Fenix Blog

We are often asked how to make the company intranet more useful and appealing for employees and with the use of social media tools there are plenty of possibilities out there for you.  We no longer live in a time where people accept being talked at – your employees want to see value and be heard. So we’ve put together a list of things to consider when building or re-building your intranet.

1. Consider existing communities
   Chance are your employees are on Facebook and sharing picture on Flickr already, take a look at these communities and incorporate some of those ideas into your company intranet. Some people have a hard time building in features that don’t directly drive home the company message but if you make your intranet a place that people want to log into everyday then odds are it’ll get used for work related things as well.
2. Find out what people enjoy
   At Fenix we like to eat so creating a space where we can share recipes and photos of dishes we’ve made over the weekend is a great place to start. This can be a small part of your intranet but what it says is that you listen to your employees and appreciate that there’s more to life than making sure their work is done on time.
3. Make your intranet flexible
   We are always coming up with new things we want to add to the intranet. Make it easy for someone to add information that would be useful to everyone. Wikis and similar collaboration tools can be very useful in this case.
4. Encourage collaboration and contributions
   Often organizations choose the CEO or president to write blog posts and as much as we all enjoy hearing from the President – that’s often not the person who can contribute to the community in a really meaningful way. Encourage employees to talk about what they are doing, learning, teaching and give them a voice on the company intranet. As the intranet administrator you can then choose to publish the valuable information to the public website.
5. Include external sources
   There are loads of widgets out there that will draw in data from other sources like news sites, weather, blogs etc … This can help make the intranet useful for users and allows you to take advantage of existing technologies.

Advantages to starting a conversation with employees

The fact is your employees are already part of online communities this is an opportunity for you take advantage of their existing comfort with this space and build an environment for employees collaborate, communicate and share.

Bridge the generation gap. If you’re looking to attract new talent having a dynamic and social intranet can play a role in the appeal of your organization. Knowing how different generations like to communicate can give you a leg up in the war on talent.

Bring together a global workforce. We live in a world where many people can be working on the same project but will never meet. Having an intranet that is customized to facilitate collaboration will not only make your employees jobs easier – it will also make them more productive.

Be part of the conversation. This is your opportunity to hear what your employees have to say and make your company better, more efficient and more appealing to new talent.

With Twitter getting more popular every day, people are increasingly asking: “How do I use this tool effectively”?

Below is a link to a comprehensive list for all things Twitter; from getting started to mobile clients and Twitter stats. Enjoy!

http://traffikd.com/resources/101-twitter-resources/