Feature
For 22 years, Nielsen Norman Group has named its top 10 intranets of the year and released the results in an extensive report. Clearly the slick, AI driven intranets that make the list today are considerably different than the clunky, static and (by today's standards) unsophisticated offerings of 2021. But has the fundamental purpose and functionality of an intranet changed?
In the intervening years, organizations have put an increasing premium on employee engagement and employee experience in their efforts to retain talent. An intranet, as a key communication and collaboration tool, plays a role in creating those better work experiences.
This year’s winners of the NN/g 2023 Intranet Design Annual come from five different countries and six industries. The Annual points to several characteristics that stand out in the design and development of the winning intranets. They include:1. Team size
According to NN/g, team sizes were large this year compared to previous years. In fact, the company states teams have been steadily growing since the first Annual, a trend which picked up in recent years as organizations invested more into the employee experience.
2. Length of time to develop
Teams took between six and 45 months on average to create their winning intranet sites. The average duration was 25 months, which is similar to previous years.
3. External agencies
Seven out of the 10 winning intranet teams used consultancies for technical guidance and development guidance.
What Makes a Successful Intranet?
A successful intranet should give the workplace an excellent digital employee experience, offering personalized digital communication, collaboration and knowledge sharing, said Kurt Kragh Sørensen, owner and facilitator of the IntraTeam Network. The main thing it should do is to help employees do their job and feel informed and engaged, he said.
A well thought out information architecture is needed here, one which makes it easy for employees to find information and tools. Kragh Sørensen argues that organizations should focus on fundamentals like these. He holds up the enterprise search function as an example, saying employees are dissatisfied with it in large part because nobody is dedicated to maintaining it and the content.
"I know intranets can deliver, but many enterprises are not giving focus and resources for the above mentioned parts and therefore asking too much of them,” he said. "It’s too much about new fancy tools and AI and less about giving the employees what they need.”
Despite the emergence of new technologies, intranets need regularly updated, relevant content presented in a structure that employees, search engines and large language models can understand, he continued.
Without this attention to the enterprise content and content structure, he said it is unlikely that generative AI — or any other technology for that matter — will deliver internally.
“I have only seen internal chatbots work on very limited scopes. I’m not an expert in AI or large language models, but if you train them on garbage, they will deliver garbage,” he said. “I hope AI can help the dedicated employees looking after content to keep it updated and well-structured."
Related Article: 5 Intranet Trends Redefining Employee Experience in 2023
A Balance of Employee and Organizational Needs
A successful intranet should meet employee and organizational needs, which are likely to be aligned but may also be slightly different, ClearBox Consulting's Suzie Robinson told us. Intranets should consistently reflect organizational strategies and values, while offering people the content, tools and features they need to do their jobs well.
The best intranets help to simplify a digital workplace ecosystem while empowering people across the business to have a voice. “Ultimately,” she said, "a good intranet helps people to do their jobs better."
Robinson said the recent IOIC & Ipsos Karian and Box study suggested that internal communicators want to make better use of intranets as a channel, a trend she had already noted in the vendor market, which is developing increasingly advanced communication features. Such intranets offer communicators a way to manage multiple channels from one place, helping them re-use previously published content.
On the flip side, she said smaller businesses are looking for simplified solutions for de-centralized publishing / governance approaches as well as for employee UX. The products addressing these needs are still fully featured, but the focus is on ease of use.
Robinson agreed with Kragh Sørensen on what the emergence of new technologies implies for intranets, arguing core intranet functionality will remain the same despite the emergence of new technology. "I’d also add that new technologies can be a distraction from getting the basics right — why introduce generative AI if people can’t find what they need because the intranet is littered with old content,” she said.
People will always want to find colleagues and appropriate experts, or to locate the most up-to-date version of an expenses policy, and to see company news. How this is done may change, she said, but the needs will remain the same for some time yet.
That said, she said the best solutions are moving with technology trends, quickly introducing complementary features that address client needs, potentially in new ways. Robinson allowed that intranets are probably the safest place to try out generative AI, as it’s internally facing and unlikely to pass any sensitive internal information into the AI in the process.
“AI features have been around for a long time though, so I think this focus on AI at the moment will allow products to explore features in a new light that perhaps were abandoned because people didn’t appreciate them,” she said. "Generally, though, I’ve seen many products adapt to industry trends and meet client needs for years. I believe many will continue to do so and present organizations with simple, sensible solutions to business needs.”
The More Things Change, the More ...
The expectation that intranets provide a "one-stop shop" experience is common today, so companies look for solutions that offer integrations with business systems, said Sean McDonough, Microsoft MVP and solutions architect and consultant at Akumina. The integrations can range from learning management systems, to current stock prices to access to the company's HR system, he said. That said, finding company news, important documents and the always popular lunch menu remain popular.
Intranets have also evolved beyond their original top down messaging to facilitate peer to peer communications, he continued. Intranets are now "a place that employees can use to socialize, ask questions, centralize their links of interest and more."
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McDonough is excited by the promise of generative AI in intranets, seeing it in part as a potential solution to the information overload so many employees face. "Generative AI could bring a level of useful intelligence that would allow employees to find items of interest quicker, or better yet: make the information available on the employee's landing page."
Although the rounds of "Are (fill in tool of your choice)'s Dead?" inevitably follow the release of a new, exciting technology, McDonough isn't worried about the future of intranets.
"Intranets are a staple in the modern business world, and I see them remaining in that position for the foreseeable future," he concluded.
Related Article: Why Generative AI Could Give Intranets a New Lease on Life
Intranets and the Rise of Employee Experience Platforms
ServiceNow's NN/g award winning intranet was based on its own Employee Center product. As VP for employee experience products, Sancho Pinto leads product management for ServiceNow's employee center, which includes implementations for portals and intranets.
The adoption of hybrid working models means the old-school static intranets of the past will no longer suffice, he said. Intranets need to be dynamic, connected, consumer-grade and responsive to employee needs — all with the end goal of boosting employee productivity.
The best employee experience platforms, including many that were recognized by the Nielsen Norman Group, enable communication and engagement and serve as a central place for employees to get work done, he continued.
"HR teams, department leaders, and organizations more broadly have spent years investing in point solutions to solve employee needs. While they've invested in these point solutions with the best intentions, it has led to disparate data and frustrating experiences for employees as they toggle from system-to-system to complete daily tasks,” Pinto said.
Employee experience platforms replace traditional intranets, serving essentially as a digital HQ. EX platforms connect various systems and serve as a central hub for company resources, news and communications, and as a space for employees to complete tasks, get help and ask questions, he said.
He adds that, augmented by AI, the best intranets are also becoming more intelligent, responsive and proactive. In this respect, he cites the example of content featured on the intranet homepage is personalized to an employee's role or location, and it's regularly updated with the latest, most relevant information. "AI-powered search and virtual agents surface the right information and resources so employees can find what they need quickly, while also being guided to help simplify any complex process."
Even still, Pinto believes the best intranets share the same characteristics they've always had, but employee expectations continue to rise. New and emerging technologies can help companies meet rising employee expectations in better, more efficient ways.