The importance of establishing secure and reliable lines of communication within an organization cannot be overstated. Organizations that fail to communicate properly are susceptible to failure. In pursuit of optimizing communication within your organization, you should strongly consider creating an intranet.
An intranet is a private network organizations set up to facilitate secure communications between members. Although an intranet is designed to be used online, it can stay private because access to it is limited to an organization’s employees and stakeholders.
According to Simpplr, an intranet can benefit a company by improving the quality of internal communication, boosting employee productivity and engagement, solidifying culture, and defining organizational initiatives. Follow the steps below if you’re interested in reaping the benefits of an intranet for your organization.
Step 1: Define the Goals of Your Organization’s Intranet
The first step involved in creating an intranet is to define its goals. Defining the goals for the intranet is important because it will guide every other decision moving forward.
Goals for the intranet could be improving internal communication, streamlining knowledge distribution, or promoting more effective collaboration. You could also pursue all three of those goals along with other objectives.
Regardless of the goals for the intranet, they must be defined as soon as possible.
Step 2: Select the Intranet’s Users
Limiting the number of users with access to an intranet is critical to keeping it secure. That’s why taking the time to select the people with access to the intranet is essential.
Ideally, you want to offer intranet representation to every department of your organization. Handing out access to every member of a department is not necessary. However, access should be given to at least one key member of each department.
This would also be the right time to determine who will maintain ownership of the intranet. Set up a clear ownership structure so the people in charge can discuss and resolve any issues involving the intranet.
In some cases, the owners of the intranet can also manage it. Of course, that structure doesn’t work for all organizations because the owners may already have their hands full dealing with other matters. Putting together a separate list of intranet managers may be necessary to keep the network functioning.
Step 3: Choose the Pieces of Content to Be Featured in the Intranet
Per this article from the Society for Human Resource Management, poor communication within companies with only 100 employees led to an annual loss of around $420,000. Scale that up to companies with 100,000 employees, and the average yearly loss attributed to miscommunication climbs to a staggering $62.4 million.
The harm done by poor communication within organizations must be mitigated. Doing so is possible if an organization’s intranet is populated with content correctly.
Organizations can use intranets to host documents that outline company policies and operations. The intranet can also host onboarding materials for new employees. Intranets can also disseminate company announcements regarding events, policy changes, and similar matters.
If a piece of content can improve communication within an organization, it should be included in the intranet. The intranet cannot be utilized to its full potential otherwise.
Step 4: Partner with an Intranet Software Provider
Setting up an intranet for your company doesn’t have to be a huge drain on resources. You don’t have to pull your talented workers from their tasks so they can devote their time and energy to developing an intranet.
Now that businesses such as Simpplr can provide intranet services, companies can partner with them and establish a network quickly. Securing intranet services from a trusted provider also makes sense because it takes trial and error out of the equation. Members of your organization won’t have to tinker constantly with the network until it functions as intended because a dependable infrastructure is already available.
Step 5: Offer Intranet Training
The final step in creating your organization’s intranet involves training your employees to use it. Start by training the managers so they can take what they learn and pass it on to other intranet users.
Working with an intranet provider can make this step easier. The intranet provider can offer the training the managers require.
Creating an intranet for your organization can prove to be a monumental move. Make sure you set up the intranet correctly by following the steps outlined above.