Searching and gathering information can be a workplace’s worst enemy. Tracking down crucial company information is frustrating and time consuming. In fact, researchers who study worker productivity agree it’s a resource vampire.
An often-cited 2012 report from McKinsey demonstrated early on that finding the information workers need takes a toll on a workplace. Back then, employees spent an average of 1.8 hours a day, or 9.3 hours each week.
Since then, numerous other studies throw out comparable statistics, all pointing to a major conclusion: Companies need to streamline information and the way people access it, whether they work onsite in the office or remotely. And, today, workers have to find even more information across widespread repositories than they did in 2012.
Where Intranets Come into Play
Today’s platforms aren’t the formerly clunky, hard-to-navigate drives where workers dumped key files to share and logged in to find them later.
Intranets have come a long way since then. They’re interactive. They’re searchable. They’re easy to use. And...they’re social.
As our partner, LumApps, a leading social intranet provider notes, these platforms deliver not just a way to search and gather information but also a holistic workspace. One that fully integrates with workplace collaboration tools such as Google Workspace (formerly G Suite) and other cloud solutions.
Why You Need a Social Intranet
Here are five reasons why the social intranet makes more sense now than ever:
Increases Productivity
The social intranet delivers a platform where you can keep your employees informed through blog posts, message boards, file downloads and more. They don’t have to go to multiple places to find what they need or learn what’s new and exciting at the company. It’s efficient, saves time and elevates productivity.
Streamlines Knowledge Management
As we discussed earlier, every company stores massive amounts of information in various locations that workers use to do their jobs. They might have to search their email, hard drives, Google Drive and other locations to piece together what they need. They also often have to search for internal information, including HR documents, onboarding and training material, workflow documents, presentations, templates and more. That’s a lot of going back and forth among sources.
Using your social intranet as a central one-stop shop that offers relevant search capabilities helps you and your employees quickly find what you need across all of this crucial data.
Offers Consistent Messaging
A social intranet gives your company a single source of truth. How? Official notices, company regulations, institutional knowledge and all of the other must-know information is in one place. No one can say they can’t find it or didn’t know something. It’s always accessible to them at any time, no matter where they’re working. The intranet encourages tribal knowledge, which leads us to the next reason why you need one at your company.
Encourages Collaboration and Feedback
Chances are most of your workers actively participate in a social media platform, whether it’s Facebook, Twitter or Instagram. They’re used to communicating and sharing ideas with friends, family and followers in this manner. So it makes sense that they’d feel comfortable communicating at the office in the same way. The social intranet allows them to do this. It pulls them in and encourages them to actively participate in a relaxed forum that feels more like a community than just work.
Because of its inherent social features, such as @mentions, message boards, comments, document sharing and notifications, people feel comfortable joining the conversation and sharing ideas. It’s familiar to them and feels less stuffy and formal.
Fosters a Transparent Culture
Employees want to work in a culture they trust. Consider this fact from a 2014 workplace study lead by the American Psychological Association: Out of the 1,500+ respondents, nearly 1 in 4 indicated they don’t don’t trust their employer, and only about half feel their employers are open and upfront.
Transparency builds trust and loyalty. The intranet fosters this kind of culture through two-way collaboration and interaction. When employees feel empowered to open up at the office, be their authentic selves and feel the company is doing the same in return, it creates a two-way understanding and trust across the organization.
The first step to creating a social, interactive digital workplace with everything your employees need to work in one place is understanding why you should do it. Once you hone in on that, you’ll be able to implement a real engagement strategy that keeps your workforce in the loop — and gives them the chance to express themselves on the job.
To learn more about how you can boost employee engagement by building a social intranet, get the Onix-hosted webinar featuring LumApps and Google.
