Building an intranet is easy. All you need is a pre-made software or platform from a reputable company. Tweak it to your own specification and then you are on for one of a ride to the world of intranet and communications.
But then, maintaining intranet standards can be quite hard. It is even harder to keep it safe from hackers and scammers who are outside the realm of your intranet. Recently, the New York Times was faced with the dilemma of how to tighten its security over the breach of its intranet. The hacker, was said to be the same person who had found its way to Yahoo and other big wigs’ websites.
Best Intranet Practices
- Keep security tight. Important companies and websites such as the NY times should have known better. The intranet is known for secret or private company activities. A security beach might therefore prove to be very harmful as the information may get to the wrong hands. You should talk with your IT team to keep matters at bay.
- Keep it usable. An intranet that isn’t usable is nothing. It should be user friendly and should be known to everybody in the company. It should also be a channel for employees to voice out ideas, express their minds, search sources and information, and find the latest news.
- It should be of considerable cost. A good intranet is mindful of cost. The intranet should be bringing you profit and not deprive you of your profit. Of course, an initial capital is needed to put it up and later on, the effort of setting it up and money involved should be complemented by the productivity of the employees.
- Socially engaging. Keeping it social means that you give users lots of opportunity to talk, exchange ideas, be in forums, rate things etc. Thus, the intranet shouldn’t just be a boring newsletter or memo.
- Standard-based. It should be built with standards. Thus, it should be in line with your goals and business culture of the company.
- Simple yet seductive. It’s interface should be interactive yet simple. A minimal design but yet attractive can pull users.
- Success indicators should be measured. At the end of the day, you really need to face the fact that your intranet and your employees use of it should be evaluated. Return of investment should also be thought of.
To conclude, an intranet is very useful in every organization. It fosters social engagement and keeps the company together as one. But in the end, there should always be futuristic thinking of what may happen. Just like what happened to the New York Times, you don’t want the world to know how you were memoed by your boss or how your salary was tied on some loans, right? So, build it right, make it right and keep it tight.
