Part 2 of 2 on Intranets
The desktop computer makes publishers and designers of us all.
To get employees to use a corporate intranet, you have to think
like a dotcom. The latest intranet posting or email missive to
staff is just as easy to ignore as that last unread memo
languishing beneath everyone's Styrofoam Polynesian take-out box.
Just like MSNBC.com or Wall Street Journal Online, your intranet
must parse and package content into digestible chunks. It must
present material that matters most to employees and helps them get
the job done. At the same time it must be a comfortable place where
users feel part of a community.
Here in Part 2 of our story on intranets, we share what works
and what doesn't - and it begins with making your intranet
relevant:
News They'll Use
- Make it pay. The best way to get eyeballs to your intranet is
to make the content relevant and indispensable to an employee's own
finances, says Jamie Floer, PR manager for engineering consultancy
R.W. Beck. Last year, the engineering consultancy digitized its pay
stubs, so employees must log into the intranet twice a month.
"Everyone has to fill out an [online] time sheet to get paid," she
says. Putting this HR and accounting on the intranet "saves the
company a lot of money," says Floer, but it also ensures that the
intranet is a reliable conduit for all internal communications
because she knows people have to be there. - They gotta eat. Cafeteria menus are the Drudge Report of
corporate intranets: irresistible (but not always pleasant)
must-see content that can draw users into your communications web
every morning, says almost every intranet manager we asked. If
intranets have a killer app, lunch is it. "We're talking about
selling advertising just on the cafeteria menus to take advantage
of the traffic," jokes Eric Hards, senior Web designer, Lockheed
Martin Systems Integration. - HR resources are among the most used on corporate intranets, so
pile on any and all forms related to employment, new job postings,
vacation schedulers, healthcare benefits, and even pension plans
because as Jennifer Arvin, manager, media relations and
communications, Barnes-Jewish Hospital, says, "They go [to the
intranet] for the things they need, and while they're there they
look at your news." - Use your CEO. At ad agency Y&R, communications manager
Scott Anderson creates a daily column on the intranet home page
with company news and CEO messages. "It creates more visibility for
senior management at the agency, and behind the scenes it enhances
the role of the communications team with the leadership," he says.
One of the selling points for a more robust intranet investment is
that it puts top level management in closer, constant contact with
employees.
Package It
- Avoid the temptation simply to dump lengthy offline material
online as news. "You won't keep the audience that way," says Floer,
so she tries to repackage text into smaller chunks, bulleted
formats, and summaries, which are more likely to be read on a
screen. For instance, she puts on her intranet a monthly "nugget
box" that condenses company performance reports and news highlights
for easy scanning. - Avoid dribbling news online at all times during the day.
Condense it, package it, and deliver it regularly before start time
each morning. By putting all of Monroe Community College's staff
news in a single e-mail, "Daily Tribune", that goes to in-boxes
before 7 a.m., Cynthia Cooper, PR director, ensures that all of it
gets read by the widest possible audience. - Consider how intranet material like news, awards notices, and
personal staff info can be distributed to collateral audiences,
such as business partners, retirees, alumni, etc. Make the intranet
a source of PR material and expand your community of
supporters. - Giving individual departments their own page on the intranet is
a great way to maintain employee involvement and get content from
different parts of the company, but the PR pro also should push
some of that information onto the intranet home page to make a
company-wide digest. - "Merchandise it," says Anderson. Get people to use the
resources by teasing them at the front page. He uses an animated
ticker and boxed "e-flashes" to push people to undiscovered areas
of the site.
Your Reference Desk
- Don't stop with putting corporate contact lists on the
intranet, says Floer. Do market research within your own company to
find the resources people really consult most from their desk. She
puts corporate organization charts in the mix as well as travel
info: booking agencies, car and hotel contacts. And because Beck
works internationally, she keeps foreign language resources online,
including who at the company speaks which languages. "We found that
very helpful," she says. Also include key contacts at client and
partner firms and links to their Web sites, says Anderson. - Put commonly used digital assets online, such as company logos
and letterheads to cut and paste into the kinds of documents
employees make for themselves every day. - If individual departments maintain their own Web pages, get
them to construct FAQs that answer the most common questions asked
of them by other employees. Make the departments think of their Web
pages as outward-facing resources for other departments not just
news centers for themselves. - Consider your audience. New hires can get lost on an intranet
that assumes familiarity with the organization, so large companies
might create a special basic resource section for new employees
with rudimentary "Where's my first check?" contacts and FAQs. At
Lockheed, Hards keeps a specific page for new hires containing,
"what to do in the community, who to talk to in the first few
weeks, educational resources, and a look-up capability to find
employees." - Put corporate best practices online, budget model forms, risk
management data, and standards/practices. Employees tend to consult
other people's work when they start a project, so use the intranet
to showcase the best models. Anderson keeps the company's creative
portfolio online.
Personalize It
- To get that community feel, make a bulletin board area where
staff photos from conferences and corporate outings get
posted. - "Personal employee stories are very compelling," says Arvin.
She gathers tales of remarkable customer service by employees and
other on-the-job reports that both inspire good work and highlight
personalities in the workplace. - If possible let employees set up e-mail reminders to themselves
about when pay stubs arrive, or get notification of new job
postings from HR.
Make Everyone a PR Pro
One of the unanticipated upsides of a corporate intranet is that
it helps PR train everyone in the organization to present the
company in its best light. Jamie Floer puts all of her own R.W.
Beck marketing collateral and reprints of media mentions online so
everyone at Beck knows how the company is being presented publicly
and what official statements are being made whenever issues arise
in the press.
Many experts in crisis communication strongly recommend using
the intranet to ensure that employees and managers stay apprised of
press releases and get talking points in case the press contacts
them directly.
Anderson puts a "Credentials Book" on Y&R's intranet, a
section containing "all the key messages from a media standpoint -
top line of who we are, our mission and goals." By having these
corporate talking points at hand for anyone in the company, "it
makes everyone a media rep," says Anderson.