January 18, 2005

Five Reasons Employees Aren’t Using Your Intranet

It may be hard to believe, but all it takes for site users to abandon your intranet is one solitary flaw. It’s the same principle as finding a fly in your soup: It can spoil the whole bowl. Through the years, we’ve seen a number of “flies in the soup” that keep employees from using their company’s intranet. Here are five.

1. Inconsistent design: A uniform look and feel is the most fundamental principle of intranet design. You want site visitors to experience similar structure, as well as consistent and intuitive navigation, as they browse from page to page. Without consistent design, you’re also missing out on a valuable opportunity to develop a strong brand.
	Example: http://www.apple.com clearly makes it a priority to maintain a consistent look and feel throughout its site, and definitely achieves strong brand recognition.
2. Outdated content: Stale content is STILL the number one reason employees don’t visit their organization’s intranet. (Will we ever learn?) It really makes perfect sense. Imagine visiting CNN.com today and reading the headline: Saddam Hussein Captured. Chances are, you would find an alternate source for up-to-date news.
	Example: http://news.google.com uses mathematical algorithms to generate up-to-date news stories and continuously display them on the site.
3. Badly organized information: Physical organization is a problem plaguing many corporate intranets. Quite often, a file and folder structure is used (think “corporate silos”) instead of logical organization: structuring the site in such a way that promotes logical workflow. The key is to figure out what employees need, and build information to suit their needs.
	Example: http://www.amazon.com has worked hard to organize their information in a number of logical ways to meet the shopping needs of their customers.
4. Content that’s not audience focused: It’s easy to post press releases, shareholder updates and product information on your homepage as a way to make content seem “fresh.” While your intentions may be good, you’re not fooling anyone. Employees want information that’s relevant to them, not company executives, shareholders, consumers or the competition. This isn’t to say that you can’t adapt existing content for your intranet. Just make sure you answer employees’ big question, “What does this mean to me?”
	Example: http://howstuffworks.com, a site that explains how everything around us works, from technology to nature, does a good job at writing in layman’s terms, making it relevant for all audiences.
5. Poor search engine Finding information on your intranet shouldn’t be a game of hide and seek. An intranet needs to have a search function that allows employees to find the information they’re looking for. This is especially important for large intranet sites so packed with information that it’s hard to decide where to start a search.
	Example: http://careerbuilder.com allows you to perform a job search based on a variety of search criteria including company name, keywords, job category, title and location. You can narrow down your results by selecting additional search criteria.

To learn more about how Davis & Company can help you improve your intranet, contact Matt Davis at:

1.877.399.5100 (toll-free in the U. S. )
1.201.445.5100
matthew.davis@davisandco.com