Should we invest in an intranet or should we wait? 7 questions to ask

An intranet is an investment for any organization, in terms of cost, time, and resources. When considering an intranet, many organizations have some objections, for example:

“We already have Microsoft Teams or Slack for one-to-one and group communication”,

“When we need to inform everyone about something, we can just send an email”,

“If we need to send a file, we can use Dropbox or Google Drive which is free.”

Organizations often struggle to determine whether or not they really need an intranet, in addition to questions about its return on investment.

To help you determine if this is the right move for your organization, here are seven questions you need to ask.

1. Can your employees access the right information fast when they need it?

To get work done, employees need to access the right information FAST. However, many organizations have information silo problems that result in multiple versions of essential documents, files scattered across several shared drives, a SharePoint page that hasn’t been updated for a long time, etc.

When employees struggle to find information, it not only directly affects their productivity but also has other business impacts. Imagine when a customer support consultant can’t find the right FAQ to answer the customer, or an employee wastes time asking around for the right procedure to plan a business trip.

An intranet can serve as a document management system, helping you to eliminate information silos. It also has a smart search function that enables employees to find information fast, whenever they need it.

2. Can you reach and inform every employee in an emergency or crisis?

When an unexpected event happens at work, employees expect their company to respond fast and communicate regularly. This can be challenging, especially if most of your employees are non-desk workers.

An intranet like Involv has useful features that can help your crisis response plan.

• The Newsfeed helps you keep everyone informed and updated.
• The Notifications alert employees of emergency information and warnings.
• The Target Audience allows you to push a message to a specific user group
• The FAQ feature lets you centralize all incident-related questions in one place.
• And with the mobile app, your mobile workers too stay connected and updated on the occasion of an emergency or crisis.

3. Can your employees share files easily and securely?

Many people admit to using file-sharing apps that are not supported by the IT department. Those apps may not have the right level of security and can be a risk for data breaches. This creates a great burden for the IT department as they are responsible for ensuring security and compliance for the corporate data employees upload to cloud services.

Telling an employee not to use a certain tool is very hard if there isn’t a good alternative provided.

With an intranet, you have a document management system that allows you to share your documents inside and outside your organization. It’s easy, fast, and secure. Using the Involv intranet everyone can open and edit documents in their browser or their apps. You will always work on the correct and latest version of your document and you can even work on a document with multiple users at the same time.

4. Do you have an effective tool to share the company news and updates?

Many companies say they use email. But is sending an email an effective way to communicate such important information? 60.8% of employees ignore emails at work (Slicktext). Chances are your employees aren’t reading your emails. So sending an email is not enough when you want to get a message across the entire organization. In some cases, it isn’t the most preferred method.

Delivering news via an intranet, instead, can ensure that employees receive and read all the company news. You will no longer worry about an email getting lost. An intranet can serve as a centralized information portal that your employees come to, to get updated on company updates, CEO messages, or industry news.

Especially with Involv, creating and publishing news is very easy and fast. Our target audience feature lets you even push a target update to a specific group of employees based on their location, department, or team.

5. Are your employees as productive and efficient as they could be?

Do your employees have to manually fill in a form every time they request stationery? Does your HR department waste time explaining the leave request procedure time after time? These are problems that can be eliminated by having an intranet.

An intranet can serve as a central hub for all your company policies and procedures, how-to guides, or FAQs. When people need to consult a specific procedure, they easily know where to find it. And for some of your time-consuming processes, you can create automated workflows. Involv, for example, integrates with Microsoft Flow, so you can create automated workflows with your favorite apps and services to receive notifications, sync files, gather data, and much more.

Involv also has the “Who is Who” feature that enables employees to quickly find and connect with everyone in the organization.

6. Does your organization have a strong culture?

No wonder why highly successful companies often have a strong and positive company culture. Building a great company culture has positive impacts on your business in many ways. It helps to attract and keep top talent, improves employee productivity and efficiency, and more.

If you want to establish and nurture a positive company culture, an intranet will help.

An intranet is a perfect platform to communicate company values, missions, and goals. It can serve as a digital space where all employees can connect, collaborate, and celebrate success. Involv, for example, helps you to create a connected workplace culture with HR-related features. The Upcoming Birthdays component never lets you miss out on your colleagues’ birthdays, the New Hires component shows you new employees so that you can welcome them, and the Who is who enables everyone to find and connect with all the people in the company.

7. Are your employees partially/fully working remotely? If yes, are they equipped for effective remote work?

Remote work can be especially challenging when your organization doesn’t have the right tools for internal communication and collaboration. An intranet is a high impact tool that can tackle issues with remote working. It keeps everyone connected, makes information sharing easy, and keeps your data safe.

An intranet can serve as a one-stop-shop platform that contains everything employees need to get work done. No matter where people work, once accessing the company intranet, they can stay on top of the company news, search for the right information, access files and data, and connect with colleagues, etc.

Your employees can access the company intranet from everywhere. Involv, for example, has a mobile app that makes it easy for everyone to access the company intranet on their smartphone.

📑 Learn more about the Involv Mobile App

Investing in an intranet: What will it cost your employees and organization if you wait?

If you answer “no” to even one or two questions above, your employees and organization will benefit from an intranet. It can serve as a powerful tool to boost employee productivity, make internal communication easy, and connect everyone in the entire organization.

Having said that, it’s understandable you are hesitant as an intranet requires a significant investment in terms of money and resources. But don’t ignore the risk you take when your organization lacks the right tool for internal communication and collaboration. I’m talking about productivity loss, disengaged employees, and overall business inefficiency, which would be even more costly than an intranet.

Why Involv Intranet?

Involv is an intranet platform that is built in the Microsoft 365 ecosystem. It helps organizations to solve typical problems and challenges with internal communication and collaboration. More than a hundred organizations worldwide choose Involv for their intranet. Here are the top 5 reasons why.

1. Fast and stress-free rollout: Our team guarantees an easy, stress-free rollout with tons of best practices, checklists and possibilities for customization. We deliver results, not software.

2. Amazing Intuitive Designs: With amazing built-in templates, Involv makes it easy for you to create pages that look fantastic on any device.

3. Microsoft 365 Integration: Since Involv is built in the Microsoft 365 ecosystem it perfectly integrates with all Microsoft 365 solutions like SharePoint, Teams, OneDrive, Power BI, and Delve.

4. High Adoption and Engagement: After a successful roll-out, our team stays with you, giving you tips and sharing best practices to drive engagement and retention.

5. Your own branded Mobile App: The app is fully brandable; it will match the branding of the intranet with your own company logo on any mobile device.

👉 Watch a quick tour of Involv

(image source: freepik.com)