Worldwide Intranet ChallengeWhat makes an intranet valuable?

Andrew Wright World Intranet Challenge (WIC)

What is the Worldwide Intranet Challenge?

Who has done it?• More than 50,000 people• From 180 companies• In 23 countries• Including:

• Nestlé• Emirates Airline• British Gas• Deloitte• Coca Cola

Why participate?• Measure employee

satisfaction• Measure before & after• Basis of a business case• Determine priorities• Learn tips & tricks

• To deliver a better intranet

What is the WIC?• It’s a web based survey • Available in 13 languages• It’s FREE

6 3-- X -- = ?4 2

To provide another channel for people in the workplace, particularly

those who are often undervalued and overlooked, to show their abilities.

1. I prefer one-on-one conversations to group discussions

2. I often prefer to express myself in writing

3. I dislike small talk, but I enjoy talking in depth about topics that matter to me

4. People tell me that I'm a good listener

5. I enjoy work that allows me to "dive in" with few interruptions

6. I like to celebrate birthdays on a small scale, with only one or two close friends or family members

7. I do my best work on my own

8. I often let calls go through to voice mail

Quiz: are you an introvert?(maybe an intranet would help)

Publish content Discuss work topics Collaborate online Provide feedback0.0%

10.0%

20.0%

30.0%

40.0%

50.0%

60.0%

70.0%

80.0%

90.0%

100.0%

55.0% 56.9% 56.7%50.1%

28.5% 29.0%23.9% 39.3%

8.6% 8.2%8.4%

6.6%

How often do you use the intranet to:

Never Infrequently 2-3 times a month 2-3 times a week More than once a day

Approximately 90% of staff do not regularly

contribute to the intranet.

More than 50% never do

“In most online communities, 90% of users are lurkers who never contribute, 9% of users contribute a little, and 1% of users account for almost all the action.”October 9th 2006http://www.nngroup.com/articles/participation-inequality/

Jakob Nielsen Web Usability Guru

9% Intermitte

nt Contribut

ors

90%Lurkers

1% Heavy Contributors

Why is content contribution important?• Supports innovation, operations & employee

engagement

• Greater contribution leads to a more valuable intranet

• Easier to find information

Research• 2012: McKinsey Report:

Social technologies could raise productivity by 20-25%• 2012: Deloitte Report: Social Software for Business

Performance“Companies that embrace this opportunity will have a distinct advantage over their competitors; skeptics will likely finish last”

3 business imperatives supported by an intranet

Employee Engagement

OperationsContinuous Improvement

“While 72% of companies use social technologies in some way, very few are

anywhere near to achieving the full potential benefit”

McKinsey, November 2012

So what’s stopping intranets from reaching their potential?• Lack of executive support• The business case is not clear• It’s not a productive use of time• Security concerns/IT barriers• HR not developing right incentives• Potential shift in power & status

quo

In your opinion, which of the following is the most important in contributing to a valuable intranet?• Look and feel• Intranet governance• Staff able to contribute and interact• Performance and availability• Help completing work tasks• Ease of finding information• Quality of content

0.0%

25.0%

50.0%

75.0%

100.0%

66.2%

52.2% 51.9%

31.6%24.1% 20.4% 20.3%

26.4%

35.8% 37.3%

42.5%

43.2%45.1%

39.9%

7.3% 12.0% 10.9%

25.9%32.7% 34.5%

39.8%

In your opinion, how important are the following in contributing to a valuable intranet?

Critical Very Important Important

1. Employees don’t see contributing content as important

Time on Intranet & Value of Intranet

Time on Intranet & Intranet Interactivity

The greater level of interactivity the

greater value of the intranet

Time on Intranet & Finding Information

Finding information has virtually no correlation with how much time people spend on the

intranet

Total

- Inter

activit

y

Documents

Intranet

impro

vemen

tNew

s

Staff deta

ils

Total

- Conten

t

Business

applica

tions

Values

& cultu

re

Look & fe

el

Training

Home pag

e

Products

& servi

ces

New sta

rters

Intranet

training

Easy t

o read

Consisten

cy

Navigati

on

Labelle

d

Hierarc

hy

Customers

Up-to-date

conten

t

Total

- Pefo

rman

ce

Calendars

Off-site

access

Speed

0.000

0.050

0.100

0.150

0.200

0.250

0.300

0.350

0.400

0.450

0.500 Correlation of questions to intranet valueCo

rrel

ation

val

ue

FindingInformation

Contribute & interact

…but that the content doesn’t exist in the

first place

What if the problem is NOT that people can’t find what they want…

1. Become ‘content evangelists’ 2. Easy to use platform, able to make edits on the run3. Streamlined content approval process4. Organise content community events5. Gamification, incentives, measure contributions

5 tips to increase participation

1. Employees don’t see contributing content as important

2. Employees don’t know what content to contribute (no structure , training or governance)

Structu

red co

ntent/l

ists

How to/p

rocedures

Form

s/tools/

templat

es

Documents

that can

be re-u

sed

News/b

logs

Collaborati

on/discussi

on forums

Referen

ce mate

rial

Reports

/perf

orman

ce mea

sures/KPIs

Archive

s/reco

rds0.0%

20.0%

40.0%

60.0%

80.0%

100.0%

10.0% 5.0% 5.9%

18.6% 20.8% 16.3%

28.1%19.5%

36.2%

24.9% 29.1% 30.5%

33.5% 34.8% 39.4%

29.4%43.4%

21.3%63.8% 63.6% 62.3%

42.1% 37.6% 37.1%26.7% 25.8%

11.3%

1 - Not useful 2 3 4 5 - Useful

Which intranet content types are most useful?

‘Signal’ content more valuable than

‘noise’ content

Total

- Inter

activit

y

Documents

Intranet

impro

vemen

tNew

s

Staff deta

ils

Total

- Conten

t

Business

applica

tions

Values

& cultu

re

Look & fe

el

Training

Home pag

e

Products

& servi

ces

New sta

rters

Intranet

training

Easy t

o read

Consisten

cy

Navigati

on

Labelle

d

Hierarc

hy

Customers

Up-to-date

conten

t

Total

- Pefo

rman

ce

Calendars

Off-site

access

Speed

0.000

0.050

0.100

0.150

0.200

0.250

0.300

0.350

0.400

0.450

0.500Correlation of WIC questions to intranet value

Corr

elati

on v

alue

NoiseSignal

1. Employees don’t see contributing content as important

2. Employees don’t know what to contribute (no structure , training or governance)

3. It’s not a priority to encourage employees to contribute (lack of change management)

Personal links

3 key current themes

Employeespotlightchanges each day

Newsgatorcommunities

• Followed Dr. John Kotter’s 8 step process for leading change

• Conducted town hall meetings to spread the word

• A “Five for Five” plan: employees spend five minutes talking about the Portal with a portal committee member in exchange for a $5 gift certificate

• One-page Quick Start Guides with examples of usage and success that are shared every two weeks

Approach to change management

• A competition between business units to update profiles

• Weekly brown bag sessions, offered virtually and locally to share best practices

• A portal “minute” before every company meeting including quick “did you know” statements and best practices about the portal

• A “30 for 30”: an online meeting that offers 30 portal tips in 30 minutes

Worldwide Intranet Challenge: Rated highly for:• Publish content• Instructions for completing work tasks

Key design principles: • Make it easy for all staff to publish FAQs• Integrate publishing into daily work

Case Study: Government Organisation

Look-up columns means they are linked – ‘breaks down silos’- contextGeneratedautomatically – ‘breaksdown silos’- context

Feedback

Wiki content

What’s new

Access to all work instructions

Showslatest changesby role – continuousimprovementShows populartasks

Shows scheduledtasks

Handy linksto supportingcontent – - context

Ad hocrequested tasks

Aggregates content types owned by the Business Unit on a

single page

How intranets provide the potential for all staff to contribute How this potential is not being realised but it’s worth the

effort Many hurdles to overcome What to do about it:

#1 priority – get staff to contribute content – not just lurk Be specific, ask staff to contribute “How to” type content Implement an ongoing change management program

To participate in the WIC: worldwideintranetchallenge.com

Recap

To reap the full benefit of social technologies, organizations must transform their structures, processes, and cultures: they will need to become more open and non-hierarchical and to create a culture of trust.

Creating these conditions will be far more challenging than implementing the technologies themselves.

- McKinsey Global Institute – July 2012