Workplace productivity is the mainstay of organizational success and growth. Maintaining it is perhaps the most daunting challenge for organizations, regardless of the size and scale of their teams. The hybrid model makes it even harder to achieve and maintain because you cannot oversee your employees at all times. Moreover, people working in different teams across the business location or from home may fall short on communication and collaboration fronts. You can imagine the impact it can have on their overall productivity, but a business intranet can be a true savior for resolving the concern. It offers more productivity benefits than you imagine. Here are some ways it can help you build a productive team and workplace.
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1. Seamless collaboration with centralized knowledge resources
Intranet software facilitates seamless collaboration between employees as they can access centralized knowledge resources in real-time, regardless of their locations. These resources are accessible to employees, managers, vendors, and partners, empowering them with all the information they need. In fact, you can even set role-based access to ensure security in a remote setup. Team members need not struggle with endless email loops and file searches, which are the worst productivity culprits. They can get exactly what they require to be their productive best at work.
2. Facilitate the onboarding process
Onboarding is a critical process for the HR team as it ramps up new employees for their new roles. The process entails training them to handle the obligations and responsibilities of their job. You may face onboarding challenges with remote hires because they can hardly connect with co-workers and seek help for tasks. A business intranet bridges this gap and enables people to give their best from the outset. You can leverage it for HR and IT setup to create new accounts for payroll and install security applications on their devices. Additionally, you can provide corporate guidelines training to help new employees to follow workflows. Finally, you can assign mentors to new hires and facilitate communication through messaging tools and integrated videos.
3. Simple communication that keeps everyone connected
Besides seamless collaboration, the business intranet helps set up simple communication between team members, regardless of where they work. None of your employees have to stress over connecting with the right manager or team member for quick feedback, discussion, or opinion, even if they are at different locations. The lack of communication is often a productivity killer, so overcoming it enables people to close tasks quickly, and without gaps and errors.
4. Break down boundaries and silos
Organizational teams often struggle to overcome boundaries and information silos imposed by location or department. The worst part is that people cannot be on the same page, which keeps them from reaching the highest productivity levels. Using intranet software is an ideal solution to break down these barriers and empower your workforce, regardless of geographic location or functional roles. Businesses that do not have internal silos are in a better place to achieve their growth goals in the long haul.
5. Quicker response to problems
Another benefit of adopting a business intranet is that it facilitates a quicker response to problems because employees have seamless access to the relevant information they require. They can handle their jobs better, close tasks on time, and avoid errors. Being able to connect with co-workers just-in-time enables them to tap into the collective intelligence that is not available in file cabinets and company emails. Accelerated information gathering speeds up the response times, so bottlenecks hardly persist for businesses relying on a connected intranet. All of these factors make your team as productive as possible.
6. Access on the go
With hybrid work becoming a norm, mobility is the mainstay of a productive workforce. Your employees should have the option to connect and work from any location and with any device. Business intranet like Powell Software’s solution provides access on the go, enabling team members to connect using cell phones, laptops, and tablets. They can work from home, on sales tours, off-site business meetings, and at networking events, so productivity is never off-track. You can make a great impression on potential clients by showcasing seamless connectivity and data access from anywhere. The best part is that workers love the flexibility that comes with remote access. Employee satisfaction gets you full marks on the retention front.
7. Minimal search time
Complex searches through files, folders, and documents are stressful and affect the productivity of workers. The more resources you have, the more complicated searches get. After all, you may have to sift through thousands of files, folders, documents, and emails to find the one you need. Using an intranet is an ideal solution, as it reduces the time-consuming search hassles for employees. They can rely on a well-structured intranet to quickly search and locate documents, photos, channels, and people. Savvy solutions even let employees utilize features like keyword search and auto-suggest for simplifying the searches further.
8. Keep all departments happy
With an intranet in place, you can boost productivity for entire teams within your organization. Most departments face repetitive, monotonous, or complex tasks every day. The team members end up feeling unhappy, which makes them less productive, even if they work hard. An intranet serves as a common area where business leaders can encourage team members to support each other by providing assistance, resources, know-how, experiences, and advice to resolve everyday issues and business-critical challenges. You can also leverage it to alleviate individual work overflows, pressure, and management. These factors go a long way in enhancing their work quality and performance.
9. Create polls and surveys
You can easily create polls and surveys within your organization by providing flexible electronic forms to them on the intranet. The process is far simpler and more economical than using tools to poll, survey, and register a large ream. Your employees can confirm attendance for events, fill up forms to vote on new ideas, and provide anonymous feedback to managers. You can crowdsource ideas for new projects and get insights on upcoming events, company policies, or employee wellness. Further, you can quickly gather feedback on employee satisfaction and rework things for the better. The intranet also speeds up the collection of data and integrates it with other data sources across the organization.
10. Speed up learning and development
Learning and development are crucial for organizational growth and productivity, as trained team members always go the extra mile. You can use a business intranet to speed up the learning and development process. The best part is that it curbs the need for in-classroom training where everyone has to be in the main office. With a robust intranet in place, you can implement a centralized LMS with training programs for remote and on-site employees. Users even have the freedom to pick their own pace for coursework, so they need not stress about keeping up with the quickest learners. Beyond the mandatory training modules, you can also provide optional learning modules for employees looking for a promotion or planning to switch to another team.
11. Reduce the load of internal emails
Employees get hundreds of business emails every week, which tends to distract them and hurt their productivity levels. Moreover, they end up losing, ignoring, or forgetting key announcements and policy updates in a sea of messages. They may also miss out on someone while sending a critical email thread. A centralized and highly visible intranet resolves the concern because it lets anyone in the team answer queries or update documents. You can imagine how the system can offload the internal email burden for your company and reduce distractions for your employees. You can reserve email only for external conversations with customers, vendors, and partners. People become more efficient when they do not have to clean their inboxes frequently. The best part is that there is hardly a chance of missing out on high-value emails.
12. Employee directory to find the right skills
A business intranet with a people directory is an excellent asset for a team that wants to go the extra mile with productivity. The directory offers information such as expertise, department, and manager for each employee on board. Team members struggling with specific tasks can easily search for a person who can offer relevant expertise to wrap it up. The benefit is immense when you have a large team working across different locations. You cannot expect people to know each other, but the people directory serves them a solution just-in-time. Moreover, managers and business leaders end up knowing their team better and segregating top performers from the rest. You can focus on their training, development, and retention to empower your business in the long haul.
Businesses are more concerned about workplace productivity than ever, specifically in the hybrid work era. While there is no magic pill to build a productive workforce, an intranet works as an ideal solution to boost productivity. Besides communication and collaboration, it empowers your team in more ways than you imagine. You can rely on it to build a productive, efficient, and happy team that pushes your company ahead toward its growth goals over time.
I am a passionate, adventurous, and insatiate learner who loves to write about the latest technology trends. My experience working in an MNC has motivated me to understand that there are certain niche requirements for writing strategically about brands’ messages towards people’s interests which I’ve mastered over time through trial and error of many projects under various clients across diverse industries. It is my honest effort to put my experiences and knowledge of industry towards readers.
