12 Intranet Benefits for Better Employee Experience

When implementing a new workplace technology, it is critical that you evaluate its benefits for the business and its impact on the ultimate business goals. The benefits of employee intranet are numerous, so we decided to designate this entire blog to explain the real value of implementing a social intranet in your organization. 

According to research by Gallagher, 46% of leaders, communications, and HR professionals think they need to invest more in communication technology. And intranets are on the top of their comms tech list. Modern intranets are more than just communication channels. Today, they serve as a central hub for employee communication and collaboration. They can boost employee engagement and productivity, ensure workplace safety, and many more. 

However, Gartner research shows that 90% of intranets fail to meet their initial objectives, and that’s mostly because companies don’t follow the most important intranet best practices. 

So let’s take a deep dive into the 12 biggest intranet benefits.

1. Streamlines Internal Communications

Harvard Business Review found out that 91% of all employees think that insufficient communication is one of the biggest problems in the companies they are working for. 

So the biggest reason why companies implement intranet solutions is to improve and streamline their internal communication efforts. This is particularly important to large organizations and enterprises with complex organizational structures. 

In such organizations, intranets can enable internal communications and HR professionals to be more efficient when creating, managing, and distributing important information. In fact, they should be able to plan, create, schedule, and publish the content in one place within minutes.

Furthermore, content management features such as real-time collaboration and advanced approval workflows can eliminate manual work and help these departments to focus on what really matters.  

 📹 Check out our Masterclass about the importance of internal communications in business!

2. Keeps Employees Informed 

One of the main purposes of social intranets is to keep employees informed. Unfortunately, many employees still feel like they are missing important company information and are not aligned with their company’s mission and vision. 

Intranets make internal communications more unified across various communication channels. It is common to see that a single company uses Slack, MS Teams, SharePoint, email, and other means of communication. When an intranet integrates with these channels, content distribution is much more efficient as it delivers the right message to the right employee via the right channel at the right time.

When considering intranet providers, ensure they offer an intuitive mobile app. This is particularly important for companies dealing with a lot of frontline workers. Employees without a designated working space should always be able to access critical company information the same way office workers do.

3. Provides a Personalized Employee Experience

In their private lives, people are used to hyper-personalization. When we use our favorite social media platforms, we expect the information to be personalized based on our preferences, interests, and past activities. 

Today, expectations are no different when it comes to workplace communication solutions. And personalization is key for intranet user adoption. Employees will keep coming back to your intranet only if the information they see is relevant to their interests, preferences, job titles, locations, departments, and other criteria. 

Unfortunately, many intranet solutions and other employee apps still don’t offer such advanced segmentation capabilities. 

According to research, around 50% of communication and HR professionals say that their technology doesn’t allow them to serve content based on employees’ interests, and targeting based on engagement is even lower. 

Consequently, communications and HR professionals cannot serve personalized content via their intranets, resulting in poor employee experience and engagement. 

4. Improves Employee Engagement and Productivity

According to a study from Gallup only 36% of employees are engaged in the workplace, and 13% are actively disengaged. An intranet can serve as a powerful engagement and productivity booster for employees. Not only that it significantly improves information search and management, but it also ensures better organizational alignment across the company. 

When employees are aligned with the company’s mission and vision and understand the overall strategy, they are more motivated to put extra work into achieving their goals. 

Last but not least, intranets can be used for social recognition efforts where peers can send kudos to each other and celebrate success. Such activities can have a very positive impact on your company culture and employee engagement. 

5. Facilitates and Drives Employee Recognition

Modern employee intranets are designed to keep employees connected through daily social interactions. Naturally, they serve as a perfect place for peer-to-peer recognition, which has proved to increase employee motivation, engagement, and retention. 

So make sure that you celebrate your company’s wins within the intranet and encourage your employees to do the same. Social recognition, even without monetary rewards, is one of the biggest morale boosters in the workplace and can go a long way in improving your employees’ experience. 

To get the most out of your employee recognition program, ensure you regularly communicate the benefits of the culture of appreciation and share some tips around making recognition even more impactful and meaningful.

6. Enhances Knowledge Management and Knowledge Sharing

Information overload is one of the biggest challenges and productivity killers for many employees. This is particularly present within large organizations with information and documents stored in many different places. 

With intranets, knowledge is centralized and easily accessible. Instead of browsing through crowded inboxes or struggling to find necessary files dumped in an online file-sharing site, intranets enable immediate access to all necessary information. 

Some intranet search functions are more powerful than others. So when choosing an employee intranet for your company, make sure that you evaluate and test this functionality with which employees should be able to find information stored across different apps and locations.

7. Eliminates Cross-Departmental Silos

Many professionals agree that the biggest benefit of an intranet is lower organizational silos and the ability to build and nurture a transparent company culture. 

According to PwC’s survey, 55% of organizations work in silos and are fighting the negative sides of it every day. Working in silos obstructs communication, impacts employee productivity, and leads to bitterness and poor employee well-being. On the other hand, employees are expected to work cross-functionally more than ever. 

Not only that social intranets help employees to stay connected regardless of their locations, but they give more visibility into cross-departmental projects. This is particularly important for remote and hybrid companies because of the lack of in-person communication and collaboration.

8. Enables Employee Sentiment Tracking

Some intranets solutions offer added value, such as employee engagement and similar surveys. Regular pulse surveys enable employers and managers to always understand the state of their workforce and spot potential quiet quitters in the organization. 

Valuable insights can help them understand the factors that shape the positive employee experience in the workplace and, hence, make more informed decisions when it comes to new workplace initiatives.

9. Integrates Important Tech Stack

One of the most significant intranet benefits is the fact that it aggregates various workplace technologies into a true digital home for employees. Unfortunately, only 31% of comms and HR professionals are happy with their intranet’s integration capabilities. 

Ideally, your intranet platforms should have a native integration with some critical tools your organization uses. 

For example, you should make sure that your intranet integrates with Google Workspace or Microsoft 365 (whichever your company uses). Additionally, integration with Active Directory (AD) is important for companies looking to scale and streamline their internal processes. 

Furthermore, integration with communication channels such as Slack and MS Teams make content distribution much easier and more efficient, while integrations with social media channels can make the intranet a powerful employee advocacy tool. 

💡 Related: What is an Employee Experience Platform and Why Your Company Needs One

10. Improves and Streamlines Employee Onboarding

Studies show that employees are 69% more likely to stay if they experience stellar onboarding, whereas, another study reveals that 31% of new recruits leave the company within 6 months of joining.

Chaotic onboarding can be stressful for employees. Information overload can raise the level of stress and have a negative impact on their future performance and job satisfaction. 

Intranets enable organizations to better structure their onboarding processes and procedures. All the onboarding documents, materials, videos and other resources can be organized so that the experience becomes more personalized to each employee. 

11. Improves Workplace Safety

Proper workplace communications are critical for ensuring workplace safety. Timely and relevant information can go a long way in reducing the number of workplace incidents. 

The right intranet platforms should enable you to send timely push notifications and reach every employee in a timely manner, even if they don’t have a designated working space or don’s use company email. 

Companies employing frontline workers should always choose an intranet vendor that offers a mobile app. When employees are always on the go, they must be able to access critical company information via their smartphones seamlessly. 

💡 Related: The Importance of Workplace Safety and How to Keep Employees Safe

12. Boosts Employee Advocacy

When you make your company’s content more engaging, handy, and easily accessible, there is a much better chance your employees will want to share it with their personal networks. 

So intranets can also serve as powerful employee advocacy solutions. 

If they integrate with social media platforms, employee advocacy and brand ambassadorship become easy and fun.