After a period of a hiatus, intranets are once again a highly popular internal-comms solutions for businesses. If managed effectively, they can be a key way of cutting through the noise of excessive emails, encouraging cross-team collaboration, boosting innovation and improving staff morale. But how can you make sure that you are managing your intranet well and that it’s suited to the needs of your employees? It all comes down to good content. Here are our top tips for effective content management.
- Understand your employees pain points
Every workplace is different, and the key to intranet success is tapping into the specific needs and challenges of your staff. There are of course some common traits that might be shared between employees of different companies. For example, most people are very time-poor. This means that they are unlikely to regularly read long pieces of content, unless it’s something that is particularly relevant to their day job. This means that it’s beneficial to structure your intranet content in a format that gives a handy summary (or bullet point overview) first, before delving into extra detail.
For more specific employee needs, it might be worth conducting an annual survey in which you ask your staff what information they would benefit from most on the company intranet, and whether they have a vision of the format in which this should be displayed.
- Write in an engaging, concise manner
You want to capture the attention of your employees with your intranet content, which is why it’s important to be as clear, concise and engaging as possible. Cut through the technical jargon, especially if there’s a chance that not everyone will understand it. Use clear subheadings and quotations to improve the flow of your information, and highlight the parts that you want staff to pay particular attention to. Remember also that content can act as a brilliant leveler, which is why it makes sense to include individual employee stories on the intranet.
- Try out different formats
Some of the original intranet software was criticized for its dull, unengaging interfaces and the rigidity of content presentation. But this is now a thing of the past, and there are numerous options available to users. Why not see which format works best for your company? It’s worth trialing short videos, with members of staff verbally conveying information, as well as animations which offer a quick, visual explanation of important concepts. Use analytics to see which content type has the greatest number of hits.
- Organize how your content is managed
Producing and managing content is an ongoing process, and in large organizations, it’s rarely the domain of a single person or even one team. But regardless of your company’s sector or size, it’s important to have a fixed process for content creation and distribution via the intranet. Without it, communication chaos could ensue.
If each team has an allocated space on the intranet, it makes sense that this space is managed by a nominated person within that team. This person would be responsible for consolidating the information that is published there and periodically reviewing it to make sure that it is still in date. It makes sense for them to also set guidelines on how content should be presented.
The overarching, company-wide communication should be managed by your internal comms specialist, who would liaise with the representative of each team and deliver updates to the company in a succinct manner.
- Embrace open communication
In the spirit of transparency and trust, give your employees the chance to openly comment and ‘like’ particular pieces of content. That way, you’ll know what resonated the most with them and get a good idea of how many people are engaging with each content piece. Remember to always respond to comments, particularly if they include questions for the management team.
At the same time, it’s important to have an intranet code of conduct in place regarding the type of language and the tone of voice that should be used.
Ready to try an intranet that will revolutionize the way you communicate?
Engagy enables you to manage your company content with ease, to trial different formats, including video and animation, and to analyze staff engagement levels. It also allows you to create tailored pages for each team with a distinct interface, which have a highly positive impact on culture.
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