March 1, 2023
.png)
It’s important for organizations to provide an environment where their workers can socially interact to improve employee engagement. Before remote working was commonplace, people would socialize at the coffee shop, cafeteria, or around the water cooler. Now, companies need to create a digital space where they can foster relationships between co-workers.
Corporate intranets started as an information repository and slowly evolved to include social features. However, their social features didn't extend much beyond a directory and wiki pages. Consequently, employees use it to strictly find information and leave. In fact, intranets have just a 13% avg. usage rate. They are often clunky and outdated, can be hard to navigate, unappealing, and anything but user-friendly.
With around 70% of workers claiming to now do the majority of their work online, businesses need to adapt and find ways to connect their people through new and improved online methods.
Nowadays, most companies have an internal network (intranet) to communicate with each other. But employees are used to their intranets being boring, clunky and uninspiring.
Feeling like this about your intranet makes people less inclined to be active on the site. If employees aren’t engaging, there is very little content for people to interact with, creating a slippery slope leading to disengaging work culture.
To successfully create an online culture that fosters a sense of community and makes employees active and collaborative, you have to change their point of view and show them certain company software add value and creates a more enjoyable employee experience. Modern, social intranets like OfficeAccord are the key to this solution.
Of course a great intranet requires solid software, but the solution doesn’t end there. If your employees are viewing your company from their screen, you want that screen to be inviting and user-friendly – a place employees naturally enjoy using.
Many factors go into a great intranet strategy, and we’re here to help make sure your organization checks them all off. Applying these strategies to any intranet software you use will ensure your company culture thrives.
It’s common to hear the term “social intranet” and immediately think of things such as likes, comments, and follows. While some of these social media features can be present in a social intranet, its functions are much more extensive.
A social intranet is an entire platform and philosophy devoted to helping colleagues connect, communicate, and build relationships company-wide.
Unlike social media, these modern intranets are company-specific. So, while there are the social experiences of chatting with coworkers and making connections about non-work-related things, there are also channels for company news, updates, and access to relevant work-related information all on one platform.
While intranets are a great way to organize and conduct top-down communication, the best intranets also aim to highlight what truly makes an organization: its employees.
Things like recognitions, rewards, anniversary highlights, and more employee-centered announcements foster a great work community by making employees feel appreciated and seen, even in a virtual work environment.
Intranets can also personalize employees’ feeds by allowing them to choose topics most relevant and interesting to them. It’s safe to say all of us prefer a more personalized experience than having to look at information we have no interest in. When it’s more relevant, it’s more enjoyable, and engaging at the end of the day.
Knowledge sharing
Intranets are a great tool to spread knowledge through two-way communication. Employees have the opportunity to share resources, articles, research, and breaking news or personal stories relevant to their organization, department, or industry.
This idea helps foster a community and knowledge share in a way that benefits everyone, rather than only learning from those in leadership positions or having information siloed or hard to find.
Not only does this create communicative and collaborative conversation relevant to your business and its goals, it will also make employees feel valuable as they are able to share helpful knowledge to their entire company.
In-person or meeting in a private safe space to talk with some of your most trusted coworkers is extremely important and comforting.
Social intranets allow for this in an online workplace – private chat spaces and groups can be made to give employees a place to let their guard down and talk with a trusted, supportive system whenever they need it.
To facilitate the social experience that can sometimes get lost in a remote work environment, it's important to add some fun to your workdays, too!
Most social intranets integrate with collaborative and fun games that get employees talking, laughing, and interacting like a group of old friends. Make sure to utilize this ability – it helps increase employee engagement and create connections that build company culture and employee morale.
Another part of social intranets to make sure to use frequently is the ability to easily show your employees they are valued within your company.
Employee recognition is easier than ever with the help of a social intranet like OfficeAccord. The ability to make announcements (either company-wide or department-specific) means there’s the ability to recognize employees publicly or to a particular group.
When employees feel appreciated, they are 53% more likely to stay at your company. Improve your employee retention and show employees their value through easy recognitions via your social intranet.
We’ve been over the strategies that help boost your intranet from a standard platform to an enjoyable, collaborative space employees will want to engage with.
Now, we’ll highlight all the features that make interactive, community-driven platforms like OfficeAccord beneficial and necessary for your remote or hybrid team.
Some company intranets are made in-house, so they are obviously made to match the brand of their organization. However, it’s become more common for companies to save the time it takes to develop their own intranet by using a standardized intranet instead.
The problem with some standardized intranets is they lack the customized, brand-consistent look that builds brand recognition and helps employees feel familiar and connected to the technology they are using.
With OfficeAccord, you get the best of both worlds – we provide you a social, interactive, user-friendly intranet that can be customized to completely match your brand.
Add your logo, customize colors, and even add features specific to your company to the sidebar to make sure the social intranet your people use aligns with your brand.
Speaking of feeling at home, we know the comfort of using familiar tools.
This is another benefit of having OfficeAccord as your social intranet. If you are comfortable with other apps such as Zoom, Microsoft Teams, Slack, or any other tools your company uses daily, you won’t have to say goodbye to them.
OfficeAccord integrates seamlessly with your business tools. This will ensure your intranet is a versatile, easy-to-use platform providing a single source of truth where you and your employees will have access to all things familiar and helpful.
OfficeAccord exceeds industry standards to make sure all the data within your intranet remains safe with our military-grade encryption. Your data is never shared with a third party and is protected all the way from transit to rest, so you and your employees can work and communicate without the stress of anything leaving your company’s grasp.
Our single sign on (SSO) solution makes sure your employees have a simple and stress-free experience. Rather than having to rotate through dozens of usernames and passwords to access different areas of the intranet, OfficeAccord gives employees secure and safe access to all their work and communications channels with just a single sign on.
Manage, customize, and define what actions people are permitted to make across your intranet.
For example, you can customize which members of your organization are able to post events and announcements sent to the entire company to make sure employees are only getting the most relevant, accurate information possible.
The permission controls OfficeAccord provides are great features for management and overhead to ensure their corporate intranet is running smoothly and properly!
A common frustrating factor about those outdated intranets is how hard it can be to find something in the overflow of information provided. With OfficeAccord, you won’t have to worry about this.
Our intranet allows you to search keywords, dates, events, and anything you can imagine across the entire tool. Our smart search is wildly accurate, making it easy to quickly find any information you need.
Say goodbye to searching through pages and pages of information and messages to find that one important tidbit – OfficeAccord helps you find anything with just the click of a button.
Although simple employee directories are a great start for introducing your team, OfficeAccord takes this a step further with our personalized, searchable social employee Directory.
People’s profiles are searchable by hobbies, locations, education, interests, and so many more factors that go beyond a name and a position.
Get a social experience through your intranet by using OfficeAccord to get to know the person behind the employee. Communication and company culture will thrive as new bonds and relationships form.
Your employees are your company’s lifeline, so you should know how they feel. An important aspect of OfficeAccord is our Surveys feature, which fosters honest communication and feedback from employees.
This is very important to have within your intranet as it makes sure employees feel heard, while also providing a great way for companies to work on areas their employees feel need improvement.
We’ve talked before about making your intranet an appealing user experience – no one wants to stay in the past and use a clunky hard to navigate tool.
OfficeAccord is an advanced, beautifully designed modern intranet. Today's employee expects and wants an intuitive consumer experience with their work tools.
No matter what intranet software you use, the goal is to bring your team together and foster a cohesive, meaningful company culture in the new age of remote and hybrid work.
Find out what works for you by using some of our suggested intranet strategies and features to help your employees feel connected, let communication thrive, and boost your culture.
OfficeAccord is an all-in-one Employee Experience solution to improve the hybrid work experience and increase employee retention. Connect to learn more at hello@officeaccord.com.
Subscribe to the OfficeAccord Blog
