The Value of a Modern Intranet in Your Company’s Strategic Plan

Crafting a comprehensive corporate communications strategy can bring a variety of advantages, from improving productivity to increasing brand awareness and enhancing employee retention. Such a strategy governs how leaders talk to staff, how personnel interact with managers, how customers engage with the company, and how the entire organization maintains consistency.

Nevertheless, it can be challenging to put such a plan in place. A 2019 study by Project.co showed that 98% of people believe that companies need to communicate and handle projects more effectively. Companies can thus use this feedback as an opportunity to refine, modify, or completely reinvent their communications practices and thereby strengthen connections with their most valuable stakeholders—employees and customers.

Here Are Five Reasons Why Effective Corporate Communication Tools Are Essential.

An effective corporate communications strategy is vital for any organization that wants to engage with its target audience. The tools and channels used to communicate these messages are just as important. An effective communications strategy can provide numerous benefits, including increased brand awareness, improved customer relations, and better employee engagement. Business communication tools are important because they provide a way to reach and engage your audience.

1. Optimize your Ideas and Solutions.

One of the most advantageous aspects of corporate communication strategies is collaboration and information exchange. Starbucks provides a great example of this, as evidenced by their introduction of the Frappuccino in 1993 at a Santa Monica location. Within one year, this menu item brought in an astounding $55 million in sales. To further capitalize on this type of innovation, many contemporary tools, such as polls, surveys, and ideation programs, provide an efficient means to crowdsource ideas and foster conversation amongst your staff. This can not only open the door to more opportunities but also further promote collaboration. If you’d like to learn more about this concept and how to use it to boost employee engagement, click here for an ebook with more insight.

2. Increase Employee Happiness and Morale.

By bolstering morale, productivity and retention will increase. Providing your employees with the necessary tools and platforms to aid their daily duties is paramount; otherwise, it can lead to their discontentment in the workplace. Ensure a straightforward system is in place for management to involve team members in a project, as well as customers to easily connect with the right individual to resolve any issues. With an effective communication plan centered on the people in your organization, it will promote an environment of engagement, fulfillment, and productivity.

3. Boost Employee Productivity.

Your employees’ productivity levels have a direct impact on your company’s overall success. Communication is the number one reason why employees quit. To create a work environment that supports productivity, employees need to know what is expected of them so they feel secure in their roles and can deliver. You can improve your corporate communications strategy to improve productivity.

4. Remove Barriers.

Have you ever started a project, only to realize that there had been a breakdown in communication, forcing you to restart from the beginning? Or perhaps something unforeseen happened that derailed your progress, and you were without a plan of action. Chances are, you’ve been in this situation more than once – and in today’s quickly changing environment, it’s becoming more common.

Miscommunication can usually be attributed to email being the primary mode of communication.

But there are other tools you can employ to get the word out more effectively, such as an intranet application, which can help keep everyone informed and up-to-date. Of course, you can’t always foresee every potential roadblock, but having an established corporate communications strategy can help your workforce navigate difficult or unexpected circumstances. By being prepared, you can anticipate potential problems and enhance internal workflows, resulting in better outcomes.

5. Increased Employee Engagement.

Maintaining a consistent level of employee engagement is an ever-evolving process, as your business and its needs are constantly evolving. Developing an efficient corporate communication system is an excellent starting point to get new hires up to speed and keep current employees connected. Although there is no definitive solution to boost engagement, there are plenty of methods that can aid in the process.

Encouraging staff to communicate with one another and collaborate to tackle any issues that may arise can significantly boost their engagement and productivity. By doing your part to ensure progress, you will be able to positively contribute to their experience.

The Advantages of Using Modern Intranet Software in Your Company’s Communications Strategy.

To effectively upgrade workplace communication, individuals need to first evaluate both internal and external communications in their organization. A useful intranet software, such as Creative Social Intranet, offers real-time messaging capabilities with staff and clients while organizing information, knowledge, and other business requirements.

At the core of a contemporary intranet lies its communication tools, including several platforms for interacting with both customers and co-workers. A thorough knowledge of what distinguishes Creative Social Intranet from other software solutions can assist in forming an intranet communications strategy to benefit the enterprise.

1. Private and group messaging are available.

For many years, email has been the key form of communication in business. However, now private and group messaging are much faster and more efficient methods to contact the correct person. Creative Social Intranet provides an effective platform for users to deliver individual or group messages, as well as having various integrations, including Slack. Moreover, chats are documented, which means any past conversations can be located if needed. When the entire business communication happens on intranet software, it becomes less likely for information or messages to be misplaced.

2. Calendars, both private and shared.

A good corporate communications strategy is more than just sending out fewer emails and sharing announcements. It can also help to improve how meetings, events, and conferences are carried out and publicized. By working with other departments, a corporate communications team can help to ensure that all company events are aligned with the overall brand strategy and messaging. Additionally, they can help to create a more seamless experience for attendees by providing clear and concise information before, during, and after the event.

Intranet calendars can make scheduling much easier, and you can avoid miscommunication of information. You can schedule events, invite others to join, set an attendee limit, and sync calendars. Individual private calendars can hold personal reminders, while team events can be shared with colleagues, which eliminates confusion and overlap. You can also create an events page, like this intranet template, where people can view company and team calendars, RSVP to events, and see new ones.

3. Open forums and discussions.

Intranet discussion forums can be a great asset for your company’s communication efforts. By providing a space for employees and customers to connect, forums can help you browse posts for information, create virtual help desks, and start conversations. Additionally, incorporating discussion forums into your strategy can establish a space for helping employees and customers to connect.

4. Case management, ticketing, and issue tracking are all included.

No matter how well-managed an organization is, unexpected issues are inevitable. Effectively tracking and resolving these problems requires an organized and intuitive system to streamline the process. Creative Social Intranet’s case and issue tracking software allows you to do just that. Easily collaborate with coworkers and customers while tracking progress and saving records for the future. It is a powerful tool to enable creative problem-solving. Furthermore, tickets and cases can also be used to provide excellent customer service, giving customers a portal to post queries, find answers, and get connected with the right people who can solve the issue.

9 Tips to Make Your Intranet Software More Modern and Improve Corporate Communication

Getting started with a new software can take some time, but if you have a clear set of goals and the right communication tools, you’ll be set up for success. Here are 9 tips to help you make the most of your experience

1. Develop a rollout strategy.

When you’re trying to launch a new business tool, there’s always a learning curve. But you can make the implementation process much smoother by working it into your corporate communications strategy. The key is to not disrupt operations, but to make them better with new features that accelerate how people do their jobs.

Design a rollout plan—including when and how to inform employees about the new addition, how teams will be trained to use it, and where people can go for questions and additional support. Preparation is essential for a smooth transition, and it doesn’t have to be complicated. Here’s an example of how Creative Social Intranet lays out an implementation plan for our software.

2. Train your employees.

When it comes to implementation, one mistake to avoid is not spending enough time training your staff. To reap the most benefits from your corporate communications strategy, your staff needs to be confident and comfortable using the new tools you’re implementing. If the employee experience is intuitive and easy for users at all levels, you won’t have to worry about setting aside a lot of time to train your staff. But you will need to make sure everyone is on board and adequately trained.

3. Set up a daily routine.

Creating a daily routine can help to set the tone for the workday and ensure that everyone is on the same page. Having a list of expectations or a daily checklist for each team can help to streamline communication and make sure that everyone is on the same page. Logging into the intranet, or employee portal, every day is a good way to stay up-to-date on announcements, check the status of projects, and connect with your company.

4. Make use of online workspaces.

Working in teams can be tough, especially when everyone is located in different parts of the country or even the world. Luckily, Creative Social Intranet offers a key feature- the ability to create unique online workspaces in the virtual community for teams, projects, and discussion groups.

These spaces are isolated from the community at large, which allows you and your employees to upload documents, create discussions, and communicate in real-time without worrying about information overlap or unread messages.

When spaces are efficiently incorporated into your corporate communications strategy, it can be a powerful way to connect employees with a shared goal and boost collaboration.

5. Motivate employees to start a conversation.

It takes time to get a social community going. CEOs and managers can help start the process by encouraging employees to post discussions on the intranet. Discussions help build your internal knowledge base and can be easily started from the dropdown menu. (Here are more tips for creating the best company intranet.)

6. Spend some time exploring.

Creative Social Intranet’s robust browsing and search tool makes navigating your virtual community easy and empowers you to understand how things are organized and where they’re located. Get a lay of the land and encourage users to move around the platform. The more familiar everyone becomes with the modern intranet, the easier it will be to use.

7. Gamification.

Gamification of your intranet is an excellent way to communicate goals, encourage positive behavior, and make the experience engaging. With gamification tools, you can set up a point system where users earn points and move up the ladder for completing specific tasks. You can also create automated badge programs that award badges to users who complete a series of tasks. If motivating employees is a core focus of your internal communications strategy, gamification is a great option.

8. Don’t neglect the “like” and “rate” options.

An intranet can be a great way to keep your employees engaged and organized by providing a content hierarchy that sorts the most popular files, documents, blogs, and wikis. In Creative Social Intranet, users can rate and “like” content, which helps to highlight important articles and documentation. You can even promote content to encourage employees to use the intranet as often as possible.

9. Look up “how-to” videos.

A resource center can help reduce confusion by getting everyone on the same page. Creative Social Intranet “How-to” videos are very helpful in breaking down common processes in a visual and guided way. Text documentation, like an FAQ page, is also effective. A corporate communications strategy is effective when it includes employees in important initiatives, and a resource page will help achieve that goal.

Conclusion

At the end of the day, your corporate communications strategy is a combination of how you want employees to work together and how you align them to these goals. By focusing on your objectives and internal features, you will set yourself up for success and build an even stronger workplace. Additionally, by taking the time to focus on your company’s communications goals, you will be able to more easily adapt and overcome any challenges that come up along the way.