8 CEOs Share Their Thoughts About the Benefits of Intranet

Q: What advantages do you see in using a corporate intranet?

That was one question CEOs and other C-suite leaders had time to answer while sharing their experiences with intranets. Each of them highlighted a particular perk an intranet can bring into any company, especially when it comes to remote and hybrid work environments requiring more focus on internal communications.

But before we name the most essential benefits of intranet systems, here’s some background.

What Is a Corporate Intranet, and When Did It Appear?

A company’s intranet is a private, internal network for employee interactions in the workplace.

It is still a nascent concept among companies, although it has been around for almost three decades. The first intranet buds sprouted in the mid-1990s. These systems were rather primitive and offered simple information exchange. However, thanks to technological advancements like cloud computing and artificial intelligence (AI), intranets have undergone a staggering evolution.

Now, the modern intranets of 2024 are AI-powered and nearly omnipotent, with various features and integrations.

They may include literally anything:

• News sharing board
• File and knowledge management (documents, spreadsheets, forms, slideshows, policies, etc.)
• Communication
• Project management
• Onboarding and training
• Recognition, etc.

For example:

Happeo, a next-gen intranet, has an advanced AI search. It closes knowledge gaps and optimizes productivity with quick and personalized answers.

But let’s look at what executive leaders specifically spotlight in company intranet systems.

CEO Talk on the Top Advantages of Corporate Intranets

Keeping all resources and materials in one place

Where is that employment contract file? Where is that survey? Where is that project presentation?

If such “where-is” questions become habitual during workdays, you may need a one-stop shop for your corporate materials and resources.

And that’s perhaps a primary benefit of intranets because they guarantee the convenience of finding everything under one roof. Actually, 85% of employees cite faster access to information as the most critical intranet advantage.

Nora Sudduth, Founder & Owner at Nora Sudduth Coaching, mentions, “I particularly like how intranets centralize resources. Everything—from company policies to coaching materials to project documents—is centralized. It’s like you have a filing cabinet with all sorted out and stored files but in a digital format. It saves tons of time on turning your digital nooks upside down to find that single file you’re looking for.”

Need to find and share an employee handbook and work-related tools with your new hires during onboarding?

They are all here—on your company’s intranet platform!

For example:

Dirox created a digital toolbox in Happeo for new staffers to get familiar with the tools they will use daily in the remote work environment.

By the way, if your company uses Google Workspace, you may also store and manage all business-critical documents in Happeo without having to leapfrog between Docs, Forms, Slides, etc.

Streamlining communication and avoiding email clutter

There’s no getting around or denying it.

Before corporate intranets, employee interactions were dispersed across misaligned channels, often leading to communication breakdowns:

• Chat (WhatsApp or Slack)
• File sharing platform (SharePoint or Dropbox)
• Video conferencing tool (Zoom or Microsoft Teams)
• Task management software (Monday.com or Trello)
• And, of course, an old-and-faithful-friend email

For Chris Aubeeluck, Head of Sales and Marketing at Osbornes Law, an intranet has become an “epicenter of workplace communication” and an optimal solution to avoid chaos with email threads and, as a result, a messy inbox. He says, “No phrase makes me cringe more than ‘email for internal comms.’ Corporate email communications are cumbersome and ineffective. That’s why we use an internal intranet to streamline communication in the workplace. Whether our managing partners announce departmental news, promotions, or charitable challenges or exchange pictures from social events, it’s all done via an intranet.”

Indeed, one of the most traditional intranet advantages is optimizing internal communication.

For example:

Within Happeo, you can type posts, create polls, and discuss anything you wish with your teammates.

Building a more informal and engaging environment

In fact, 75% of executives agree that intranets are vital for employee engagement.

Adam Tishman, Co-Founder at Helix Sleep, also belongs to the cohort of business leaders who outline that an engaging and friendly work environment (especially for remote or hybrid teams) is one of the key benefits of a corporate intranet. He says, “I regard company intranets as not only places for formal, strictly job-related conversations. These are wonderful digital spots where employees can gather and socialize more effectively in a non-forced atmosphere. They may enter, for instance, a virtual water-cooler chat room to hang out together and relax during short breaks at work.”

Indeed, by creating informal channels within a company intranet, you can better engage employees in a more casual atmosphere.

For example:

The Rayonier team created several non-business channels in Happeo’s intranet system. One channel is for workers who enjoy cooking, another is for bookworms, and one more is for sharing photos of their furry friends (“Pets of Rayonier”).

Remarkably, you are free to name your channel as you wish. Remember to reckon with your employees’ tastes and preferences. Suppose your workers are obsessed with the Harry Potter saga theme. You may create a “Chamber of Secrets” channel to spill fun personal stories and break the ice within the team. Why not?

Strengthening the feeling of community

Guess: What is one of the most anticipated things employees want in internal comms?

It’s a community vibe with a strong sense of belonging.

“For me,” says Brooke Webber, Head of Marketing at Ninja Patches, “using a corporate intranet opens up a huge perspective for creating a strong workplace culture or even societal subculture, if you will, in a private network. It’s a kind of fellowship when employees feel close-knit and experience group synergy because it’s a uniquely designed place only for them.”

Moreover, you can strengthen your internal community feel by referring to your employees in your company’s intranet as the following pattern suggests:

• Ninja Patches → Ninjas
• Adobe → Adobians
• Netflix → Netflixers
• Zappos → Zapponians
• Happeo → Happsters
• Airbnb → “Airfam” (Airbnb family) members
• Pinterest → Pinployees

For example:

Happeo became the second home with a family-like atmosphere for Uberflippers (Uberflip’s employees).

“And that’s what our people use it as – a visibility and leadership tool. They’re proud of what they’re doing, and now they can show it. That’s great for their employee retention, but it also aligns teams. Even in these early stages, the impact has been positive and significant.

Going further, I see this as being a home for Uberflippers, and particularly for new hires. Here they can find a quick way to strengthen their knowledge of the company.”

Enhancing collaboration across departments

Now, let us guess. Most probably, if you don’t use a corporate intranet, your employees may frequently miscommunicate.

Here’s how it may go:

Your sales and marketing teams fail to exchange the necessary information. The marketers send email updates about new promos, but some of the sales reps don’t receive those (e.g., emails with attachments land in their spam folders) and never mention relevant discounts to customers. A lack of a unified system to share information results in ultra-low collaboration.

“In a work environment, data flows must take the quickest route with minimal (ideally zero) barriers to ensure cross-departmental understanding and smooth collaboration,” claims Sergey Taver, Marketing Manager at Precision Watches. “A principal cause of the bulk of workplace issues is poor communication between departments,” he says. “The intranet builds a high-speed ‘hyperloop’ so that corporate information travels like a bullet train within and drives cross-functional teamwork.”

Gamifying employee experiences

Did you hear anything about gamified intranets?

If not yet, this is your golden minute to learn about gamification—one of the greatest advantages of a corporate intranet. It presupposes adding game mechanics and elements—points, leaderboards, progress bars, quests/challenges, badges, and awards—to your intranet platform.

“Coined by a game designer,” explains Jesse Hanson, Content Manager at Online Solitaire & World of Card Games, “the term gamification caught on as a virally used concept in today’s intranets. The gamified intranet advantage lies in employee engagement and motivation. Within private corporate networks, employees may earn points, collect badges, go on missions, track their progress bars, and receive rewards for particular achievements. Anything of that will urge them to work even harder and achieve peak performance.”

For example:

IBM created a unique digital badge system for employees with virtual badges like these: IBM Profession Champion, Master Inventor, Enterprise Design Thinking Advocate, etc.

Source

Likewise, you can implement a specific digital badge program in your corporate intranet. Let’s take the education field as an example, and digital badges for educators might be as follows: “EdTech Explorer,” “School Ambassador,” or “Assessment Guru.”

Recognizing milestones and achievements

If you don’t recognize your employees, you totally undermine their employee experience in the workplace.

This was a cautionary note from Grant Aldrich, Founder of Online Degree, who points out recognition as “one of the greatest advantages of intranets worth counting in when you decide on the best intranet platform for your team. The intranet lets you spotlight your workers’ professional (at work) and personal (in life overall) achievements and celebrate those together with your team.”

Job-related milestones:

• Client wins
• Career growth and promotions
• Individual or team KPIs
• Professional certifications
• X-year work anniversaries

Life milestones:

• Birthdays
• Graduations
• Weddings
• New parenthoods
• Travel/adventure milestones (climbing a mountain or traveling around the world)

For example:

When the right time comes, wish your team members a happy work anniversary and thank them for their hard work and X years of service at your company.

Besides, you might want to congratulate your workers on a successful campaign or project completion. Pro tip: create a “Kudos Channel” for that in Happeo.

Lowering IT expenses

And finally, the last but not least significant benefit of intranets falls into place.

According to Jarret Austin, Owner of Bankruptcy Canada, “The major reason why many organizations opt for corporate intranets is cost-efficiency in terms of their tech budgets. They sometimes even abandon other tools in favor of a company intranet.

Just compare the average annual expenses on multiple software licenses, support, maintenance, data storage, etc., with an intranet subscription price. You may overpay three or even four times when using several tools instead of a single internal platform.”

It doesn’t necessarily mean you should ditch Slack, Asana, or other much-loved tools altogether at work. You can limit your communication and collaboration toolset to two or three and sync them with your company’s intranet to minimize IT overheads.

Mind: The intranet prices differ from platform to platform depending on the number of users (employees), branded elements, add-ons, and other factors.

Get All the Benefits of a Modern Intranet with Happeo

Simplify communication, improve cross-departmental collaboration, and reap the other benefits of intranet systems—all while moving to Happeo, an intuitive and homey network your employees will love.

Get a personalized demo, and see the difference Happeo can make for your company!