Benefits Of An Intranet: 50 Undeniable Business Benefits You Need To Know About

Oct 21, 2021 | 0 comments

Ask the average manager or business owner about the benefits of an intranet, and the following usually spring to mind. Improved communications. Faster and easier access to information. Increased productivity and streamlined processes. These are all fantastic choices and are some of the best-understood benefits of an intranet. However, there are a host of others that are less well-known.

So, are you building an intranet business case for the senior executive team? Or maybe you are looking to measure the ROI of your existing platform? Whatever the case, understanding the complete picture of potential intranet benefits is crucial.

This post will help you get the most out of your intranet platform. We present 50 undeniable benefits of an intranet. Some will be felt across the whole organization, while other benefits are specific to a department. Ready? Let’s jump in.

Company-Wide Intranet Benefits

1. Stronger Internal Communication

Intranets streamline internal communications in a vibrant and dynamic central platform. Company-wide updates and news are shared on the intranet’s newsfeed or what’s hot button. And departments can highlight key messages in team or departmental feeds. Multi-media capabilities, including videos, podcasts, webinars, and blogs, ensure your message is more engaging and gets out faster.

2. Two-Way Communication

Give employees a voice and increase job satisfaction with two-way communication. Intranets have everything you need to promote two-way communication. Select from blogs, surveys, IM, forums, and activity walls.

3. Personalized Communication

Employees can personalize their communications to focus on what’s really important. They can follow trending # channels or internal experts and enjoy a mix of company and team news.

4. Help Workers Find Information Quickly

Do away with chaotic shared drives and multiple versions of documents. The intranet is the single source of truth for all company information. Intuitive site navigation and advanced intranet search ensure everything staff need is at their fingertips.

5. Enhance Information Discovery

Social intranet features such as @ mentions, # channels, notifications, and follow-me improve information discovery. Nowadays, information overload is a real issue in the workplace. Intranets help workers manage their information needs and eliminate irrelevant noise. The result? More targeted communication and fewer distractions.

6. Knowledge Management Made Easy

Nowadays, companies have huge amounts of electronic data stored in several locations. These may include network drives, email, Google Drive, and PCs. Confusing and disorganized, these options are often without adequate security measures. In these conditions, knowledge management is challenging.

By contrast, a centralized knowledge management hub prevents overlap and duplication of effort. Instead, workers have direct access to corporate knowledge for a more efficient process.

7. Support Knowledge Transfer

And when it comes to transferring company knowledge, the intranet also has a vital role. Take your pick from podcasts, checklists, quizzes, wikis, SOPs, and FAQs. Your intranet comes with a range of tools to simplify knowledge transfer.

8. Break Down Departmental Silos

Centralized access to corporate information makes departmental silos a thing of the past. Instead, employees can source information directly without having to ask colleagues. Intranets prevent that siloed departmental mentality from taking root.

9. Improve Collaboration And Teamwork

Collaboration and teamwork are a whole lot easier with an intranet. Dedicated, secure forums and project spaces bring staff together. Employees can communicate, brainstorm, share files, store conversations and work in real-time on joint documents. The intranet has all the collaboration tools your team needs regardless of location.

10. Connect Workers With Business IM

Immediate and direct, intranet IM is a game-changer for businesses, especially those with hybrid workforces. Business IM speeds up decision-making and ensures queries are resolved faster. Plus, you can drag-and-drop files or videos, search conversations, create group or private chats and even use fun emojis. IM is a tool staff love to use. And it optimizes working hours by getting rid of unnecessary meetings and emails.

11. Drive Employee Engagement

The intranet’s fantastic features will see your rates of employee engagement skyrocket. The bottom line is intranets ensure employees are in sync with each other and company goals. According to Gallup, the top-performing companies on employee engagement are 21 percent more profitable. Improving employee engagement impacts where it matters most – company profits.

12. Measure Employee Engagement With Surveys

Monitor employee engagement with intranet-based employee surveys. Annual surveys allow you to track progress and benchmark against others in your industry.

13. Collect Staff Feedback

Check-in with staff more regularly using intranet pulse checks or snap polls. Use these to canvass feedback on a new initiative. It could be the latest marketing strategy or even the Christmas party location.

14. Enhance The Employee Experience

Become an employer of choice and develop brand advocates with your intranet. Increased employee engagement, job satisfaction, and motivation will improve the all-around employee experience.

employee experience

15. Boost Customer Service

Whether your customer is internal or external, employees equipped with the right tools and resources will deliver superior service.

16. Improve The Customer Experience

Customer service is only one aspect of the customer experience. Intranet-based business IM, online communities, or customer portals bring you closer to customers and improve responsiveness.

17. Develop Digital Workflows

Intranets cut down on administration, whether it’s approvals processes, expenses claims, or performance reviews. Paper or email-based methods are replaced with faster, more accurate digital workflows.

18. Increase Productivity

Connecting staff to all the tools and information needed to get the job done results in productivity gains. Less time spent searching, distracting colleagues with queries, and logging into multiple apps create operational efficiencies. Intranets allow staff to achieve more in the working day.

19. Celebrate Achievements

Intranet newsfeeds are the perfect vehicle for celebrating company successes. It’s very motivating for workers to see their contribution is helping the business succeed. And even if the success is in a different department, all employees can enjoy the reflected glory.

20. Update Staff On Corporate Events And Deadlines

Company calendar tools are handy for keeping employees updated on events and deadlines. Updated in real-time, the intranet’s calendar ensures employees never again miss out on critical deadlines or events.

21. Support Flexible Working

Cloud hosting means the intranet is available 24/7 from any location. Employees who spend time in the field or those with caring responsibilities still have access to the same tools as head office staff.

employee intranet

22. Connect Distributed Teams

Distributed teams are now the norm. Some staff will be working from home, while others will be in offices based in different cities. And you may also have some freelancers or contractors in the team. Intranets ensure teams can communicate effectively and work in sync wherever the location.

23. Mobile Friendly

Cloud-based intranets make the workplace mobile. Deskless or on-the-road employees are fully involved and informed team members in a way that wasn’t previously possible.

24. On-The-Go Tools And Resources

On-the-go tools and resources increase productivity for deskless staff. Consider the service technician faced with an on-site challenge. Product manuals, process checklists, and expert help are at their fingertips. The mobile intranet ensures they can resolve the problem quickly and effectively.

25. Make Senior Leadership More Visible

When teams are distributed, the intranet ensures senior leaders remain visible and accessible. Blogs and vlogs bridge the communication gap, connecting leaders with the wider workforce.

26. Enhance Project Management

Track projects and monitor deadlines through the intranet. Staff already use the intranet daily. And so, intranets are a readily implemented solution where files, updates, and communications are kept in a single platform.

27. Streamline Quality Assurance Procedures

Manage your company’s QA more effectively through the intranet. Use the intranet to train staff, document QA procedures, manage data, and develop process reviews and checklists.

28. Manage Compliance And Reporting Responsibilities

Likewise, the intranet can support your organization’s compliance and reporting responsibilities. Intranets tick all the boxes for internal or external compliance, safety and health requirements, or ISO accreditation.

29. Improve Innovation

Intranets create more opportunities for idea generation and innovation. Staff can more easily identify internal expert knowledge, brainstorm, and pool ideas and resources.

30. Improve The Company’s Bottom Line

All these company-wide benefits will increase your company’s bottom line. Improved communication, digital workflows, enhanced employee engagement, and smarter collaboration result in increased productivity. And that means more dollars in the bank.

Intranet Benefits For IT Departments

31. Integrate Enterprise Systems In One Platform

Modern intranets integrate seamlessly with a variety of commonly used business apps. It could be Google Workspace, Office 365, Salesforce, or Dropbox. Do away with multiple apps, screens, and passwords. Instead, workers use a single sign-on from a central user interface for a simplified, streamlined experience.

32. Automate Help Desk Requests

A large chunk of the IT department’s work is responding to requests for help with hardware and software issues. An automated, centralized intranet system is more efficient than any staffed phone line. And it means IT can deliver a faster, more responsive service.

33. Save Time And Resources

Having all company tools, knowledge, and enterprise apps in one virtual roof, saves IT departments time and resources. And cloud-based storage reduces the burden on company servers. IT professionals are not wasting their time troubleshooting, maintaining, and managing hardware. And the business benefits from a reduced risk of downtime.

34. Enhance Security

Email and online systems are vulnerable to cyberattacks, which could compromise your entire network. Modern intranets use the latest online security features to protect your company data. Two-way SSL-encrypted connections, restricted access controls and enforced password changes are just some of the intranet’s security tools.

Intranet Benefits For HR

35. Build Company Culture

With the growth of flexible working and increased contractor use, building company culture is more challenging than ever. Intranets help bridge the gap. Share the company vision, celebrate success, and promote CSR initiatives in newsfeeds, blogs, and vlogs. Bring staff together with a strong shared vision through the intranet.

36. Improve Recruitment And Retention

Improved employee engagement and work environment will see you become an employer of choice. And happy, motivated employees are more likely to stay longer with your company.

37. Promote Internal Recruitment

External recruitment can be costly and time-consuming. Intranet job boards are the perfect way to recruit from within, saving you the headache and costs of external recruitment.

hr intranet

38. Faster Onboarding

Push onboarding with a dedicated new hire homepage. Quick and easy access to resources and information substantially reduces the time it takes to onboard new employees. This means recruits will be up and running in no time.

39. Streamline Offboarding

Ensure all offboarding steps are completed with the intranet. Intranets deliver a more efficient, streamlined process from arranging exit interviews and knowledge transfer to the administration of terminations.

40. Support Training And Development

Intranet-based e-learning is a flexible way to promote workforce training and development. Possibilities include webinars, quizzes, how-to videos, podcasts, or blogs. And anytime, anywhere access allows employees to train at a time that suits their schedules. And it minimizes disruption to normal business operations.

41. Simplify Training And Development Recordkeeping

HR intranets simplify recordkeeping by providing electronic logs of employees’ training activities. Both managers and staff can oversee where things are at. And it’s a handy tool for compliance reporting and auditing.

42. Promote Employee Wellbeing

Most employers take the mental and physical wellbeing of workers seriously. And the intranet is the perfect platform for promoting these messages. Set up a dedicated wellness portal to showcase initiatives. It could be subsidized gym membership, lunchtime running groups, or on-site health checks.

43. Recognize And Reward Workers

According to a recent study, 37 percent of workers feel most encouraged by personal recognition. Appreciation works wonders for employee motivation and satisfaction. The intranet is the ideal forum for a public thank you. It could be employee of the month programs, shout-outs on IM, or celebrating superstar workers on the newsfeed.

44. Showcase Internal Expertise With Employee Profiles

Remember those staff directories that were out of date as soon as they were printed? Online intranet employee profiles have replaced those cumbersome paper directories. Alongside basic contact details, showcase employees’ knowledge and expertise. This ensures workers can reach out directly to internal subject experts.

45. Streamline Annual Performance Reviews

Make life easier for HR staff by automating annual performance reviews on the intranet. Digital workflows are faster and more accurate. And they provide greater oversight of the process for managers and HR.

department intranet

Benefits Of An Intranet For Marketing

46. Brand Consistency

Use the marketing intranet to ensure staff consistently use the same branding materials. Control your branding by making marketing materials and high-res logos available to all.

47. Centralized Customer Information

Customers provide valuable insights into products and services. Use the intranet to share customer feedback with the whole organization. It could be Google Analytics, social media comments, or customer surveys. Doing so helps improve your offering and gives you a competitive edge.

48. Improved Idea Generation

Developing a marketing campaign for a new product is a team effort. The intranet makes that process easier. Share customer insights, brainstorm ideas, and develop concepts in a dedicated project space. The intranet’s easy-to-use management tools restrict access to team members only. And embed Google Workspace or Office 365 apps for real-time collaboration.

49. Collaborate With External Partners

Much of the work of marketing involves collaborating with external partners – printers, designers, copywriters. Intranet portals streamline the collaboration process. It’s much easier to share files, graphics, and images with external partners.

50. Employees Love The Intranet

The bottom line is your employees will love the intranet! Easy to use with an engaging interface, intranets soon become every worker’s go-to resource. This means your business reaps the rewards of all the amazing benefits of an intranet.

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