9 ways to use an intranet to build a strong company culture

Company culture influences everything from the way employees think and feel to how they behave.

A good company culture has the power to positively shape values, beliefs and attitudes and has a big impact on how employees perceive and respond to messages from their employer.

When internal comms is aligned with the company culture it becomes tangible, employees are more likely to understand and embrace key messages and stories, which can lead to greater engagement, higher productivity and a more positive work environment.

During the pandemic, it became critical to build and maintain an online culture. And in this new era of hybrid working, it continues to be important. Yet, with fewer in-person interactions there’s a danger that company culture could erode.

However, there is a solution. Used in the right way, an intranet can be the perfect tool for culture building. It can be the safe place where employees feel a sense of belonging and the platform where they can congregate and communicate.

Giving everyone equal access to the intranet, regardless if they’re on the shopfloor, working remotely or in the field, helps bind people together with a common voice and shared purpose.

So, how can you use an intranet to build a strong culture? We asked our very own digital communications specialist Pascal Herreweghe for his top tips. Here are his suggestions:

1. Share employee stories, give recognition and celebrate key milestones

Use your intranet’s news features to highlight personal/feel good stories as hero content. Recognise and celebrate employees’ achievements and milestones, such as anniversaries, promotions, and successes. This helps to foster a positive and supportive work environment.

2. Include an “About us”/culture page

Every organisation should have an “About us” section outlining the company’s mission, corporate culture, values, marketing strategy and public information. This helps employees feel connected to the company and its purpose. Create ‘Topic Pages’ in your intranet and add them to the main navigation.

3. Create a safe place that promotes work-life balance

Promoting wellness has become a top priority for all companies. Develop a content section with tips and tricks on wellbeing, resilience, stress management and time management. Provide resources for remote workers, such as tips for setting up a home office, staying connected with colleagues, and managing work-life balance. Promote programs that support work-life balance such as flexible work arrangements and wellness programs or a fitness challenge. Highlight employees who have achieved work-life balance and share their stories and strategies.

4. Use social channels to promote what you do

Encourage employees to use the social channels within the intranet, such as Yammer, to highlight their initiatives and tag employees they’ve been working with.

5. Use images of real people

Rather than using stock images to accompany your stories, why not build a bank of images of colleagues and store them in your intranet’s secure document management system? Encourage colleagues to add their selfies and pics, after all, real stories need images of real people.

6. Facilitate onboarding

They say an employee knows if they’re going to stay in a new job or not within the first 90 days, so onboarding is crucial for making the best first impression. Using your intranet’s onboarding experience tools, and adapting features such as the ‘Call to Action banner’ and the ‘mandatory read’ features, you can make sure content is read by the right people, at the right time.

7. Encourage likes, shares, comments and tagging

Likes and shares may be seen as vanity metrics however they are a really good way to gauge your progress towards creating a strong culture. Turning on the ‘likes, shares and comments’ feature in your intranet demonstrates you’re a company that wants to create a culture that values engagement.

8. Establish transparency

Communicate openly about the organisation’s goals, and how the company is performing. Give the CEO a platform on the intranet to communicate about important issues through video interviews or text Q&As and create opportunities to engage with the CEO digitally e.g. by setting up Teams live.

9. Grow employee engagement

Use surveys, feedback forums and discussion boards to foster a sense of ownership and involvement in the company and its culture.

Find out how the Province of Antwerp is using its intranet to build a strong company culture

The Province of Antwerp is an umbrella organization for various services, where the most important policy choices are made for the province. They needed a brand-new intranet to support their organizational culture that embraces their community, innovation and collaboration.

Since installing Involv Intranet, employees are able to connect with each as well as share their expertise and knowledge on the other hand.

Read our case study.

If you want to know more about Involv Intranet and how it can help you overcome the biggest IC challenges, download our ebook.

Or book a demo with one of our intranet expert.