With improvements in technology and the need to have a remote workforce grows, so do the number of your communication channels. These expansions can easily lead to redundancies in communication and increase the chances of errors because of wrong information. It can also bring about ineffective communication.
To make sure your business has a unified database for communication with your team, you need an intranet software package. An intranet can be a powerful tool for your company’s internal communication needs. It reduces the need to hold physical meetings and the chances of missing important information due to the overlap of emails go down.
How Intranet works?
An intranet is a private network that allows your team members to access and share information from one centralized system to another. It provides a secure way for your team to remotely collaborate and interact among each other. Such a private network can have a number of benefits for your organization. For instance, your human resource department can easily post team member handbooks, thus reducing printing costs. In addition, the sales and marketing team can easily access company updates which can help in marketing the organization better.
An intranet can bring communication tools, databases, and collaboration applications together. Therefore, it creates a framework from which team members can work daily.
What To Consider When Choosing Intranet Software?
For your organization to take advantage of intranet software, make sure the intranet software you choose provide you with the following.
1. Mobile Or Remote Access
Some older versions may keep your staff from getting remote access or logins via their mobile phones. Therefore, you should ensure that the intranet software is mobile-friendly to improve your staff’s engagement with it.
2. Good User Experience
The intranet software is like your internal website. This means it has to be engaging to all users that will be using it. It would be great if the software allows the users to customize their homepage and widgets. Additionally, an intranet should be easy to use and portray simplicity to allow for more engagement.
3. Multichannel Collaboration
Good intranet software should allow you to integrate the different communication channels within your organization. For example, it should allow you to put emails, videoconferencing, and instant messaging together. Also, it should allow you to link other applications and upload documents to the cloud so that they can be centrally available.
Reasons To Include Intranet Software In Your Communication Stack
When you use intranet software, you improve the digital experience of your team members. Intranet also enables your organization to keep up with the modernization of technology and provide seamless communications. Multiple departments in your organization will greatly benefit from adapting good intranet software, ranging from human resources, to operations and administration, and even sales and marketing.
1. Enable Better Team Collaboration
When team members work on a project, frequent communication enables them to bring ideas together. With intranet software, they can use a common digital workspace so they can work on one document while also tracking who has made changes and at what time those changes were made.
Furthermore, intranet software removes the limitations that come with having to meet personally for team projects. Thus, it means that your team can engage, meet, discuss, and research without the need to set or provide a physical meeting space. In the end, it saves on time and allow them to deliver results more quickly.
To effectively leverage the collaboration aspect of the intranet software, you can create team rooms for specific projects. Team members can share files, calendars, and progress updates from these team rooms. As the intranet can be mobile-friendly, it means each team member can be up to date regardless of where they are or what time zone they are using.
2. Improve Team Engagement
You can use the intranet software to advance polls, competitions, photo galleries, and other events. In doing so, you can create a spirit of involvement within your team. This can encourage the team members to engage within the intranet software daily. As a result, you can gather ideas and at the same time help improve the team’s morale.
Additionally, having a space for the team can also create a sense of belonging, which, in turn, breeds loyalty. When the team feels valued, they can easily share ideas, input, and concerns. You can see your policies and the overall effect from these inputs and ideas.
3. Improve Internal Communication
With intranet software, you can collate data ranging from administrative updates, human resource announcements, and sales updates. All of these can be put up a general company calendar, which means team members will know where to get the latest information.
Apart from the news and updates, you can schedule blogs, magazines, and virtual town hall meetings. Intranet can then increase how you communicate internally with your team members, thus passing more information. More information means you reduce the risks of misrepresentation by the team when interacting within themselves or with your clients.
An important feature of intranet software is including social features like commenting, rating, and liking. These features can help you gauge content engagement and assist in improving interaction.
4. Increase Productivity
Effective communication and collaboration within a team can directly affect productivity. When team members get the right information and at the right time, they can dispense their duties efficiently. This, in turn, means they don’t waste time seeking information on what to do or how to do their tasks.
Similarly, team members can access all data and information they need in one place. This means that the team members don’t need to open various applications to look for information. Moreover, they can customize widgets and pin tools they mostly use or data they mostly access. By creating such shortcuts, the intranet software allows the team to streamline their access, thus saving time.
5. Improve Human Resource Management
First of all, human resources can routinely update job boards with positions not available on the organization’s website. These open positions allow for internal recruitment and can take advantage of talent available with the organization. When human resources recruit internally, you can reduce recruitment costs and save time on onboarding activities.
Intranet software allows you to keep information in a central database during onboarding. Therefore, quick access to the resources reduces your time to onboard them when you have new team members. Not to mention that they can access a huge array of data from current team members. Such access allows them to acquaint themselves with company protocols easily.
Of course, you can create an onboarding center to outline the company’s vision, mission, and values. This, together with a team member handbook, can help ensure you build a consistent culture throughout your organization.
The human resource department can use the intranet software to announce staff programs, promotions, and recognitions. In addition, the intranet software can help display the organizational chart, user profiles, and user directories. An organizational chart can help every team member to know the chain of command or whom to approach for any technicalities.
6. Streamline Functionalities
Using intranet software, you can integrate applications, contacts, and documents on one interface. This can help your staff access all data from one platform. For example, you can have emails, instant messaging, and video call applications accessible from just one app. As a result, you can utilize the functionalities of each dedicated app without having to switch.
Intranet software has a central database for organization information. Therefore, it provides functionalities like storing, searching, updating, and accessing your company’s documents. Intranet software can keep track of these functions by showing notifications on which functions each user has recently accessed.
7. Improve Customer Service
Intranet software allows you to centralize important information. It also ensures that access to this information is within easy reach. Given this factor, staff can extract details or information they require to perform their duties quickly.
Furthermore, staff can easily seek clarifications or support from team members through chat groups. This way, the internal interaction ensures that external clients get better feedback. As a result, customer service staff can ensure quicker service delivery and the right information. Good service delivery can help you improve customer experience and organization image.
8. Help Reinforce Brand Identity
You can design your intranet software’s interface to mimic the organization’s website. This approach can help create a sense of consistency and unity among the staff. Even if the staff can be far apart geographically, they can feel they are a part of a brand, thus improving their productivity.
Conclusion
Intranet software provides your organization with a smooth channel of communication and sharing. When you can spread information in detail from one platform, it reduces time and cost, allowing you to be productive in other areas.
In summary, adopting intranet software for your organization can help you update information about your organization and improve team collaboration in order to better accomplish different projects. In addition, it can enable easier onboarding and improve staff engagement. Ultimately, you can achieve better service delivery, thus improving customer experience and your organization’s image.
