Employee intranet software quickly became the go-to remote team software for many organisations during the height of Covid-19. It enabled teams to carry on working, collaborating, and communicating during a period of mass change and unpredictability, and will no doubt continue to be essential as we move into a remote and hybrid way of working.
Beyond keeping teams connected, moving projects forward, and centralising knowledge, business intranet software also improves something that’s altogether less tangible, but just as important: company culture.
A case in point – UK training provider Apprenticeship Connect have improved company culture by using their cloud based intranet to reinforce the values their business cares about, including awareness of equality, diversity, and inclusion.
They did so by taking full advantage of their online intranet platform’s customisation features, which allowed them to build personalised homepages in support of that month’s equality and diversity theme. Take a look at what they created to celebrate LGBT+ History and Black History Month:
(Source: claromentis.com)
As a result of the monthly redesign, the teams at Apprenticeship Connect saw employee engagement and discussion about these vital topics grow.
Even more impressive is the fact that Apprenticeship Connect achieved all of this whilst in the midst of the UK’s first lockdown. So if you were wondering: “This is all well and good, but how can I improve my company’s culture remotely?”, then you needn’t worry. Remote working is not a barrier to creating a great company culture.
In fact, there are loads of ways in which an online intranet platform will help improve your company culture, remote or not. Here’s our pick of the best intranet software features for boosting your organisation’s culture:
The top employee intranet software features to improve company culture
Knowledge management software
The first step to improving culture? Defining your company’s values. It’s no use trying to build a good company culture if your teams don’t know what the business stands for.
This makes knowledge management features – which come as standard with employee intranet software platforms – essential for shaping and enhancing the employee experience.
Knowledge management software provides teams with the tools to create and store content-rich articles about any company-related topic. For instance, you can create an engaging article that immortalises your company values in writing, allowing everyone in the organisation to view it.
Similarly, HR teams can create a collection of onboarding materials that introduce new employees into the organisation, including a “welcome video” from the CEO, an induction checklist, instructions on completing their user profile, and a link to that all-important company values article. Plus, built-in search features make it easy for newbies to find the information they need.
Corporate social media
Corporate social media is perhaps the behemoth of all company culture-enhancing features. That’s because, quite simply, it’s the digital representation of the office water cooler, giving teams a space to collaborate online within their employee intranet software.
Staff can create their own corporate social network channels – either by department, topic, or project – within which to share ideas, ask questions, or just shoot the breeze. These channels play an important part in fostering a collaborative and open culture, as well as encouraging cross-team communication, boosting morale, and increasing employee engagement. Staff can even search through posts and comments, making it a handy resource for finding useful nuggets of information. So there’s no doubt that corporate social media is a must-have feature.
Staff kudos apps
An underrated but essential element to improving workforce culture is to encourage teams to share their appreciation of one another. A simple “thank you” between coworkers is a powerful motivator, so your employee intranet software should come with a dedicated app that allows teams to share their kudos with a personal note of appreciation.
Go one step further and tie individual messages of thanks to your company’s core values and strategies. This will help business leaders keep track of areas of the organisation that are performing well, and which may need improvement.
Intranet design tools
Long gone are the days when an intranet was little more than a dull, boilerplate site with added document management capabilities. Today’s corporate intranet software providers – including Claromentis – provide built-in customisation features that give your teams the artistic licence to create a system that looks and feels like your own.
Indeed, what better way to bolster your company’s culture than to design an intranet platform that reflects your business brand and mission? Modern intranet design tools allow teams to change colour schemes, layouts, styling, fonts, and more to create a system that embodies what your business is all about.
Better still, you don’t need to be an expert in CSS, HTML, or UX (user experience) to design the intranet you want. Everything is configured using clicks, not code, making it easy for non-techies to use.
