Building an intranet for more engagement and accessibility

Do you know the design principle that form follows function? This means that the design - the structure, if you will - is derived from the purpose of something.

For most companies, the purpose of an intranet is a combination of accessibility for employees, the exchange of information and knowledge, and the promotion of employee engagement and motivation.

Unfortunately, however, intranet construction is often guided by completely different maxims, such as the use of existing licences and budget issues, etc. The result is intranets with a limited number of users. The result is intranets with disappointing usage and interaction rates.

This guide shows how to build an intranet so that employees ...

• can find information easily, 
• enjoy reading content, 
• interact with it,
• and share their own know-how, insights and anecdotes

Not quite there yet? Here you can read how to establish an Intranet.

"Intranet set-up" describes the process of setting up and configuring an intranet for an organisation. Both user needs and company interests must be taken into account. This is particularly exciting when different user groups are to be addressed - for example, the office workers in the head office and the warehouse workers in the production plant.

And that is exactly what few companies succeed in doing: In practice, an intranet reaches on average only 50% of the employees. The goal of intranet development is to reach more people and encourage interaction in order to justify the investment in the intranet in the long run.

To ensure that the efforts to set up an intranet do not come to nothing, the project should be well planned. We recommend the tried and tested Plan, Do, Check, Act process with the following steps:

1. Analyse the status quo through KPIs and user interviews.

Get a picture of the current situation by collecting figures on the current use of the intranet tool(s). Most solutions offer integrated KPI tracking of key metrics.

2. Define the goals of the intranet

Identify the needs and requirements of the different user groups within the organisation. You have probably already elicited these. Clarify whether anything has changed or in which areas the current solution needs to improve. The inventory in step one can help to uncover weaknesses.

3. Identify missing content and functions

Determine which types of content have been missing so far, which functions and, above all, which use cases you want to implement in a new or better way in the future. Have several users asked for an employee directory? Or is a polling tool for employee surveys, a smartphone app or the search function for documents insufficient? 

4. Building the intranet

Depending on what the previous steps have revealed, various things may make sense here: from integrating additional internal communication tools to adapting the intranet structure to revising the internal communication strategy. Three possible steps can be found in the next chapter. 

5. Test and roll out

Test the new features for functionality and user-friendliness before releasing them to all employees. The fact is that you only have one chance to introduce new functionality. If staff are confused or overwhelmed the first time they use it, adoption will fail. 

6. Train and support 

Under certain circumstances, the intranet set-up should be accompanied by training so that employees do not feel overwhelmed. In our view, it has proven useful to set up a communication channel for queries in addition to training - for example, via a Slack or Teams channel, or ideally on the intranet itself.

7. Improve and update

Intranet building is an iterative process and requires regular maintenance, security updates, bug fixes and adding new features and integrations to the intranet. So once you get here, it's back to square one.

With our three tips for intranet building, you can make sure your intranet works better than most other companies'.

Actually, it's obvious: what interests people externally, they also find exciting on the intranet. For your internal communication this means: videos and photos instead of PDFs, crisp texts instead of press release-style messages.

Fortunately, the social component is playing an increasingly important role in intranet development and most companies opt for tools that allow comments, likes and mentions ("tags") from the outset. It is only the implementation that regularly fails.

Even though the intranet of choice could theoretically be used like other social media, management communication consists of long texts, uploaded PDFs with the title "Management Report Week 43" or PowerPoint presentations.

Speaking of content that people want to read... In large companies, even groups that actually have nothing to do with work have proven successful. For example, there is a dating portal on the Deutsche Bahn intranet. Experience has also shown that recipe or sports groups lead to a lively exchange of ideas.

Why should you motivate your employees to become active in groups on private interests - possibly even during working hours? Because it is simply more interesting than your company news. And if employees are inspired by a vegan cheesecake recipe on the intranet, they might also take a look at the sales figures for Q2.

People spend an average of three hours a day on their smartphones. And a large part of smartphone use is to pass the time. If your intranet is not geared towards mobile use, you are missing a huge opportunity here.

Chances are, your intranet can't match the radiance of TikTok. But if you implement tips one and two, your employees will have a good reason to open the intranet app from time to time.

In addition, with a mobile intranet you reach a group of employees that is all too often - and to the great disadvantage of companies - overlooked: the non-desk workers.

Non-desk workers - for example in production, warehousing or logistics - are closer to processes and customers than office workers. This allows them to share ideas and suggestions for improvement that no one else notices.

First and foremost, an intranet should help employees in their work. The development of functions that map job-related use cases is therefore the first priority.

But those who stop there will probably have to struggle with low internet usage. This is because the pull effect of the "Monthly Executive Update" is limited.

Personal content, high user-friendliness and the possibility of mobile use, on the other hand, have proven to be important pull factors. They ensure that employees enjoy visiting the intranet and interacting with each other and the company.