Having a Social Intranet at a workplace is one of the most effective employee engagement strategies. It instills a sense of belonging amongst them and helps build a vibrant, more connected environment where there is a free flow of information. While many employers have argued in the past about their usefulness at an organization, owing to the time spent per employee interacting through social intranets as sheer wastage, the statistics prove otherwise.
According to McKinsey study, social technologies raise the productivity of knowledge workers by as much as 25%
If this is true, companies that implement a social intranet successfully will gain a few extra days of productivity out of every employee!
For a 300 plus employee company, that will count as another year’s productivity added to the current year. Isn’t that great?
Let’s dive straight into some solid reasons why having a social intranet will prove to be a boon for a great company culture!
Here’s why Social Intranet is Great for Company Culture!
Shared Goals:
A social intranet paves way for leadership communication to flow effectively throughout the organization, which results in an engaged team sharing a collective vision. Important news and regular updates from leaders can be posted without any prejudices, allowing real-time communication between the team. This goes a long way in letting the employees in on what’s happening with the company. They find themselves more attached to the company’s overall mission and vision, and know how their role plays an important part in achieving success together as an organization.
Since Intranet is a company-wide platform, any announcements or updates made there will reach every single individual associated with the company, including part-timers or people who are on maternity, paternity leaves. Since most companies today have offices in multiple locations, some employees may be privy to important information prior than the rest of the employees, obviously due to locational constraints, which can cause a clouded atmosphere of biases and a disengaged team. A social intranet removes such web of doubts and aligns goals by bringing each employee on one single platform.
Peer-to-Peer Engagement:
A social intranet is a great medium to interact and engage as a community. Encourage your employees to share important industry related information which can help their colleagues. If you have a flexible workforce, who are in and out of office at different timings or employees spread across multiple locations, allow employees to share fun stuff about what each office is up to or top tips about something new they learnt.
Having a social intranet is not only about talking about just work. You cannot nurture a healthy atmosphere if you don’t give chances of camaraderie amongst the people.
Forbes discussed a report that focused on the importance of socially engaged employees and found that 59% of engaged employees used social media to build relationships within the company.
Why not provide a secured, centralized platform for them to do so? Having a centralized, accessible platform dedicated to communication empowers employees to self-organize, and share their ideas and opinions.
Central Hub:
Important documents may be stored across multiple platforms like email, word documents, Google Drive etc., which makes it a tedious task to find information. Social Intranet slowly takes the form of a central hub for company related information. Imagine the power employees feel if they have the access to everything they will ever need regarding their company, at a single place. From company policies to learning and development materials and tips and tools to help them feel supported. It is especially fruitful for companies that allow flexible or agile working styles, letting employees work from any place they wish to.
Since it is the central hub for your company, an intranet can also serve as a great induction tool, where it acts as an online handbook to support new hires and help them understand the company better. They can get hands-on information about the business, how things are done, the people who work there etc. An intranet is just like the facebook of your company, where the profile of all employees can be included, enabling new hires to put faces to names and get a better understanding of their roles.
Transparency:
In order to bring out the best in your employees, you need to create a culture where they feel comfortable sharing thoughts and opinions.
Fun fact: According to various studies, nearly 87% of people want to work for a company that’s transparent!
Well, an intranet is your ticket to building a transparent culture. Most intranets have features such as @-mentions, likes, comments, easy document sharing and some form of notifications, letting employees speak their mind, without any fears. Not only that, it is easy to create engaging content of any type, whether it be a blog post, meeting notes, a marketing campaign plan. When all of this work-related information flows through relevant channels or teams over the intranet, you can be sure to nurture transparency in your company.
Employee Recognition:
Employee recognition gets a generous boost with the adoption of a social intranet in a company. It is a quick and easy way to recognize and celebrate employee and team achievements. This helps people feel connected and valued for the work that they do, finding themselves as an essential part of the company’s success. Not just that, it can be a great tool to promote peer-to-peer recognition too, with employees able to post a thank you to colleagues for their help or to congratulate them for a job well done. Wishing colleagues happy birthday, recognizing work anniversaries and celebrating other events on a social intranet, binds individuals together and fosters a positive work culture.
A great social intranet helps build stronger levels of trust and a deeper understanding of each other, fostering a company culture which is hard to beat!
