback from previous training sessions has proven very positive.
3. Keeping the standards
To encourage a consistent look and feel, we make sure each department in your business has access to a set of homogenous design standards and guidelines, and that each section is designed along the same template. Not only does this help individuals' navigation, it really helps strengthen your company brand.
4. New employees
What better place is there than the company intranet to help get new employees up to speed about the company on their first day? A company intranet 'new employee page' is a great tool for giving out advice to newcomers - from phone numbers to health and safety guidelines.
5. Introduce a one-stop shop
Most employees will need to visit several intranet web pages every day to complete their administrative tasks - so why make them work harder than necessary to find the links? We can help get around this problem, by creating a special services section on your intranet, so users have a one-stop-shop to visit, for all their administrative needs.
6. Advertise it
You may have published a fantastic feature, that's brilliantly written and designed - but that's no guarantee that people will find and read it. To get around this problem, it's a good idea to use creative advertising - such as a Did You Know? bubble on the homepage, or a brief section that outlines the latest updates to the intranet. And just as importantly, we make sure these features won't irritate the user, by testing them out on focus groups beforehand to get the tone just right.
7. Favourite things
We all have our favourite web pages - and it's no different for intranet users. It's a good idea to let employees save their favourite pages or tools to a 'favourites' location, especially when they're accessing pages from remote locations with lower rates of bandwidth. This lets them jump more quickly to the relevant intranet pages they need to access, saving time and frustration at not having to go via unwanted pages.
8. Mobile workforce?
From busy executives to account managers - everyone's increasingly on the move in business today. And intranets must keep up with their users, and be accessible via mobile devices where possible, such as laptops and PDAs. This requires our designers to rework and reformat news and other features for mobile displays and interfaces - so it's there exactly where and when you need it. All part of the service!
9. Text it!
It's also important to let your employees know when new or 'sticky' content has been uploaded onto the intranet - even if they're on the move - so they don't miss out. We can get around this problem for you, by sending alerts via SMS text messaging to mobile phones, or e-mail updates straight to their laptops. Easy!
10. Homepage polls
A simple poll on an intranet homepage is easily executed from a design point of view - and can help to create both interest and transparency across the company. Polls are a fun way to foster a sense of community, and get people involved in sharing their opinions - reaffirming the intranet homepage as 'the place to be' for employees.
These are just my top ten of the hot topics that are currently making our clients' intranets not just good, but the best they can be. We can really help you get the recipe right, and the information freely flowing in your company. It's just a question of using the right ingredients to help get the recipe right.
Once the basic principles are in place - that is, straightforward and attractive design, along with clear navigation and good content - just a few useful extras will help turn your intranet from being a good one - into a great one.
1. Use your public website
Many employees simply won't think to look for information about their company on its public-facing website. This includes top-level information, such as press announcements and new appointments. So why not give them a helping hand by adding a link to the public site, or repurposing that content for internal consumption? We can do exactly that for you.
2. Get the training
Increasingly, companies are seeking training to enable employees and site administrators to contribute quality content to intranets. The better quality the content, the more likely it is that people will come back to it, and then they will want to contribute to it even more. We can offer this service - and feedback from previous training sessions has proven very positive.
3. Keeping the standards
To encourage a consistent look and feel, we make sure each department in your business has access to a set of homogenous design standards and guidelines, and that each section is designed along the same template. Not only does this help individuals' navigation, it really helps strengthen your company brand.
4. New employees
What better place is there than the company intranet to help get new employees up to speed about the company on their first day? A company intranet 'new employee page' is a great tool for giving out advice to newcomers - from phone numbers to health and safety guidelines.
5. Introduce a one-stop shop
Most employees will need to visit several intranet web pages every day to complete their administrative tasks - so why make them work harder than necessary to find the links? We can help get around this problem, by creating a special services section on your intranet, so users have a one-stop-shop to visit, for all their administrative needs.
6. Advertise it
You may have published a fantastic feature, that's brilliantly written and designed - but that's no guarantee that people will find and read it. To get around this problem, it's a good idea to use creative advertising - such as a Did You Know? bubble on the homepage, or a brief section that outlines the latest updates to the intranet. And just as importantly, we make sure these features won't irritate the user, by testing them out on focus groups beforehand to get the tone just right.
7. Favourite things
We all have our favourite web pages - and it's no different for intranet users. It's a good idea to let employees save their favourite pages or tools to a 'favourites' location, especially when they're accessing pages from remote locations with lower rates of bandwidth. This lets them jump more quickly to the relevant intranet pages they need to access, saving time and frustration at not having to go via unwanted pages.
8. Mobile workforce?
From busy executives to account managers - everyone's increasingly on the move in business today. And intranets must keep up with their users, and be accessible via mobile devices where possible, such as laptops and PDAs. This requires our designers to rework and reformat news and other features for mobile displays and interfaces - so it's there exactly where and when you need it. All part of the service!
9. Text it!
It's also important to let your employees know when new or 'sticky' content has been uploaded onto the intranet - even if they're on the move - so they don't miss out. We can get around this problem for you, by sending alerts via SMS text messaging to mobile phones, or e-mail updates straight to their laptops. Easy!
10. Homepage polls
A simple poll on an intranet homepage is easily executed from a design point of view - and can help to create both interest and transparency across the company. Polls are a fun way to foster a sense of community, and get people involved in sharing their opinions - reaffirming the intranet homepage as 'the place to be' for employees.
These are just my top ten of the hot topics that are currently making our clients' intranets not just good, but the best they can be. We can really help you get the recipe right, and the information freely flowing in your company. It's just a question of using the right ingredients to help get the recipe right.
Tel: 0845 8 409933