The old school office intranet: it’s where we browsed internal job postings, found coworkers’ contact information, and double-checked company policies. As other workforce collaboration tools hit the scene, it seemed like the intranet was on its way to obsolescence.
But rather than falling by the wayside, the intranet has lived up to the ‘evolve or die’ ethos, and it’s evolving before our eyes.
The broader nature of work is changing, with offices becoming decentralized by remote employees. As workers get farther away from the office, employee engagement becomes more difficult, yet more important – and new intranet developments are providing great ways to do that.
These new intranets share four key features:
Easy to use
The new intranet dashboard features personalized information for specific users. It is well organized and easily searchable. With all this information being so easily accessible, the intranet becomes the home base for an employee, regardless of their specific role in an organization.
Not reliant on IT departments
The intranet can’t be a burden; it should make employees’ work easier, not harder. Small companies without a dedicated IT team, or those that can’t allocate IT resources to managing an intranet, are looking for an out-of-the-box solution. Administrators should be given oversight and management control, assured security, training, and ongoing support so that IT departments don’t become intermediaries.
Integrated
Employees are using a plethora of applications to communicate, collaborate, and complete work-related tasks. The intranet should no longer be a stand-alone resource, but instead an interconnected hub that works well with existing tools, especially file-sharing apps.
Scalable
Companies grow and change structure, and intranets should flex with them. Accordingly, intranets should be easily built out and customized, with full mobile accessibility and ongoing updates.
While the term ‘intranet’ may seem outdated, these innovations are breathing new life into it. Through promoting corporate transparency, company-wide data sharing, and employee connections, the newly evolved intranet should cement its position as a key enterprise tool for the distributed workplace.
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