1. Knowledge management

Companies of all sizes have a huge investment in “intellectual capital”, that is, experience, practice and insight. Unfortunately, many companies suffer from “occupational memory loss.” Where their collective knowledge is trapped in silos or employee heads. These assets are wasted when not stored, shared and reused, and they are permanently lost when people leave the business.

The intranet should serve as a living library and an institutional memory that preserves insights and innovations. It helps and guides employees to work according to best practices and stand on the shoulders of cultivated experience and expertise.

2. Alignment

It is easy to agree that everyone should have their nose in the same direction and aim for common goals, but how? Many companies have formulated a sound-sounding mission without actually conveying concrete handles that one can grab on to, to live up to the visions.

The intranet is the obvious medium as a “lighthouse” where you can convey specific focus areas that create results and celebrate those who drive them. The rewards are teams that pull in the same direction and perform better.

3. Commitment

Committed employees are a natural consequence of a corporate culture, where you are involved, recognized and help to find the wise stones. Especially if the intranet allows employees to speak, take ownership and engage professionally with each other.

As with social media, it is often run by a few active frontrunners, but involves and inspires many and imparts a valuable culture of feedback and recognition within the company.

4. Link for better collaboration

Document management is the oldest and sometimes most outdated feature of an intranet.

Fragmented silos and dusty briefcases are a thing of the past. Modern collaboration is cross-functional digital teamwork, where SharePoint, Teams, Office 365, Google Drive, Dropbox are on the field, and the intranet can be a link and ensure a searchable and organized environment.

5. HR portal – always at hand

In addition to equipping employees with a simple reference work that is no further away than the mobile phone, the intranet can contribute to a holistic environment for onboarding and mentoring, where you can get useful feedback and inspiration.

One can e.g., equip employees to take the initiative to deal with work-related challenges before it develops into conflict or counterproductive situations.

Easier said than done?

So, what exactly do you need to do to establish an intranet that is simple and user-friendly? Is not that easier said than done? The short answer is “yes”, but it does not have to be that difficult either. If you have an old intranet and are you are not ready to tear it all apart, there are still opportunities, for example, to clean up and focus efforts on the most important functions. If you have the latest SharePoint online, you can do a lot of things out-of-the-box, and you can even very easily build applications for special purposes. Here it is a matter of choosing your matches and prioritizing the resources where they create the most value.