So, you’ve gone through the buyer’s guide, followed all the steps, and have bought your new intranet! Congratulations. Now it’s time to sit back and relax, right?
Nope!
Your intranet is as good as dead if you’re not actively taking steps to drive intranet adoption. You need employees in your organization to use your intranet as a single source of truth for documents, calendars, and even fun employee events. So, how do you pull users onto your intranet and drive intranet adoption numbers up? Let’s look at some tried and tested methods to increase adoption on your new intranet.
Engage end users in the development
As you shop around for your new intranet, and identify stakeholders, ensure that end users are on the buying team. When you allow the people who will be using your new intranet the most to be a part of the buying process, you ensure that the intranet you are building and buying addresses their needs as much as it does your leadership team.
Personalize your new intranet to drive intranet adoption
In our recent webinar, “The Next Generation of the Intranet,” the team at IC discussed how the future of the intranet (or “Intranet 3.0”) is built around three key pillars. One of those pillars is increased personalization. Not all your employees will need to see the same content, calendars, resources, etc. Build areas on your intranet that will be personalized by department or team, so everyone in your organization has a place to call “home.”
Allow employees to choose what they want to see and their preferences by:
– Creating personalized departmental sites
– Allowing personalized bookmarks and tools
– Subscribing to areas of the intranet that are most relevant to them
– Personalized status updates
These are just a few examples of how users can create a more personalized intranet experience that will drive intranet adoption and ensure your new digital workplace tool is applicable to all employees.
Make your intranet your single source of truth
Habits are formed through repetition. By conditioning your organization to rely on your intranet, they will come to find the intranet as a single source of truth for your organization, driving intranet adoption. Look at it this way, your email app is probably one of your employees’ most used tools in the workplace because they rely on it to receive critical communications. Your intranet can be a tool like your email, Microsoft Office Suite, and other essentials.
IC customers who have achieved high intranet adoption rates have pushed their intranet into the center of their digital workspace. Whether their intranet serves as a central document management system, a place for the most important policies, or where all onboarding documents for new hires exist, it becomes a tool needed to accomplish each employee’s daily tasks.
Your intranet can also be a source for fun in your organization. Fun news, events, and photos can also lighten up employees’ days, and they know to check your intranet calendars to find out what fun events and parties may be coming up. After all, both work and play are needed for better intranet adoption.
Practice good governance to get (and keep) intranet adoption rates high
Just because you’ve launched your intranet doesn’t mean it’s time to sit back and relax! You still need to ensure your intranet is adequately governed so that the latest and most relevant information remains at the forefront. Your intranet should evolve and grow alongside your organization; it’s not a static tool.
Identify key stakeholders from different departments who will be responsible for keeping various corners of the intranet up-to-date, engaging, and relevant. When your employees know your intranet will be relevant for a long time, intranet adoption will come naturally.
You can’t drive intranet adoption without a proper intranet
At IC, we have been in the intranet space for over two decades. Our expert team knows how to help you launch your intranet with high intranet adoption rates that are sustainable and show real value to your organization. To learn more, book a free demo!
