March 30, 2006

Why Intranets Suck

Telling someone to use the company intranet is usually like telling them to “go to hell.” In most companies the operative business model seems to be to build the legendary library at

Alexandria

without a catalogue or a navigable interface.

Ironically the worst intranets are often in software companies where the shoemaker’s son syndrome is at play. But the problem of internal communications is a by-product of trying to create a comprehensive archive of stuff without a communications strategy in the face of many departments eager, and often incented,  to publish to the site. The result is usually a mish-mash of hard-to-find stuff which ranges from the ridiculous to the sublime thrown together without the benefit of skilled information architecture or interface design. Every one clains that whatever you need is "in there" and no one ever wants to use it.

This too is partly the fault of software companies who madly tout and sell portals as a tool for cutting costs, reducing cycle times and empowering employees by forcing them into self-service. The software guys hint that all the big issues have been pre-thought, pre-digested and will be solved by buying their code. The reality is usually the opposite.

To get an employee portal right and get it used requires three basic steps:

1. Determine the Primary

Mission

and Create a Hierarchy of Needs

What should this portal do? Everything is NOT an acceptable answer. Do you want employees to make transactions like selecting or adjusting their benefits, sick days and vacation requests or filing expense reports? Do you want it to be a beacon for your mission statement, your vision and your corporate blab? Is it a communications channel for reaching and interacting with employees? Is it a workbook for setting MBOs, doing performance evaluations and hiring or firing? Is it a workgroup collaboration tool? Is it a delivery mechanism for added employee services and benefits? Is it a document storage system or knowledge-sharing device?

You can’t build it right if you don’t know what it should do. And even if you aspire to a multi-functional portal, you can never afford the time or money to invest in state of the art features for each element. So you must choose what it should do first and best and then rank order by priority the other functions that get built in.

2. Don’t Leave it Solely to HR

Too many bad intranets are run by HR departments alone. They rarely get the IT, marketing or communications part right because they are all about processing paperwork and keeping records. In fact the modern HR department is mostly about automating employee interactions not necessarily encouraging them.

You have to create a cross functional team and bring all the relevant disciplines to bear. And you have to start out by thinking of your employees with the same care and concern that you think about your customers. From the beginning you have to assume that personalization, preference setting and straight forward presentation are mandatory. Intranets that are the oracle for corporate big brother and those that are relentlessly rah-rah generally fail.

Also you need to decide up front on the definition of success. Is it usage? Is it the number of transactions? It is manager compliance with instructions? Is it time and money saved? Understanding that metrics motivate most corporate behavior means that what you measure is what will get done. So laying out what you want to happen will directly influence what gets built and what gets used.

3. Think in Web 2.0 Terms

The best websites and the best portals have abandoned the page-serving paradigm. Web 2.0 is about anticipating information needs and usage patterns and staging information so that it comes to the user rather than forcing the user to find whatever he/she is looking for. This requirement ratchets up the technology needs and the necessary advance thinking about information design, site architecture and interface construction. But ultimately it’s well worth it since without it your realistic chance of stimulating widespread use and any ind of ROI is severely diminished.

Mar 30, 2006 1:19:24 PM | Internal Communications

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The Internal Communications Challenge Communicating with employees is the bane of corporate life.Whether you have 50,000 employees or 5 insuring that the message sent is the message received is the toughest marketing challenge. Why? Because the workplace is so highly charged emotionally that clarity is almost impossible. Everyone filters each message through attitudes and emotions which change day-to-day and minute-by-minute. Because employers generally don’t level with the people who work for them. Because there are too many internal messages and little ability to frame, prioritize or target them. And because most internal messages are controlled by HR weenies who are usually clueless and officious. The ability to clearly and forcefully transmit messages to the workforce is a critical factor in global competitiveness and employee satisfaction or retention. But go into any firm and you’ll find that the grapevine is a much faster and more credible network than official media that range from posters in the lunchroom to desktop flyers to elaborate e-mail chains and jam-packed intranets. Employers chronically underestimate the amount and intensity of goodwill among employees. Most people want to make a difference, earn a living, enjoy their work and contribute to something bigger than themselves. There are very few real secrets inside any company. Employees know what’s going on in every dimension and consistently make the same competitive assessments and judgments that employers do. As the social contract changes, the best employees will vote with their feet when they feel unloved, unfulfilled or oppressed by management. Employees constantly handicap the performance of their own companies. What they know about management plans, intentions and employee benefits are key data points that drive engagement, morale and performance. Too many employers treat their work force like children by talking down to them, assuming they don’t understand global marketplace realities or by masking problems and intentions in the gobbledy-gook of corporate speak. The top-down command system of management has been broadly discredited, yet it seems to be the residual model for internal communications. In a world where baby boomers leave the system, where retirement and healthcare benefits are severely reduced and where competition for fewer all-star performers is significantly more intense, poor internal communication will doom a company. The challenge for internal communications is to build a contact strategy that limits the number and quantity of internal messages sent and to install filters to insure that messages are clear and not subject to widespread or diverse interpretation. Employees need clear, personal messages that are honest, straightforward, relevant to them and short. These messages have to be framed in friendly, savvy language that acknowledges what insiders’ know and feel. And they have to be targeted so that they go only to those who need to know or care about the contents. Internal messages cannot be buried in an intranet or part of a relentless e-mail stream. Instead employers need to treat employee communications like prospect or client communications and ask the audience to set preferences for content, frequency and, channels. Only then will employers have a shot a truly mobilizing or motivating their workers.
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Danny Flamberg

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