Here at Rogue, intranets are our jam. We know that Everyone Needs an Intranet. Period. is a strong statement. With the exception of sole proprietors and very small partnerships, we stand by that. Why do we feel so strongly? Well—

How much time do your employees sink into routine communications? I have been guilty, in previous employment, of asking an HR representative who had sent tons of solid information about benefits through email blasts, “Ummm, where do I sign up for health insurance? I should know this, but I don’t.”

In my defense, before bothering her, I did an email search, where I hit several communiques about changes to benefits and the sign-up window. Each of these emails contained slightly different details. I lost patience and decided I couldn’t be bothered to dig through links in these various messages. Sheepishly I will admit to you that I had to ask twice that day because I made a mistake in the URL and had to follow up.

I have other examples like this, such as: Where do I update my direct deposit account information? To whom do I submit my new mailing address for employee records? And how can I change my last name to reflect my married name on my pay stub? Each of these questions required email strings of back-and-forth coordination and knowledge sharing. It was a good thing my employer was not paying for email usage by the word.

There were 200 employees in this organization. Imagine how many times this very polite HR professional had to deal with dummies like me, tanking her own productivity to answer questions and provide clarifications many times over.

Ask the IT crew in your organization how much time they spend responding to standard requests about permissions, access, upgrades, software, laptops, power cords, air cards. So many requests!

You get the gist as time is concerned. And though “time is money,” there are other direct operational expenses that can be saved with use of an intranet. Does your company print a directory? Not counting the hours of compilation time, just thinking in terms of materials such as paper and binding, does that cost add up to thousands? Does your employer rely on paper-based forms for IT requests, changes to personnel information, onboarding, corporate training acknowledgments? When there is a change to the forms, are they reprinted in bulk?

A well designed intranet replaces all of an organization’s email blasts, directories, email-based coordination, disparate calendars, standard forms/requests, event invitations, and acknowledgments. This is achieved through implementation of a homepage with alerts, announcements, and helpful links; department pages with targeted information; and collaboration sites for project-based work. The only magic is in keeping content fresh and accurate—and then training employees to rely upon it as The Source of All Corporate Truth.

HR will never again have to answer the question, “Where do I sign up for benefits?” with an answer other than, “It’s on the intranet.”

Thanks for reading!
M

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