Fact 1: An intranet must focus on what an organisation wants employees to know, and what individuals need to do their work
You might already be aware that your intranet should connect employees to the information, tools, and resources – including other people – that enable them to perform productive job. What you may not realise is how important it is that the experience be tailored.
Research shows that employees struggle with the quantity of information they receive in a workday, hence preventing them from being overwhelmed is critical in the fight to recapture productivity. It is insufficient for an intranet to target employees just by area, job, and function.
Your internal communications team need intranet analytics that track interaction with messages to ensure that your content reaches the proper people, policies are read, and resources are not squandered on ineffective communications.
Fact 2: An intranet for everyone is an intranet for no-one
You may know from experience that one of the most difficult aspects of implementing any new technology is change management. You will already be aware that widespread acceptance is required for an intranet to achieve all its promised benefits.
That might be one reason you’re considering easing the transfer with a SharePoint-based intranet that complements your existing Microsoft environment. However, you may be unaware of the importance of personalisation. A one-size-fits-all intranet that attempts to provide a single experience for everyone would fail to satisfy anyone.
That is why modern intranets must enable personalisation. Not just in content curating, but also in theming to relevant sub-brands inside larger organisations and easy opt-in/opt-out communications that give employees discretion over what information they get. Relevance fosters trust, trust drives adoption.
Fact 3: Your intranet is your digital front door
You understand that an intranet cannot replace every application you have. However, it should bring harmony in this domain of information turmoil. Switching between applications might cost your staff 10% of their productive time each week just for searching, switching, and readjusting to new settings.
It’s akin to having ten employees but only nine of them showing up for work. That is why an intranet must serve as your digital front door, providing access to all necessary information.
While some intranets can present a list of relevant links on the home page, the finest intranets are built on a company-specific knowledge base (based on the organisation’s own content and categorising processes), which can be searched by powerful, custom search experiences.
Fact 4: Your intranet needs to go where your employees are
Anytime, anywhere access to information isn’t a feature of a groundbreaking intranet. Anyone with an internet connection is expected to have it.
And yet, when it comes to SharePoint intranet, many solutions are failing to offer the flexibility required by global, hybrid and mobile-first teams – for whom a single way of accessing intranet will not be universally relevant.
An intranet for a modern business must be mobile-friendly. However, as the demand for customisation grows, multilingual intranets that provide real-time translation are necessary, and SharePoint intranets must utilise Teams to access it.
Greater flexibility, quick access and intuitive use is why majority of our clients implement intranet within Teams.
Fact 5: Intranet AI must drive value and ditch hype
Lastly, where AI fits into your company plan is either a question you are asking yourself or that you are being asked. The sensible solution may be an AI assistant. In actuality, a lot of intranets already have it. But any static widget—like the CoPilot chatbot or even the more advanced AI assistants —must adhere to a crucial principle that you are already aware of:
Information entering, information exiting.
Users’ interactions with your intranet and information-finding processes will change if you can respond to their plain-language questions in a way that is pertinent, reliable, and helpful. However, the dependability of it depends on the quality of the information source it uses.
Because of this, a SharePoint intranet needs to enable administrators to index policy pages based on SharePoint and expand the AI assistant’s capabilities about the information in your knowledge base. Despite the hoopla, artificial intelligence has enormous business potential.
If SharePoint Intranet is your logical next step, just book a demo to understand why Mercury Intranet is your best choice.
