- Brahim Jaouane
- March 22, 2018
3 strategies for a successful intranet adoption
In my previous post, we talked about common myths and issues surrounding user adoption of digital transformation initiatives, in particular such as intranets, digital workplaces and collaboration platforms.
Content
Let us now, as promised, examine three different strategies for a successful intranet adoption.
1. User focus strategy
Adopting your user point of view is a great way to approach adoption, especially if you anticipate that to be a challenge. Most users are naturally curious about the new tools at first, at least if they know about the launch (you ensure that through a launch communications campaign). But they are in a “What do I have to do? “ state of mind rather than in “What can I do?” state of mind when they face the tool – they are often blocked by a fear of making a mistake or being judged publicly.
So how can you switch that state of mind?
By answering the “What’s in it for me?” question
Whatever your initiative, it surely has some benefits for the end user – it is supposed to make their life easier and their work more efficient after all. You need to find a way to demonstrate that. The only way to ensure lasting adoption is to ground your tool into your business processes.
Other than the business benefits, you can use other more personal benefits. The desire for recognition for example. The desire to share one’s interests or issues. The desire to break one’s isolation (for remote workers for example). Or the desire to make your ideas heard: in large companies the way to advertise the idea all the way to the top appears close to impossible. Social collaboration tools and working out loud culture can help with that.
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Use the imitation reflexe
Humans are social creatures, naturally fighting for social acceptance through imitation. In the enterprise context, a user will adopt his manager’s attitude towards a new tool or practice. He can also imitate a peer that he trusts or a peer that receives a visible benefit from his participation. Of course, you do need management’s help to work on this point.
Use information consumption
By now, we are used to constant overflow of information in the outside world and are open and eager for information inside the company, which is more scarce and difficult to find. Including relevant information in an easy to find manner in your Intranet would be a great incentive for users to adopt it. Ideally, your company communication would happen there, but also all other internal communication as well as information on collaborative initiatives and company knowledge.
Use intimate setting to gradually bring the user in
Your users might be uneasy at the idea of working out loud for the whole company to hear and see. They might feel their contribution does not matter much behind all those loud voices already there. But that can change in a case of a project, a small work group, a close community: a manager or a peer can mention the user for example, directly asking his opinion and valuing it with a like or a comment.
Work on your digital user experience
This part is about your tool. We put it last voluntarily. Indeed, a lot of digital transformation champions believe that the key to success lies mostly in their IT project/product/tool. And that is simply not true (see myth N°1).
That being said, it is still very important to adapt your tool to your users usage scenarios and business processes. Once you do that work, it will be easier for your users to work, using your tool. And if they find additional time gains or other benefits while working – you would have won the lasting adoption prize. The overall look, feel and ease of use also help.
Needless to say that your users are what ultimately counts for your adoption. Therefore, the user focus strategy is probably the most rewarding and efficient. However it is also the most difficult and time consuming to put in place.
It needs to be tailored to users subgroups, as business processes, user motivations or user generations can be very different. It also requires strong management support that needs to be worked on and ensured for each subgroup.
2. Global community management strategy
The community management strategy tries to obtain the same user behaviours as the user focus strategy and uses the same user motivators. But it acts at a community level rather than individual level.
Community management - support and animation
It starts with appointing a community manager. The latter does not need to be a communications/marketing person, but often is. The community manager will animate your community – by posting interesting content, sharing information, involving people in conversations, moderating behaviours, trying out games and contests, launching polls and more.
You also need to support your community – that is provide a help desk to deal with usage issues and complaints.
Identifying and empowering champions
One active user member (community manager) is not enough to make users imitate the desired behaviours. You need champions that can set an example. You need to try and find one in every significant subset of your workforce – you can use management input or volunteering for that. They can be managers or should be “peers worth imitating”. This condition is important – do not choose the 18 years old intern in a 40 year old average team, no matter how fast he adopts the technology.
Once you have your champions, you empower them – you show them the value of your tools, you train them at using them, you explain the benefits….You win them over to help your cause.
Content is king
Information is a powerful incentive to use a tool on a regular basis. Make sure your Intranet is a hub for all relevant and important information within the company. Corporate communications, company knowledge, user contributed content….
Community management digital tools
Some intranets embed community management tools such gamification, suggestions of relevant content/people/spaces, analytics, targeted communication.
Advertise your successes - big or small
Continually communicate on your successes in order to show examples and incite your users to imitate them.
3. Private communities focus strategy
Despite the name similarity, private communities focus strategy is not the community management strategy adapted to a smaller size. But it also tries to obtain desired user behaviours using some of the user motivators described in the first strategy.
Limit your users to relevant subcommunities and work groups
As mentioned earlier, most users feel uncomfortable at the idea of working out loud at the company scale. But this idea becomes less scary if the size is scaled down. For example, if we tell a user that his team (that sits in the same room) suddenly moves to another city for a year and they need to work using digital tools, he will probably have no issue with the digital change. At least he will try his best to succeed.
In a nutshell, the strategy consist of limiting users to certain contexts and behaviours, instead of opening up a company wide free community. For example, all work groups would be created by an administrator, with people assigned into relevant and familiar work groups and projects. Another example – participating in a group would require at least one members knowing and inviting the person in. The idea is to put users in a comfortable, confidential environment where there is no risk of being judged or of being overheard by a “stranger”.
Animate your closed communities
As in the case of a larger community, you need to manage closed subcommunities – moderate access, moderate discussions, etc. But this is usually done directly by the manager as communities are more personal and work oriented.
Limit the social noise
Another reason behind the private communities strategy lies with the managers desire to limit social noise as much as possible. As communities are limited by work interests, a user is not spammed with information unrelated to his work – from 10 groups he joined originally by curiosity without thinking about possible noise, from corporate communications, etc.
In case of success, this strategy would lead to adoption at each sub-community or project level. The success would be measured not so much by the general activity as by the work happening and company knowledge contribution through and with the help of your collaboration platform.
4. Which intranet adoption strategy should you choose?
It depends on your context: that is on your particular challenges and also on your own sensibility and preference.
Depending on your challenges
For example, if you anticipate strong user resistance, you will not succeed on global community management alone. On the contrary, if you main challenge is company culture, this is communications work. If managers are reluctant, private communities might be the only way to go.
Depending on your preference
Internal communication often drive digital transformation projects around Intranets and collaboration culture. In that case, the primary goal is often communication but in a more modern way. And quite naturally, community management strategy is a natural fit in the sense that it relies a lot on communication and content.
Human resources, on the other hand, are more naturally equipped to focus on the employee experience in the global setting and, hence, user focus strategy.
The IT department, always involved in the digital transformation projects in one way or another, would naturally focus more on the digital user experience.
Private communities strategy might appeal more the HR and the IT departments than the IC department.
But all of the above are approximations that can be very different from one company to another.
Most people adopt a mixture of all three strategies, composing their own.
Comments and ideas are more than welcome!
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FAQ
You will find here Frequently Asked Questions about intranet adoption with all the answers in one place.
What is an intranet?
intranet is a term used with abundance whenever the subject of internal communication and collaboration is brought up which makes defining it a bit challenging. In its simplest form, an intranet is an internal website for your organization. It is used mainly for top-down communication where employees can access corporate news, policies and announcements.
What are the different types of intranet solutions?
To gather a thorough understanding of intranets and their different types, let’s walk through its history from the early days up to now:
- Intranet Portals
- Enterprise Social Netwrok (ESN)
- Intranet 2.0
Which intranet adoption strategy should you choose?
It depends on your context: that is on your particular challenges and also on your own sensibility and preference.
- Depending on your challenges
- Depending on your preference
➝ Discover which intranet adoption strategy should you choose
What is the difference between intranets and extranets?
The main difference between intranets and extranets lays in the target audience. Intranets typically target users from a specific organization whereas extranets is the hub that can group users from multiple external organizations ranging from partners and suppliers all the way to clients
➝ Discover the real difference between intranet and extranet
What are the benefits of intranet solutions?
Different types of Intranet solutions from the early days up to the intranet 2.0 (commonly referred to as digital workplace solutions) bring a host of benefits to businesses of all sizes and industries. Below is a list of benefits often associated with intranets:
- Streamline internal communications
- Connect employees and eliminate silos
- Foster collaboration
- Improve knowledge sharing
- Recognize and reward employees
What are the different strategies for a successful intranet adoption?
Here are three different strategies for a successful intranet adoption:
- User focus strategy
- Global community management strategy
- Private communities focus strategy
What are the benefits of internal communities?
Here is a list of business benefits of internal communities to maximize your talent development:
- Natural support system
- Information sharing
- Talent development
- Innovation
- Employee satisfaction
How to successfully implement your intranet CMS?
Here are the most common tips to successfully implement your CMS intranet:
- Study users’ needs and audit existing solutions
- Define the project’s overall goals and objectives
- Set roles and responsibilities
- Perform a content audit and create a content plan
- Structure and classify information
- Create the CMS intranet brand and identity
- Define and measure KPIs
Julian dubois
Je suis expert solution chez eXo Platform.
Mon rôle est d’accompagner les clients dans le déploiement de leur projet de plateforme et l’accompagnement au changement lié à ce projet. J’ai piloté et administré une Digital Workplace pendant 3 ans avant de rejoindre eXo Platform.
Améliorer l’environnement et les conditions de travail m’a toujours passioné, je peux maintenant accompagner nos clients dans cette démarche.
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Personalization according to business or industry needs is the key factor in selecting your Intranet strategy. In this blog post, there are only 3 strategies which are explained. Can you please help me with other required Intranet strategies like business operations and management?
Good post about intranet adoption strategies. These strategies should be the must present ones in the intranet of an organization. I would like to mention here about Impiger tech which provides the best Intranet adoption solutions for companies.
Superb post however , I was wanting to know if you could write a litte
more on this topic? I’d be very grateful if you could elaborate a little bit further.
Kudos!