An HR intranet is a vital tool for any organization. It provides HR team members with a trusted and authoritative source of truth, where they can keep employees informed on important updates, aid in onboarding new employees, and help with internal recruitment.
This post will highlight some of the main takeaways from our free HR eBook and webinar on similar topics, which can be accessed any time for more in-depth insights. Let’s look at how the modern HR intranet plays a key role in your organization’s outputs.
The HR intranet helps retain your best people
Recruitment is expensive and time-consuming. The true overall cost per hire can be enormous. Benchmarking data produced by the US-based Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) suggests the average cost per hire is around $4,700 USD per year, but many employers believe the actual overall true cost is as much as three to four times the salary of the position advertised.
Since the COVID-19 pandemic, retaining and recruiting the best talent has become highly challenging, with some organizations struggling to fill positions. Focusing on internal talent mobility and filling roles from the existing workforce has multiple benefits including cost reduction, retaining your best people, and supporting a high-performance culture. Research even suggests that on average, companies that do internal talent mobility well can retain employees for twice as long compared to companies that don’t.
An intranet can create a sense of community
A key ingredient of employee experience is a positive organizational culture and sense of community that helps employees feel more connected to the place they work and to their colleagues. But all too often, employees feel disconnection and displacement instead. According to Gallup research, only 21% of employees are engaged at work, and 19% are actively disengaged. For some employees, the increase in remote and hybrid work brought on by the pandemic has increased that sense of disconnection.
There are also other social HR intranet features that can help foster that sense of community. A feed of thanks and appreciation from peers to their colleagues is an excellent way to recognize contributions and a job well done; it’s always a welcome morale boost. On the IC intranet you can also celebrate employee birthdays and tenure milestones via a homepage feed. Company-wide events give your employees the opportunity to bond outside of the workplace.
Recently, the team at IC launched Hickam FCUs new intranet, and they were pleased to see a new hub for social and community events formed almost immediately on their new intranet. You can read more here.
The HR intranet plays a role in smooth onboarding
Joining a company can feel like a whirlwind for a new starter. There is a swathe of admin to complete and a mountain of information to absorb. There is learning to complete and colleagues to meet. It can feel hard to keep track of everything. For HR teams, it can also be admin-heavy and time-consuming in ensuring that all the boxes are ticked for each new hire as they join.
HR teams know the importance of investing in a strong onboarding process. It’s a critical part of “employee experience” and can impact your ability to keep your best employees; research suggests that a good onboarding program can improve retention by 82%.
The HR intranet can play a major role in streamlining and standardizing employee onboarding, ensuring that your new hires feel welcome and can hit the ground running. You can create a new hire hub on your intranet that includes all the tasks that a person needs to complete and links to everything they need to know.
The next generation of the intranet
The last decade or so has been dominated by what is commonly referred to as “Intranet 2.0”. Compared to “Intranet 1.0”, or the very first intranets, Intranet 2.0 is more dynamic, and emphasizes social aspects of the intranet and employee experience. As we approach the mid-2020s, IC has been one of the first intranet providers to discuss the next generation of the intranet, “Intranet 3.0”. Intranet 3.0 brings even more power to HR leaders, focusing on bringing more integration with tools such as an HRIS, Gallup research, and Push messaging tools. Intranet 3.0 also brings personalization to the forefront, so employees can choose a more tailored experience when interacting with their intranet and their organization.
Preview the future of HR intranet software
If you’re ready to get a sneak peek at the next generation of HR software, book a free demo here. To learn all the ways an intranet can benefit HR leaders, download our free eBook. And, finally, to learn all about the next generation of the intranet, watch a recording of our webinar on YouTube.
