Building a policy library that employees actually want to use!

Posted on 11 July 201825 March 2023 by John Scott

We now offer a policy management software for sharepoint called Xoralia

Xoralia policy management software helps you push out and track mandatory policies in a simple, intuitive interface.

One of the key use cases for an intranet is providing a centrally- controlled library for important official documents, where all employees can access the very latest policies, procedures and forms, knowing that they are accurate and up-to-date.

Typical examples might be the HR manual, the social media policy, risk management procedures or contract templates to use with clients.

A good policy library not only provides easy access for employees, but also supports content owners in ensuring only the very latest versions of documents are accessible.

While perhaps the policy library isnt the most exciting aspect of an intranet it is one of the most valuable! All too often these central official documents get stored on emails or lost on the file network. It can be incredibly frustrating for employees to have to trawl their inbox to find the right document or having to call Nadine in HR only to find that she has just gone on holiday.

It can also be risky if you use out-of-date documents or apply policies which may have just recently changed, for example, due to GDPR. Sometimes, for compliance purposes, organisations must also show they have a good way to control the risk of employees accessing and actioning out-of-date policies.

The Institute of Cancer Researchs Policy Library

One piece of work which we are particularly proud of is the creation of a custom policy library for the Institute of Cancer Research (ICR). This was part of a wider project to create a new SharePoint intranet.

The ICR, based in London, is one of the worlds most influential cancer research institutes. As a research establishment and a charity with an exemplary reputation, it is critical that the organisation and its employees operate in certain ways and follow various procedures, both for compliance purposes and to maintain its own high standards. Therefore, having a central library for policies, procedures and formal guidance documents was a priority for the intranet team.

The previous library, the Approved Document Library (ADL), was not doing its job. An audit of content found that the majority of documents were not meeting information governance requirements. Employees found it hard to find the documents they needed, and content owners found it very difficult to post the latest versions. The overall user experience was clunky and there was a lack of confidence in the tool. In short, it was not fit-for-purpose.

Working closely with the intranet team and users at ICR, Content Formula was able to scope, design, build, test and launch a new Policy Library that employees actually want to use. The library is based on SharePoint 2013 and has been built from scratch.

By focusing on the needs of both users and policy owners, and ensuring good findabilty, content management and a strong user experience, usage of the new library has increased by 48% compared to the old system. Its also a library where the content meets the ICRs compliance and information governance requirements.

Some of the key features are described below:

Providing easy access to policies for all employees

All employees have access to the new library via the global navigation on the intranet. Its very easy for employees to find. Its also called the Policy Library rather than the confusing ADL a name which new staff wouldnt necessarily associate with official policy and guidance.

Providing a great user experience

The policy library presents a smart, clean and modern interface with a number of intuitively-labelled categories and a prominent search box. The attractive and easy-to-use design has been critical in establishing trust with users and driving adoption of the tool.

The policies themselves are presented in ways which makes them easier to digest. We know that policy documents can end up being lengthy and wordy and sometimes employees just need to find one piece of information contained within the document.

Large fonts for headlines and maximum characters per line ensure that documents are easier to scan, while users can jump to different sections through a hover-over facility. In addition, selected information from the cover sheet is presented to the left of the document with an option to see all this information.

Strong findability

There is also very strong findability baked into the policy library. Each policy has a main category and then a sub-category which are clearly displayed. There are limits on the number of categories which can be set to avoid confusion for users. A very clear search interface also displays all the relevant hits under each main category.

When accessing a policy there is also the ability to view related policies which share the same sub-category, and also view custom links to related content such as FAQs which the policy owner thinks relevant. This allows an employee to view important content about the use of the policy.

Centred around users

We also added another couple of features based around how employees actually use policies. A prominent Save button exports a version of the document in Word which also preserves much of the attractive styling of the online version, while a Print button prints out the policy for convenience.

Making life easier for policy owners

One of the issues with the previous library was it was hard for policy owners to use. The new library removes many barriers for policy owners and includes:

The ability to have different owners and approvers for different policies – different teams throughout ICR can maintain their own sections of the library
Allows for a different approval process for minor edits and major edits a highly practical detail which means more senior staff dont need to approve elements such as corrections to typos
Allows editors to add links to FAQs and other useful context
Sends out automated reminders when policies are due to expire
Has full version control and highlights differences between versions of documents if required
Can do reporting on links.

Having these features has helped policy owners to keep their own policies up to date.

Need a great policy library? Get in touch!

Every organisation needs a central place where employees can access and find official documents and forms. In some sectors a strong policy library is critical. We created an excellent library at ICR which has driven user adoption, helped business policy owners and satisfied compliance requirements. We can do the same for you! If you need a robust but also highly usable policy library then dont hesitate to get in touch.

How to use Office 365 for policy management

By Content Formula

The foundation of most organisations technology system is Microsoft, so in this article we explore the best way to deliver effective policy management to your digital workplace through your existing Microsoft 365 system.

7 reasons to use SharePoint for policy management

By Content Formula

We explore the top reasons why SharePoint provides the perfect solution to your policy and procedure management needs and the features and functionality that can be utilised to automate and streamline processes.

Policy management software

By Xoralia

Read more about Xoralia, our intelligent and easy-to-use policy management software that has been specifically designed and developed to use in SharePoint and Microsoft 365, to automate and streamline the full policies and procedures lifecycle.

SharePoint 2010 end of life is a great opportunity for intranet managers

Posted on 9 July 201829 June 2022 by Dan Hawtrey

The managers and teams who run intranets are critical to intranet success. In our experience, behind every super intranet, youll find a set of intranet super heroes who are going beyond the call of duty to increase collaboration, drive communication and help employees get thing done!

Many IT teams will be considering options and planning with a budget to move to supported environments. There are some who will choose to accept the risks and plow ahead with other priorities. For the Intranet manager still bound to 2010, the opportunities are great and the time to act is now.

Are there still many people using older versions?

In 2017 the SharePoint and Office 365 Industry Survey by Sharegate, Hyperfish and Nintex, looked at the SharePoint versions deployed in around 450 of their customers. The results show a strong growth in the deployment of SharePoint Online (167% from 2016 to 2017). In addition, they also indicate that there are still a lot of people on older versions of SharePoint.

These numbers are similar to other surveys I have seen and are certainly in line with what we experience among many of our customers, particularly the larger ones.

What are the risks of running unsupported SharePoint?

In some cases, the risk of running on unsupported software is acceptable. If youre not changing anything and not connected to anything; that may expose you to new security risks, then it may be acceptable to delay an update.

You should however, make management aware that there are risks and certainly costs associated with running unsupported environments.

But if we intend to be up-to date, what then?

If updates are on the agenda, then there are opportunities. For a start, this is the chance to consider whether you want to be cloud based, on premise or hybrid for the next few years. Whatever you choose, you can consider several different solutions.

The lift and shift

You can upgrade what you have, although this isnt always as easy at it sounds. In this case, youre likely to need the help of third party tools to reduce the pain. The benefit of this solution is the business doesnt really get involved beyond checking their sites have moved correctly. You get what you have, warts and all.

The spring clean

Before you carry out your lift and shift, you look long and hard at your environment and decide what you can throw away. This usually involves quite a lot of business engagement and organization, but its a great way to get rid of out of date and ownerless material.

The fresh start

You build everything new and migrate what you need into a nice new environment. This gives the opportunity to make use of some of the great new features and possibilities. Intranet projects dont have to be the monsters we had a few years ago, its getting easier to get real business value of the box.

The flagship and scrapyard approach

Just like the fresh start, you want to build some new things and get the most out of the tools for your business, but that doesnt mean that you need to build everything new. Its fine to build a few fantastic examples that people want to be part of and are motivated to use, while in parallel freezing new requests in your old environment. However, its not always a crime to keep the information in the older systems for just a bit longer. As always Intranet managers need to:

Deliver value
Balance budgets
Reduce risk
Reduce business effort and find the right pace for your organization

â€¦ and if you get the chance; transform the organization just a bit at a time.

Is this the opportunity to take the next step to the employee engagement you always dreamed of?

It could beâ€¦ and maybe your IT team is already helping to make the business case for the investment on your behalf. If they are planning to upgrade the old system, you may be able to cooperate and get more out of 2019 than you thought. Whatever you choose to do, youll need to get your budget application sorted out this yearâ€¦ time for a coffee with the CIO?

The original article was published here

Why an intranet helps support Office 365 governance

Posted on 28 June 201829 June 2022 by Dan Hawtrey

How an intranet can help with Office 365 governance

Office 365, SharePoint and intranet governance are big topics that weve previously featured in this blog. Effective governance is essential for the success of your platform and covers many areas including:

senior sponsorship and decision making
technical standards
data management
the content lifecycle
legal and regulatory considerations
design and branding
and more!

Governance of the use of tools

One aspect of Office 365 governance which many digital workplace teams are currently grappling is with around the use of different tools within the enterprise. In any given organisation there are a plethora of applications in use, with:

some centrally supported and encouraged
some owned within specific departments and lines of business and not centrally supported
tools which are actively discouraged because they provide less value, are costly duplicates of tools already in use or are risky (Shadow IT)

Office 365s ever-expanding library of tools, applications and capabilities provides one of the best strategies to cut down on wasteful and risky shadow IT because it provides effective alternatives to those in use. It also helps replace ancient legacy applications. You cant tell users to stop using a system unless there is a decent official alternative. If you want to reduce the use of Dropbox, Whats App and the creaking custom-built telephone book then One Drive, MS Teams, Skype for Business and Delve are the way to go.

However, the plethora of Office 365 tools can also lead to another dilemma for digital workplace teams. Often the pace of new tools being added is faster than the ability for central teams to properly evaluate use, launch them and then carry out effective training and support. And some Office 365 tools when released in beta need time to mature before they are truly enterprise-ready. Therefore, a key Office 365 governance issue is deciding on which tools to roll out to users and support, and which ones to lock down.

In our experience Office 365 governance is best approached with carrots rather than sticks. Creating positive and valuable experiences for the tools that you want employees to use is the best way to advance a set of centrally-supported tools. Then you need to do far less work on the discouragement or locking down of the tools you dont want people to use.

The intranet can help!

An excellent way to drive use of certain types of tools is through a SharePoint intranet which effectively acts as a gateway and experience layer lying on top of the Office 365 tool suite. Using an intranet helps to:

Drive a better experience, creating positive and valuable experiences of tools such as MS Teams which underpins successful usage
Integrates tools into the flow of work: brings the use of tools into the flow of work so they become the natural applications to use
Makes some tools easier to access and some less so, encouraging use and reminding employees about the tools they should be using
Helps with support and training by highlighting good use and providing support on how to use these tools
Support an approach to experiment with tools which have not yet been rolled out fully, supporting a framework to experiment and valuate new Office 365 tools

Lets look at each of these aspects in more detail.

A better experience

A good user experience is not generally regarded as a governance tactic, but it will have more impact than creating a policy document. Ultimately, outside the use of Outlook and the core Office suite, the use of most of the Office 365 suite is not mandatory, and therefore you have to persuade employees to use your preferred tool rather than another.

Sometimes an intranet, particularly a SharePoint-based product like Wizdom, presents a superior interface to the Office 365 tools, and encourages use. Dont underestimate the importance of a nice look and feel in driving adoption and underpinning governance.

Integrates tools into the flow of work

Intranets have evolved into digital workplaces, acting as gateway into the wider suite of tools, including those from Office 365. An intranet can integrate data and content from different Office 365 tools and provide access to them through dashboards, workspaces and profiles, helping to make these applications the tools of choice.

For example, a Yammer feed in an intranet workspace with all your community members makes that the natural tool to use for community discussions. If Skype for Business is integrated into your employee directory, employees may use that tool to message the colleague theyve just looked up. And with AD integration, single sign-on also removes a barrier to using these tools. Integrating the core Office 365 tools with your intranet directly supports your governance model.

Make some tools easy to access and others less so

Above integrating preferred tools, there are other ways an intranet can make some applications easier to access and others less so. These include:

Providing access to selected tools via your global navigation
Providing favourite links to applications on the homepage, perhaps using prominent icons
Creating a service catalogue with supported tools (and sometimes allowing users to add to their own favourite links from here)
Providing feeds from different tools or lists of different sites relating to tools from your own homepage e.g. a list of Team Sites an employee is a member of, a Yammer feed etc.
Providing landing pages with a list of all the sites a person is a member of. For example, we recently integrated a page for a client where an employee can find all the Teams they are a member of.
Providing a form to request a new team space, site, group or community

All of the above heavily encourage use of preferred tools. Excluding the tools in the Office 365 suite which are not yet rolled out will help to limit their use.

Helping with support and training

Encouraging the use of preferred Office 365 tools is also supported by providing training and support resources via the intranet. For example, you could have a what to use when matrix which indicates the optimum digital tool or channel to use for which scenarios.

You can also have specific training resources including how to guides and videos, and even support communities which include intranet teams, site administrators, IT helpdesk and knowledgeable users. Here people can ask questions and swap tips. Again, this reinforces the use of the right tools to dissuade users from using alternatives.

Drive an approach to experiment with tools

While you are likely to want to lockdown some of Office 365, you may also want to encourage some experimentation or pilots with newer tools to help you evaluate their use before they get fully rolled out to the company. This also helps you to allow early adopters and mavericks to use tools they are keen to try, but in a more controlled environment.

Sometimes it pays to formalise an approach to piloting new tools on the Office 365 roadmap and bake that into your governance model. The intranet can help with this approach. For example, you may have a community which pilots tools and you may use the intranet to give them access the tool and collate their feedback. Of course, once a tool becomes fully supported you can then open this up to be a full support community with the appropriate support resources also available.

Use carrots, not sticks

Controlling the use of Office 365 tools is a challenge and it needs governance. We believe the carrot approach to encourage use of the tools you want employees to use is the best approach. Telling employees that they cannot use a tool because it is not yet supported does not always go down well.

An intranet can really help with the carrot approach by integrating tools so that they have value and also providing the right support. Office 365 is a fantastic and exciting platform, and a SharePoint intranet complements it perfectly.

An intranet and Office 365 should be part of digital transformation

Posted on 25 April 201829 June 2022 by Dan Hawtrey

Digital transformation is a popular way to describe the important journey for many organisations who are seeking to leverage technology to drive exponential growth, introduce new services, change their own business model or dramatically change the customer experience.

The focus for digital transformation can be internal, but also external with an impact primarily experienced outside the company. However even in those cases where the primary focus is on transforming the customer experience, it almost always requires a similar change on the inside. Not only do organisations need to change the way they carry out processes and collaborate, they also often need to change the mindset of employees about using digital tools.
Intranets and Office 365 often prove to be essential for digital transformation, driving the internal change required to transform the experience of employees as well as customers. Lets explore five of the key ways this happens.

Leading the change

Digital transformation, whether its on the inside or the outside of the company, requires change management. And change management requires an effective digital communication platform which all employees can easily access, and which delivers the appropriate messaging
An intranet can facilitate the leadership communications to inspire and motivate employees and give the context to any wider change. It also provides very specific information about whats coming for example about new processes, new services or new technology being introduced. Ideally the intranet should also deliver specific and relevant content to different groups.
Of course, effective change management for digital transformation will need more than an intranet, but a successful, engaging communication channel is essential.

Breaking down silos

Usually digital transformation requires teams that havent worked together closely before to come together through new groups, virtual teams and streamlined processes and workflow. Therefore, a common theme in digital transformation is the removal of silos, often exacerbated by poor communication and digital channels. These silos can act aa barriers to digital transformation.

A social intranet provides an excellent platform to provide the kind of flexible, agile, team and group communication and collaboration which digital transformation needs. Hierarchical, geographical and functional silos are no longer a barrier.

Sometimes more efficient processes are also required. Office 365 and even custom-built requirements can support the specific internal workflows and processes need to establish new external services for customers. For example, teams can start to digitize processes using web forms and workflow.

Being able to work in a more agile way

Removing silos also opens the ability to work in a more agile and speedier way. This can be important for digital transformation where the ability to react to customer need, respond to market conditions and seize opportunities very quickly can be a real source of competitive advantage.

To be able to react rapidly not only requires digital capabilities which can be deployed quickly to clients, but also allows employees to communicate and collaborate quickly and efficiently with each other. Companies who have more traditional lines of communication, usually based on hierarchy, may find it very difficult to respond quickly to the market.

A great intranet and Office 365 is critical for facilitating agile working across different locations, allowing teams to spot and react to opportunities, and then work together to design and deploy products and services. For example, tools such as Microsoft Teams or Wizdoms community spaces allow teams to collaborate more easily on projects or incubate ideas and bring them to fruition within Communities of Practice.

Helps increase digital literacy and confidence

Digital transformation is as much about a new mindset among employees as it is about working in different ways. Employees need to get comfortable with the idea of using digital tools beyond email, not only to drive any new processes, but to also encourage their colleagues to work in that way too. Digitally-confident employees can also encourage customers to adopt digital tools.

Increasing digital literacy and the mindset can then help drive adoption, collaboration, innovation and many of the other qualities associated with transformation.

A social intranet like Wizdom and some of the other Office 365 toolset can work very well in getting teams and individuals to tangibly experience the benefits of using digital tools, see the possibilities and get used to working collaboratively. This can lay the foundations for some of the potentially more intense and complex changes associated with transformation and embed some of the accompanying digital behaviours which employees will need.

Drive innovation

Innovation can also be a core part of digital transformation where organisations develop new ideas to work more efficiently, improve customer services and introduce new products and services. It only takes one exceptional idea to have a highly significant impact.

When you deploy an effective intranet and Office 365 you may be making available a sophisticated, digital platform to all employees for the first time, including frontline employees who may not have had access before. When everybody can contribute ideas and give input (and is encouraged to do so), organisations can leverage the insights and knowledge from all parts of the workforce, including those who directly interface with customers and know them the best. Those ideas can lead to digital transformation.

Intranets contribute to digital transformation

External digital transformation starts from within. An intranet makes an important contribution, not only as a communication channel but also to enable faster collaboration, drive innovation and change the mindset of employees.

When considering digital transformation, it is important that organisations dont just consider the external change required, but also the internal change needed too. Deploying an excellent intranet is a great way to help support and drive digital transformation and change.

The original article was published here

Video: Scaling enterprise intranets in Office 365

Posted on 9 April 201829 June 2022 by Dan Hawtrey

Our partner Wizdom held a webinar with Sam Marshall of Clearbox. They looked at what it means to scale up a simple intranet in Office 365 into something enterprise-wide. A look at the implications for going from a legacy single site intranet to a geographic or business-unit multi-site approach, often involving multiple languages and regulations too.

Tips on how to deepen your intranet by expanding it to frontline workers and external partners, concluding with a look at the strengths and weaknesses of the Office 365 feature set.

Go to presentation.

Seven reasons why were excited about workplace chatbots

Posted on 5 April 201820 September 2023 by Joe Perry

Artificial intelligence. Machine learning. Chatbots. Yes, we know everywhere you turn there seems to be talk about AI or bots, and the hype can be a little off-putting. But hear us out on this one.

Weve recently deployed a chatbot for our client Haines Watts, and were genuinely excited about this new technology for intranets and digital workplaces. Admittedly some of our enthusiasm is down to us being rather geeky when it comes to these matters, but we also see some real long-term potential that will drive value for organisations and users alike.

What are chatbots?

A chatbot allows users to ask questions in natural language and get intelligent automated answers back, again using natural language. Its accessed usually via a website, intranet or messaging platform.

A chatbot can help a person to find things, get information or carry out simple tasks. It can also learn to better understand phrases and instructions. Its likely that youve already used a chatbot perhaps on a website or social media platform or when you used a digital assistant like Siri on your iPhone, Cortana on Windows 10 or Amazons Alexa. And this new technology is increasingly being deployed within the enterprise.

And while its still early days, heres seven reasons why were excited about chatbots.

1. There are multiple use cases

Currently chatbots tend to be deployed with quite limited functionality and focused on a specific use case for example to answer questions about an individual topic such as an office move or to enhance intranet search. But there are a wide range of use cases where a chatbot interface makes considerable sense. If there is a simple, routine task then a chatbot can help, for example:
Answering frequently asked questions for the IT or HR helpdesk

Helping you log an IT ticket
Booking a meeting room
Accepting a meeting invitation
Letting you know how much annual leave you have
Booking annual leave
Finding an expert
Finding directions to one of your offices

But it doesnt take much imagination to extend this range of tasks to any specific scenario. What are the routine tasks you carry out where a chatbot could assist you?

2. This can go across different channels

One of the challenges of the digital workplace is that is a constantly-evolving, multi-channel environment. Different users will be using different tools for different purposes. Some will have preferences as to what tools they want to use.

The great thing about chatbots is that they can be deployed, relatively easily, across different channels. At Haines Watts the chatbot is available through a chat panel at the bottom of each intranet page but also via Skype for Business. Chatbots can just as easily be integrated into other messaging platforms like Microsoft Teams, Slack or Workplace by Facebook. A chatbot can even be deployed over SMS.

This means that a chatbot can be deployed across the digital workplace to serve different needs and users.

3. This works great on mobile

As well as being multichannel, chatbots work well on mobile devices both smartphones and tablets. We are so used to texting and messaging on our own mobile devices that using a chatbot feels like a logical, natural and easy way to interact, even if were conversing with somebody that isnt real!

Mobile devices are a natural home for chatbots and it will be very interesting as more chatbots are deployed to see what proportion of workplace use comes through mobile compared to desktops.

4. This could unlock advanced search

Many intranets and wider enterprise search facilities have a powerful advanced search, where results can be filtered by different criteria such as content type, author, date and different subjects. But all too often users dont want to use the advanced search screen, preferring to rely on the Google like experience of just one search box.

Chatbots can be an effective conversational interface in front of advanced search capabilities. Consider if a user asks the chatbot to Find all documents relating to cyber security since January 2018. Thats an advanced search which is done by not having to go into the advanced search screen. Chatbots have the potential to unlock the full capability of search and encourage more advanced searching.

5. Voice-activated chatbots are waiting in the wings

Currently most workplace chatbots deployed are assuming interaction based on text, but voice-activated chatbots are growing in popularity. We already have Siri and Cortana, but now many consumers own a voice-activated device like Amazons Alexa or Google Home. A corresponding rise of voice-driven chatbots in the workplace seems inevitable especially as companies like Amazon are launching services aimed at the business and enterprise market.

Voice-activated chatbots have clear advantages over text in terms of convenience but also in some use cases. For example, using an Alexa or similar device in a meeting room to retrieve information may be particularly useful as everybody present can hear what is being said, and people may not have individual devices with them.

6. The scope for process automation is exciting

Another reason to get excited about chatbots is the scope for improving and automating processes making time-consuming tasks easier and quicker. This will save time, but we think bots will also start to get more and more sophisticated.

For example, lets look at booking meetings with several of your colleagues. Perhaps now a bot can search your booking room system to pick the best room and then reserve it for you. Tomorrow it may do much more, such as:

find everybodys availability
book any necessary equipment
send out an invitation for you to all participants
find the previous minutes and resend those
suggest a draft agenda for you to amend and approve based on analysis of your activities
book the preferred meeting room based on everyones previous preferences

Perhaps even further ahead AI will also suggest what meetings are worth organising based on how successful the outcomes and actions were from other meetings.

7. Were just at the start of the journey

This is still an emerging technology and we really are at the start of the journey of using chatbots in the digital workplace. We dont quite know how its going to develop, but we think there may be rapid development over the next couple of years as vendors develop products, organisations experiment and individuals develop skills in building and training chatbots.

Of course, we may also see a few twists and turns and we fully expect a negative workplace chatbot backlash! Gartner places Bots and Conversational User Interfaces still in the innovation phase on its digital workplace hype cycle, so weve still got to reach the Peak of Inflated Expectations followed by the Trough of Disillusionment but we suspect any lows will be easily outnumbered by the highs.

Another thing worth pointing out is that deploying an effective and useful chat bot in your organisation is not something that can be done overnight. It’s an evolutionary process. This is especially true when you consider that the best chatbots will be connected to multiple systems in the digital workplace: CRM systems, HR systems, case management systems, policy management systems – you name it. It takes time to build a chatbot that is not only connected to all these systems but is ‘trained’ so that it can also intelligently mediate between them and carry out useful, time-saving tasks. Companies that are dipping their toe in the water now are getting a head start. The first iterations of your chatbot may seem a little gimmicky but you have to go through this phase in order to progress. Given how every company is unique with its own systems, processes and ways of working, there isn’t going to be an opportunity for late adopters to leap frog early versions of the technology. Those companies that are getting started now will be ahead of the game.

Curious about chatbots?

Chatbots are getting a lot of attention but looking beyond the hype theres long-term potential. If youre as excited about chatbots as we are or just curious to see what the fuss is what about, then get in touch. Wed be delighted to hear your thoughts and ideas, happy to talk you through how they work or discuss our recent project in more detail.

Ten more tips for driving adoption

Posted on 3 April 201816 November 2023 by Steve Bynghall

Driving adoption of the intranet and related digital workplace tools is usually a preoccupation for the teams that manage them. Often the focus of adoption is to drive the number of employees visiting, engaging with and contributing to your intranet. While the numbers are important, adoption also needs to cover the ways your intranet adds value and drives success. It is better to have a smaller number of employees contributing to your intranet in a way which makes a real difference to improving a process, than a larger number contributing who add little value.

Tactics for adoption success

But how do intranet and Office 365 teams drive adoption? Unfortunately, there is no one magic ingredient or secret sauce which will guarantee your employees will use your digital channels in the way you want them to. Instead, a range of different tactics need to be deployed, and keep on being deployed. Driving adoption tends to be a gradual and ongoing effort.We last looked at driving the adoption of SharePoint back in 2015. The tactics listed in that post including carrying out training, user research, stakeholder mapping and not turning on every feature are still relevant to intranets, collaboration platforms, Office 365 and other parts of the digital workplace.There are several other tactics which weve seen our clients and other teams deploy to help drive adoption. Here are some of the most important.

Run a champions network

A consistently successful approach for driving intranet or digital workplace adoption is to use a network of voluntary champions who can help support users and be advocates for the intranet throughout your organisation. Often a recommendation from a trusted peer and the benefits explained within a frame of reference for specific teams, roles and locations can be a powerful driver of adoption. For small central teams wanting to stay close to their users, leveraging the enthusiasm an energy of local champions really does reap dividends.

Ensure there is ongoing visible involvement from senior management

While bottom-up communication is important, so is top-down support. It always pays to have senior management support for your intranet as this endorsement shows the intranet is a management priority. Whats even better is having ongoing visible involvement from senior leaders by featuring in news, appearing in videos, creating blogs, commenting on items and in discussions and responding to feedback. This particularly encourages behaviour from other managers to follow suit and use the intranet for communication and collaboration, and that in turn encourages other employees to contribute. Its another way to continue to drive adoption.

Integrate other tools

Intranets help employees get things done and can be an essential front door to the wider portfolios of applications in use in the digital workplace. Many intranets are now powered by Office 365 and by integrating tools such as Skype for Business, Yammer or Teams directly into the intranet experience they can help to drive adoption of the intranet and the related tools. Its far easier for employees to have just one place to go, where theyll want to return.

Establish mobile access for employees not in the office

Many intranets now have great mobile access out of the box. For example, the Wizdom intranet renders perfectly onto mobile devices. Mobile is a great way for staff not based in offices and who dont have easy access to a desktop to view your intranet. With the right BYOD and security policies in place its also possible for employees to access the intranet on their own personal device. For example, in retail or manufacturing companies this can help extend the intranet or digital workplace to all employees.

Launch with a splash

How you launch your intranet will depend on the culture of your organisation. Intranet-branded cupcakes on every desk, flash-mob dancing or even branded lifts are just some of the tactics intranet teams have deployed to create some buzz around the intranet. Many organisations go for a more straightforward approach and have a welcome video from the CEO. Whatever method you choose to launch your intranet it pays to make some noise and launch with a splash. Its a natural time to drive some curiosity among employees, get interest from senior stakeholders and can help carry some momentum for ongoing adoption efforts.

Promote as part of the onboarding process

Most companies have a process for onboarding new employees with checklists to complete, training to undertake and perhaps even a formal induction day. Involving the intranet in the onboarding process is a great way to not only help new employees have a smooth welcome but also to show them the value of the intranet from the moment they join. This can either involve a light introduction to the intranet or them utilising it in the onboarding process itself. An early positive experience with the intranet should help drive adoption, particularly in companies where there is high employee turnover.

Formalise community management

Community management is essential for a successful social intranet or collaboration platform. Community managers provide support, training, moderation, group development, content and more for individuals communities and sites. They drive adoption on the ground. It really helps to formalise community management within your organisation through clear descriptions of roles and associated skills, training and even a formal certification programme.

Gather user feedback (and then act on it)

What do users think of your intranet? Too often teams only find this out when they are planning for a new platform. Having an ongoing programme of user feedback is a good way to get insights into improvements you can make which should drive more usage. It also helps to drive trust with users. Some teams do carry out an annual user survey, but it also helps to have ongoing feedback too, with a form for users to provide comments via the intranet itself. You can also use polls, a discussion group or a regular user group meeting to gather observations and opinions as you go. Its also imperative to act on the feedback, otherwise you can create a negative impression.

Continually improve

Continual improvement is as much of a mindset as it is about putting it into practice. If an intranet team is committed to continually improving their intranet this should be noticed by your users and in turn this should drive adoption. There are many ways to continually improve but often it is about having a steady schedule of improvements, new features and content areas throughout the year. Its also about using analytics to identify where things need fixing and what works well, and taking the necessary actions. Its also about taking on board user feedback and being willing to experiment.

Use imagery in your intranet

A very text heavy intranet can be unappealing for users and that can impact adoption. Using imagery can help lift an intranet, make it more user-friendly and attractive, and that makes visitors want to return. This is an area where you can experiment to see what works but beware of adding cheesy stock imagery to your intranet that can even backfire!

The battle for adoption never stops

Driving adoption is an ongoing effort. Theres no real rest for intranet teams although its good to be busy! Taking a holistic approach to driving adoption is best which covers everything from using champions to engaging senior leaders to adding new features to providing a great user experience. Combining a great intranet with change management efforts and a continual improvement ethic is the ticket to success.

WEBINAR: “Scaling enterprise intranets in Office 365”

Posted on 19 March 201829 June 2022 by Dan Hawtrey

5th April 2018, 2pm (UK time) – Register now!

In this webinar our partner Wizdom and Sam Marshall from ClearBox consulting will take a broad look at what it means to scale up a simple intranet in Office 365 into something enterprise-wide. Well look at the implications for going from a legacy single site intranet to a geographic or business-unit multi-site approach, often involving multiple languages and regulations too.

Well then consider how to deepen your intranet by expending it to frontline workers and external partners, concluding with a look at the strengths and weaknesses of the Office 365 feature set.

What well cover:

Reach: How to scale to a global organization, considering challenges such as languages, regulatory differences, geographic distributed permissions, performance etc.
Depth: Adoption, and Expanding to frontline workers and, external collaborators with the out-of-the-box speed but with adoption to frontline unique needs.
Features: How do you create the same standard/adapted features from a current solution into a PaaS model with no control over the underlying platform.
O365: What it does really well, where add-on products are needed and how do you adapt it for scale and global performance.

Register for the webinar

If you cant attend on the day, register now and well send you a copy of the webinar recording.
(Both ClearBox and Wizdom will email you soon after the webinar with the video recording. You can easily unsubscribe at any time.)

Sam Marshall

Sam Marshall is the owner of ClearBox Consulting and has specialised in intranets and the digital workplace for over 18 years, working with companies such as AstraZeneca, AkzoNobel, TUI Travel, Sony and SABMiller. His current activities focus on intranet and digital workplace strategy, the business side of SharePoint, and the use of enterprise social tools.

Sam was responsible for Unilevers global portal implementation, leading the roll-out of over 700 online communities to 90,000 people and consolidating several thousand intranets into one.

Flemming Goldbach

Flemming Goldbach has worked with portals, digitalisation of work, and collaboration processes since 1999, focusing on helping organisations implement and take advantage of Microsofts SharePoint and Office 365 technology in order to obtain better collaboration, knowledge sharing, and greater productivity.
As VP of Product at Wizdom he is responsible for Wizdom product development and processes, and leads the idea and feedback collection and the roadmap prioritisation process.

Register for the webinar

How do intranets engage employees?

Posted on 8 March 201829 June 2022 by Dan Hawtrey

A truly engaged workforce is a common goal of business leaders, Internal Communications functions and HR departments. The theory is that this brings a series of benefits for organisations including reduced turnover of employees, increased productivity and attracting new talent.

Employee engagement is a source of much debate particularly about its effective measurement, the level of organisational benefits that really do arise and the strict definition of the term. But stepping aside from some of the arguments about the topic, it is obvious that having an engaged workforce is a positive step. An individual wants to feel like they are working for an organisation they want to work for with an arrangement that suits their needs, and in turn organisations and their leaders want to have employees who are happy working for them.

Do intranets support employee engagement?

One of the rationales of intranets is that they do indeed support employee engagement. Of course, an intranet is just one of the channels and tools that support engagements, but what is surprising is the number of different ways that an intranet really can help. Were already covered how an intranet can contribute to a great employee experience, but what about the related area of employee engagement?

At this stage its worth noting that employee engagement reflects how employees feel. Ultimately, it is not something which any internal communications or HR function can control, although they can influence it. To a certain extent, engagement is an output or consequence of how organisations, management and other employees behave and work. The intranet therefore is one of those channels which can help influence engagement in a positive way.

A popular model of employee engagement is provided by Aon, a global professional services firm. Aon defines engagement as the psychological state and behavioural outcomes that lead to better performance. Aons engagement model lists six engagement drivers which illustrate the complicated mix of elements which contribute to engagement:

Company practices (Communication, Diversity and inclusion etc.)
The basics (Benefits, job security, work-life balance etc.)
Brand (Reputation, Corporate responsibility etc.)
Leadership (Both at a senior and business unit level)
Performance (Rewards and recognition, career opportunities etc.)
The Work (Collaboration, Empowerment / autonomy, Work tasks etc.)

Arguably, a good intranet makes a positive contribution across all six of these engagement drivers. Lets look at each in turn.

Company practices

Company practices refers to some of the fundamental ways companies operate covering elements such as communication, the enabling infrastructure and talent and staffing.

The intranet is a core communication channel within any organisation, but its also part of the enabling infrastructure, usually as the point of entry into the digital workplace or the place to search for critical information.

A poor intranet can be infuriating and frustrating a barrier for carrying out basic work practices such as being able to find the contact details of a colleague. A great intranet which allows smooth and open communication, helps encourage transparency and provides an easy gateway into different systems and applications, can really help an individuals day go far more smoothly.

The basics

Aon lists Work-life balance within the basics driver, along with factors such as pay and job security. Work-life balance is important for many of us. A modern intranet makes a positive contribution to this by supporting remote working – allowing employees to access critical information and content, collaborate with colleagues and complete tasks often, from any device.

For example, the intranet can help support an employee working from home when they need to, something which is very important for anybody with a young family, for example.

Brand

Employees should be proud of the organisation they work for. The company brand, its values and how a company behaves are important. reflected in activity such as Corporate Social Responsibility initiatives. Recently focus has also been on the concept of purpose why does an organisation exist and who does it serve and whether it gives back something to the wider community, rather than just focus on profit for shareholders.

The humble intranet is an excellent channel for reflecting and enhancing an organisations reputation and brand with employees. This is not just by providing information on purpose and values, but also by proving that the company and its employees are living by these. News about how employees are volunteering in the community or stories about individuals providing excellent customer service might not change the world, but collectively they can help support engagement and how an employee feels about their employer.

Leadership

The contribution of leadership to employee engagement is easy to see. Leadership, both at the organisational and at the divisional or departmental level, influences everything from operational processes to deeper organisational culture to how employees relate to company strategy and purpose.

Leadership communications to employees are very important and the intranet is one of the key communication channels. Leaders can use traditional news, video or blogging to get important messages across, as well as use social tools to interact with employees. When the intranet is used as a channel for dialogue between senior management and employees it is at its most powerful employees see management in a different light, while leaders get a real sense of how employees are feeling. The presence of that two-way conversation can contribute to employee engagement itself.

Performance

Aons performance driver covers elements such as Career opportunities, People management and Performance management. The two areas highlighted by Aon where intranets have most impact are Learning and development and Rewards and recognition.

Intranets can provide access to learning and training materials (for example, Wizdoms intranet has a very good course management feature) but they also help with social learning. The 70-20-10 model suggests that at least one fifth of learning comes from interactions with others, and intranet community sites and identification of experts helps with those interactions.

Intranets are also a good way to recognise employee achievements. Intranet people-related news might report inspiring examples of work carried out or celebrate employee milestones such as years of service reached. Peer to peer recognition where employees thank fellow colleagues for doing something exceptional with these shout outs listed on the intranet can be a powerful form of employee recognition.

The work

Aon list everyday work as another key driver for employee engagement, highlighting Collaboration, Empowerment / autonomy and Work tasks as critical. Intranets are designed to help employees carry out their work and by providing information and tools, intranets can help employees be more autonomous and less reliant on others to carry out their roles.

Probably the biggest contribution to employee engagement in this area is the intranets contribution to collaboration. An intranet can:

provide the ability for an employee to ask a question across the whole company and get answers within hours
locate a specialist or expert for their team
house a discussion group for a community of professionals around a theme or specialism
provide secure spaces for teams to collaborate and communicate
in some cases, also act as an extranet to collaborate externally.

One of the most exciting elements of working in an organisation is being able to collaborate with colleagues, perhaps from the other side of the world, and intranets provide excellent support for this which can help develop close working partnerships and even friendships.

Intranets and employee engagement

Intranets influence employee engagement, but not just because of their role around delivering communications. They enable staff to work remotely, collaborate with colleagues, get recognition and more. All these factors can influence employee engagement.

Overall an intranets contribution to employee engagement is varied in some areas obvious and in other areas, subtler. If you want to engage your employees, then investing in a great intranet is an investment worth making.

The foundations of intranet adoption – It’s not just about the numbers

Posted on 1 March 201829 June 2022 by Steve Bynghall

Healthy adoption continues to be a massive focus for intranet, collaboration and digital workplace teams. It is regarded as a key measure of success, a focus for team efforts and an expectation of senior stakeholders. If you cant get your employees to use your intranet, then whats the point of having an intranet?

Adoption is critical, but some intranet teams tend to have too narrow a definition of adoption. They regard it simply as the proportion of users who are using and visiting the intranet or related collaboration tools. An over-simplified definition of adoption means that teams focus on increasing the headline numbers such as unique users, number of page visits, number of registrations or proportion of users making contributions. This is their number one priority. Thats not to say those numbers arent important, but it does mean other critical areas of value can get missed.

To use an analogy, its a bit like just focusing on the bums on seats when launching a new movie as your criteria for success. On the surface of it that might be the most important thing when the film is launched but significant revenue may also come from merchandise, licensing, DVD sales and other spin-offs. The critical reaction to the film is also key. If your focus is only on driving up the audience numbers, then youre missing a trick.

What does good adoption mean to you?

Intranet and digital workplace teams need to take a more nuanced and three-dimensional view of adoption which is more aligned to the strategic aims of their intranet. They need to work out what good adoption means for their organisation and what value it will drive.

In addition to the proportion of people using your collaboration site or visiting your intranet, adoption needs to cover the how and the who.

The how means thinking about what successful use of your tools means. For example, are you trying to drive adoption of collaboration tools to cover specific types of work such as managing projects? Do you want your employees to using a workspace for more than just a place to dump documents? Successful adoption needs to account for working practices and use cases which lead to positive outcomes for employees and the organisations they work for.

The who also takes in which different groups who might be using your tools and visiting your intranet, but for different purposes. For example, are you aiming for your managers to use your intranet? Do you want more frontline employees to visit? A more three-dimensional view of adoption may cover different groups and how you want them to use your intranet.

The foundations of adoption

When intranet teams think about driving adoption they need to consider all the different ingredients which can influence it. There is no single ingredient X which drives it, but instead multiple, over-lapping factors which lay the foundations for good adoption:

Value: Employees find things, complete tasks and stay informed, ensuring the intranet is helping employees in their everyday work.
Awareness: Employees are aware of features and benefits, so they are knowledgeable about what it does and how to use it.
Proximity: Barriers to successful use are removed so that issues such as poor performance, difficult authentication or lack of access do not impact adoption.
Governance: Structures, roles, rules and processes are in place to ensure the intranet continues to work efficiently, content is up to date and standards are maintainted.
Improvement: The intranet continually improves to meet user needs so it stays relevant and aligned to staff and organisational needs
Trust: Users trust the intranet, its content and the team behind it for all the reasons above.

You cant control adoption

One of the problems of driving adoption is that it is an output or a consequence of your intranet and the way it is run. Therefore, it is something that you cannot ultimately control or guarantee. However, the good news is that it is something that you can influence.

Considering the different foundations of adoption, there are several ways that teams can influence it. Adoption strategies need to consider all these factors, not just an engaging launch and getting your CEO to support it:

Intranet features, capabilities and design: how useful, relevant and engaging your intranet is will depend on what it can do and to a lesser extranet what it looks like
Getting users to design, shape and influence: getting direct feedback and involving users to ensure the intranet is user-centred but also helping to create advocates and ambassadors
A governance framework for a sustainable intranet: this has a direct influence on how up to date content is and all the processes that need to make it work to ensure visitors keep returning
Senior management endorsement and involvement: visible support from your CEO helps spreads awareness, legitimises use and encourages other managers to promote it
Champions, site owner and publisher networks: leveraging the enthusiasm and energy of communities of champions, publishers and site or community managers to promote the intranet, produce content and manage sites
Content management and related governance: all the standards, processes and roles to ensure content is relevant, up] to date, accurate, findable, on brand and engaging
Engaging launch and communications: spreading awareness of the intranet as well as the benefits of using it
Measurement to deliver insights for improvement: using a data-driven approach to continually improve the intranet
Targeted support and training to drive best use: making sure the right groups are using the intranet and its tools in the right way
A post launch roadmap of features and improvements: additional content and capabilities to keep on drawing people to the intranet and engage users

Taking a more holistic view of adoption

Taking a more holistic, 360-degree view of how to influence adoption means that intranet teams can develop a more cohesive, coordinated and long-term strategy for evolving it. For example, instinctively a governance framework might not feel like it will immediately drive adoption. Perhaps it wont, but it will help to maintain great content and engage the people responsible for it and that is critical for good use of your intranet.

Adoption needs to be more than just being about chasing the numbers. Its also about successful usage and targeting different groups to use it in different ways. Teams need to consider a range of approaches which will drive intranet adoption, so it is sustainable. They can then factor their efforts into the way they regularly operate. That should drive up the headline numbers but also ensure your intranet is used in successful ways which are valuable for all.