How to Spring Clean Your Intranet

April 6, 2021

After a year+ of communications pivots and crises, the last thing an internal communicator wants to hear is that their intranet probably needs a good scrubbing. But as you and your teams likely spent most of your time this past year managing the ever-shifting landscape (perhaps using these 6 tips from SPI on how to do so), working around the clock to ensure employees remained informed, engaged and supported, some of your day-to-day communications tasks were probably put on the back burner.

Like everyone else, internal communicators have had a stressful year, filled with unexpected communications needs – including higher volumes of leadership and facilities-related communications, increased messaging around company diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts, and a renewed focus on employees’ health and wellness. And your company intranet is the very place that all these efforts – all this powerful, necessary information – should live.

If intranet maintenance is something you de-prioritized, here’s some good news: you can refresh your intranet without conducting an all-encompassing, time-consuming audit. In fact, I hereby give you permission to forget about spring cleaning your house, or your closet, or even your Facebook friends list.

Instead, use this season to spring clean your intranet in just four steps: 

1. Visually assess your homepage.

Pretend for a moment you don’t know your company’s intranet inside and out. If you were a brand-new employee, what would your intranet tell you about your company? Are your priorities clear and easy to find? Are the headlines compelling? Is the intranet easy to navigate, and does it look and feel like your brand?

Once you’ve assessed, you can see if there are any simple ways to refresh – whether it’s removing outdated banners or stories, or spotlighting a great new video the business created over the winter, or refreshing your top images. (You can find some tips on video ideas right here. On a tight budget? Here’s another option.)

2. Don’t Read the comments.

Intranets are one place where you definitely want to break the golden rule of the internet and actually read the comments! When’s the last time an employee commented on a news story or intranet message board? If it’s been a while, you’ll want to map out a plan to drive engagement, like a photo submission series, poll, or contest. (We particularly love this photo gallery project we created for a client, and this traditions wall we launched for Bayer after a merger.)

3. Check your metrics.

Especially if your employee base has spent the past year working remotely, it’s possible some folks haven’t logged in to your intranet much. Take a look at your intranet analytics, and see if they tell a story – positive or negative – about how employees use your intranet. With that information, you’ll be better prepared to tweak your communications strategy for the rest of the year.

You’ll want to compare year-over-year metrics, too, to determine if the most-visited pages have changed from pre-pandemic times. If they have, consider spotlighting the most popular pages with fresh homepage banners or call-outs, so they’re even easier to find for employees.

4. Conduct a flash spring survey.

We all know internal communicators should be regularly polling staff to check in on the success of your communications efforts – and there’s no time like the present to issue a brief survey during this transformational time for businesses. While there are lots of ways to host surveys, consider choosing the simplest method this spring: host a survey form on your intranet, and use your other internal communications channels to drive employees to the form. Ask them how the intranet has served them this past year, and what they’d like to see in the year ahead. (Of course, if you survey staff, keep in mind you’ll need to act on the survey results!)

Intranets should function as a tool that helps people do their jobs, stay connected, and feel like their work—and their voice—matters. If you don’t have time for a full audit, I hope you’ll consider this mini version as a way of ensuring this particular tool is helping your colleagues through the massive transitions we’re all facing.