Many organizations today use an intranet, an internal computer network accessible only by members of the company and used for information sharing, data storage and collaboration. When it comes to internal communications, or the flow of information from members of a company’s leadership team to employees at every level via the communications office, it makes sense to leverage the organization’s intranet. Some ways to do that include
- Posting e-bulletins, memos and event calendars
- Storing important information that employees need to access with some regularity, such as policies and procedures and compliance documents
- Creating an internal communications hub where employees can see all messaging that has come from your office by date
- Hosting an employee frequently asked questions (FAQ) document
- Delivering employee surveys to engage workers and ensure they are happy
What are intranet metrics?
Unfortunately, it’s not enough to simply use a company intranet to deliver important internal messaging. Otherwise, what you’re doing is a bit like screaming into the void. Intranet metrics measure the activity taking place on a company’s intranet as well as the effectiveness of intranet messaging. In other words, they tell you whether your intranet communications efforts are actually working, so you don’t waste your time and energy on something that isn’t having the intended effect.
Intranet metrics support your key performance indicators. KPIs measure the success of a particular business activity, helping companies to make steady progress toward important business goals.
Which intranet metrics matter?
There are many possible metrics related to intranet communication. Following, we share some of the ones we think are most important to internal communications so you know where to focus your efforts.
Employee Satisfaction
Satisfied employees are productive employees, whereas unhappy employees are more likely to slack off. In fact, it’s thought that unhappy employees cost US companies as much as $550 billion annually. A company intranet that is used strategically, however, can help employees feel better informed and more well connected, leading to increased productivity and a healthier bottom line.
So first things first. Take stock of how you’re using your intranet to generate employee satisfaction. That might include things like keeping a virtual bulletin board and events calendar updated, sharing mission-critical information, and posting good news such as promotions and congratulatory notes. Then, use employee surveys to find out how your efforts are contributing to employee satisfaction.
Employee Engagement
Many things can contribute or detract from employee engagement. But this is an important metric because employees who are engaged with their organizations are more likely to have a good understanding of key business objectives, are more likely to feel seen and heard by the leadership team, and are more likely to understand how what they do contributes to the overall success of the company. They are also more likely to collaborate with others across the organization.
The bottom line is that engaged employees simply do better work. By looking at how employees use the intranet, you can get a sense of how they are engaging with your messaging, or if they even are engaging at all. Open rates, readership and participation in things like polls can help you gauge that.
Employee Compliance
The intranet is a place where important evergreen and urgent information can be stored. However, what good is such information if it isn’t being used? You can use metrics to determine whether the information you’re releasing for employee use is being accessed. Pay attention to things like who is logging into the intranet, where they are going in it, what documents they are opening, and for how long. Are new employees accessing the employee manual from the intranet? Are workers across the organization consuming newly released procedural documents they need to do their jobs well? What about urgent announcements?
By understanding who is actually engaging with the content on your intranet, you can determine who your standout employees are. These are the people who are in positions to serve as mentors and trainers, and who may deserve to be considered for promotion opportunities.
Employee Participation and Collaboration
A company intranet is a great tool for empowering employees to collaborate across even the most distributed organizations. Because it serves as a shared workspace on the cloud, employees from different departments and different work locations can use it to create project-specific folders and add documents that can be accessed and altered by anyone with permission to be in those folders.
Unfortunately, many company intranets are top-down operations, with the communications or human resources departments mostly in charge of adding documents and then directing employees to them. You can foster collaboration by publishing information on the intranet about how to use it as a collaborative work tool. Then, when conducting surveys about how employees are using the intranet, be sure to include questions about collaboration to see what’s changed. Chances are, you’ll see more employees and work groups using the intranet in a way that generates creator innovation and productivity.
How can Tryane help?
Intranet metrics are important not just to help you ensure your communication efforts are accomplishing what you want them to. Metrics also give you the ammunition to demonstrate the value of your work to ensure that you have the support you need from your organization’s leadership team. Unfortunately, most internal communications platforms do not provide robust usage data. That means you’ll need a third-party tool that can help you understand how your intranet is being used.
If your organization uses SharePoint for its intranet, Tryane can help you make use of your communication efforts on that platform. Tryane Analytics for SharePoint can provide you with powerful metrics that tell a story, so you can turn data into strategic action. It can help:
- Detect inactive users
- Analyze user behavior
- Discover how users are engaging with content
Contact us today to learn more about our analytics tool for SharePoint, or one of our various other metrics solutions for Microsoft platforms. With our help, you’ll gain a better understanding of how to use SharePoint to improve internal communication.