How a Social Intranet Drives Employee Engagement
Employee disengagement is a problem. A 2014 poll revealed that only 31% of employees in the United States were engaged in their job, 51% were still “not engaged”, and 17.5% were “actively disengaged”. When employees are disengaged at work, this refers to a lack of enthusiasm and commitment to their work or workplace. Ultimately, they are less involved and more likely to leave their role, resulting in higher employee turnover rates for the company.
Engaging employees isn’t an easy task, but many leaders are recognizing that there is a relationship between how engaged employees are in their jobs and the financial success of their organization. In fact, Harvard Business Review found that 71% of executives see employee engagement as a critical factor for business growth. Employees are the foundation to a business’ success, and therefore, should be treated as an important part of the company to invest in. But if they are disengaged in their work, the foundation will crumble.
A collaboration solution, such as a social intranet, can help in increasing employee engagement. An intranet is a closed and secure network within a company which can only be accessed by employees. It’s a place where knowledge and information is stored, shared, accessed, and retrieved, but this process needs to be made simpler so that users can build their own connects within the company. An intranet addresses a multitude of problems:
- Communication: opens up communication lines
- Synchronization: ensures that employees are on the same page
- Accessibility: important data can be accessed from anywhere
There are many factors that drive employee engagement ranging from the “coolness” of the office environment to the meaningfulness of the corporate mission. The central purpose for an intranet is to strengthen internal communications and increase employee engagement. Here are some ways that an intranet can help increase your employee engagement.
Increase Collaboration
Although we’re all individuals, collaboration is trending in today’s workplace because it leads to better results and increased productivity. Collaboration comes in many forms, from working with other employees on projects, to collaborating on business data – no matter where your employees are in the world. The reality is that within this fast-paced society, many people find themselves working remotely as opposed to an office setting. Because remote work is on the rise, it is harder for everyone to stay in touch and collaborate effectively. Social intranets provide a one-stop shop collaboration solution for your employees to communicate with everyone in your company about resources, documents, and more!
Empowerment
The amount of resources that are becoming available to us is growing at such a rapid pace that it is easy to become disorganized. But why not organize all these resources to your employee’s advantage? You can empower your employees to find the answers to their questions without having to go through several people or disorganized files, which can be exhausting and frustrating. A social intranet is a space that can be used by teams to communicate with each other and effectively collaborate on business data that is most important to them. In today’s digital society, people expect instant answers – not ones that take several business days to find or answer. Within your intranet, you are able to create an FAQ or rich knowledge base to equip your employees with the answers to all their questions. If that still doesn’t fully answer their question, your intranet can also act as a support portal for them to easily contact someone for help.
Educate through eLearning
Communicating with your employees about a new product, update, or even onboarding new employees is a very time-consuming task. Engagement can be lost in these processes if they are not communicated properly to your employees. To make these processes more effective and more efficient, take a look at eLearning. Learning Management Systems (LMS) are great for providing online courses and further training for employees in order to keep them assimilated into the company. Using web-based training and eLearning reduces frustration when being educated about updates and products in an easily digestible way.
A social intranet is the perfect tool for increasing employee engagement and establishing effective internal communications. Its ultimate justification and success is that it can accomplish some of the core needs of every company’s communication strategy including organization-wide communication, social engagement, and knowledge management. Want to learn more about how to implement a social intranet for your business? Check out Magentrix Social Intranet here!