The Human Resources Department has a lot at stake in the success of an intranet. By making information and forms accessible through the intranet, HR frees up a lot of its time enabling them to focus on more value-added tasks. Useful HR content also increases employee satisfaction.
HR typically already provides a lot of the content in intranets. Some HR departments own the intranet. The usual HR intranet content are:
- Company Policies
- HR forms, such as leave applications and claim forms
- Staff Appointments
- Calendar of holidays and training events
- Employee birthdays and anniversaries
- Job vacancies
All this is good and necessary. But I think HR can do so much more in an intranet than publish all this content that we already expect them. They can do so much to make the intranet more relevant, engaging, and a hundredfold more useful.
10 Not-so-Obvious Intranet Content We Want from HR
1. The meaning behind policies
Aside from telling employees about new policies, it would help for them to know exactly what the changes mean. What are the implications of new policies in the way employees work, claim benefits, or advance in their careers?
2. Interactive training/learning
It’s nice not to have to leave the intranet to access company training. But enough of boring manuals and Powerpoints! Instead, how about an annotated slideshow followed by a quiz?
3. FAQs
Help employees find the answers themselves by compiling the questions they ask most frequently in a searchable portal, such as a Question and Answer manager.
4. Video tutorials of common HR transactions
Not all forms are easy to fill out; some of them can be confusing, even to a smart employee. Video tutorials will help employees navigate through HR transactions and reduce the number of “help” calls to HR.
5. Common employee mistakes and how to avoid them
Just as employees have FAQs, they also have FMMs — Frequently Made Mistakes. Nip them in the bud by alerting employees to, for example, mistakes they typically make when making benefit claims, or common errors made that delay travel requests.
6. Career advancement tools
Job vacancies are fine, but employees also need to know how to actually get these jobs. How about telling us what skills and expertise head hunters are now looking for in specific industries?
7. Superstar employees
Forget choosing an Employee of the Month based on sales performance or some other achievement. Instead, shine the spotlight on each employee. Give every employee one day of fame on the intranet by featuring them on the home page. Let other employees know what a person’s expertise is, of course, but also non-work-related stuff that makes them noteworthy. It would be interesting to know, for example, that an employee knows sign language or was a yoga instructor in a former life.
8. Staff opinion
Give employees a chance to have their say in polls, discussion forums, and internal blogs.
9. Relevant laws
Companies aren’t only governed by company policies, but also by government laws covering labor, privacy, sexual harassment, etc. To an employee who needs to refer to these laws, it’s a big help to find them right in the intranet and not have to Google them. But do make sure they’re updated.
10. Wellness
It’s great for HR to think of employees’ well-being beyond the office. Little reminders, cartoons, articles, videos and other resources that help employees with health, fitness, diet, and stress management would be highly appreciated.