Over the past few decades, the internet has dramatically changed how businesses operate and while some technological advances flash and fade, intranet software has endured and revolutionised business operations. In fact, intranets have helped businesses improve communication and knowledge sharing among employees, job performance, workplace productivity, and service delivery times.
As a central hub of activity, an intranet creates and sustains a virtual community that bridges silo structures and limited communication with remote workers and frontline employees via a secure private network.
Is your business considering implementing an intranet? Here are some of its benefits and how they can deliver results for your organisation:
Unified communications
Communication within a workforce is always a challenge. Because employees can become isolated from each other and from management, it becomes difficult to share ideas, direction, and even establish clear dialogue in the company. Intranets break down these barriers and enable efficient and constructive interaction. Through an intranet, you can crowdsource information, identify trends within your organisation, avert potential issues, and ultimately make better strategic decisions.
Employee engagement
Intranets encourage employees to contribute to projects and initiatives by being connected in a common space. Think of it as the “team huddle” that unites and motivates your employees. One infamous study by McKinsey & Company found that companies with social collaboration technologies raised employee productivity by 20–25% — and that was before the trend of remote work blew up.
Better communication
Instead of shooting out emails that will get buried in people’s inboxes, you can share memos, company news, and announcements through the intranet that will keep everything visible, searchable, and organised. Your employees could log in and find the information they need quickly. In addition, you can personalise their information according to the department they belong to.
Streamlined collaboration
With collaboration hubs like SharePoint, your employees can partner up from anywhere in the world to take on daily tasks as well as long-term projects. They can share files, store conversations, and reference relevant data. For example, many IT companies use intranets to consolidate information for projects with lots of moving parts, which allows centralised access to important third-party tools.
Information and management
Managing information is essential to collaborate and communicate effectively. Intranets can organise and channel your business intelligence to prevent information overlap so your employees work with only the files they need. And because your business still needs a filing system, intranet document management is your best option.
Human resource management
Having an HR intranet simplifies hiring and onboarding. New hires can use it to access documents, organisation charts, and peer bios while managers can use staff profiles to identify experts within the organisation for specialised tasks. An HR intranet also allows remote employees to access training materials and other work-related documents.
Project management
Intranets allow you to track projects in real time as you monitor staff progress and resolve issues. By keeping tabs on deliverables and staff conversations, you’ll gain a deeper insight into the challenges and resources of project cycles.
To keep all the wheels of your business moving in sync, it’s important that people in your organisation understand the business’s goals and what are expected of them to reach those goals. Having the right intranet can transform your organisation and its bottom line, so use these benefits to your advantage.
Want to know how we can help you kickstart your next move? Give us a call today and we’ll walk you through it.
