(Chicago, IL – Conference Board, Improving Employee Benefits conference) Despite the power and value of the intranet, the ultimate communications tool remains face-to-face communications. Employees want and demand face-to-face time. The intranet however is a powerful runner-up.

At the heart of your intranet is the employee – your target audience and most important stakeholder. Organizations that have effective employee communications reap the rewards with better…

·         morale

·         collaboration

·         organization loyalty

·         faith in management

·         productivity

Effective communications requires two-way, synchronous communications – not just messages pushed on a one-way street from the top floor executive offices.

Atomic Energy of Canada engages employees on their intranet home page by using a daily (or weekly) quick poll and via an interactive question box to company executives. Executive Online allows any employee to submit a question or comment to any senior executive via a home page input box with a drop down list of all the company’s executives.

Never build or redesign an intranet without understanding best practices. Understanding what your competition does is even better. If you're building a case for a redesign, then your senior management will demand to know why (see Leading an intranet redesign).

A good source of case studies and best practices is the Web itself from sites like this. Conferences can also be good; so too are intranet consultants (but they’re a little more expensive). An even better place for leading and in-depth case studies is the Intranet Insider’s World Tour webinar series.

Previous webinars on the Insider’s look at leading intranets include IBM, Sodexho and most recently General Motors. Next webinar is HP.

HP’s intranet portal, hpNOW, was launched in 1997, serving primarily as an archive for Employee Communication's electronic newsletter and for selected articles from the company's print publication. Over time, online communications became more and more critical to communications at HP, eventually reducing the electronic newsletter to a push reminder to visit the site and serving as the replacement of the worldwide employee print publication, when it was discontinued in 2001.

Read more about the Communitelligence.com Intranet Insider’s World Tour featuring HP.

Most intranet discussion forums fail. Some succeed, but not as a rule.

In When intranet discussion forums work James Robertson writes that effective forums work when there exists a clear purpose and an existing and motivated community:

"The first critical success factor is that there must be clear purpose or reason for staff to use the discussion group.

Staff must be able to see that their posts will have a direct impact on a particular issue, or will provide some tangible benefit (for the organisation, or for other staff).

All too often, online forums are put up to 'discuss an issue', or to provide a 'forum for feedback'. Without a clear statement of what will be done with the input gained, the forum may be viewed as even less relevant than the many surveys that are sent out within most organisations.

Staff are also busy, with a responsibility to focus on their day-to-day job. This makes it hard to justify contributing to a discussion forum that does not have a clear purpose.

In practice, the greatest participation is gained when the use of the discussion forum directly benefits an individual's job or situation (the 'what's in it for me' factor)."

Perhaps the most successful intranet discussion forums project was the 2003 ValuesJam at IBM. ValuesJam was a 3-day, “global interactive brainstorm session” held on the IBM intranet discussion boards. The online discussion centered around four topics related to corporate values. The response was huge:

• 22,000 participants
• 9,337 original posts
• 1.25 million+ views of ValuesJam and related content

Senior management at IBM “believed that the only meaningful way to shape values for a global on demand enterprise like IBM — with its population of independent, 21st-century knowledge workers — was to trust that population to shape those values itself.”

A host of suggestions were made for improving IBM operations, workforce policies and relationships. As a result, the best 35 ideas — as rated by IBM employees — are being implemented.

(Employee Benefits Conference, Conference Board – New York City, NY) Baxter is a very big health sciences company with 50,000 employees in 120 locations in 110 countries. Known for medical devices, pharmaceuticals, and biotechnology, Baxter has 67 manufacturing facilities.

Baxter does not have staff consultants for employee benefits. Benefits have been outsourced since the 1990s. At the heart of their benefits strategy is MyBenefitsAtBaxter.com – the employee benefits portal. This is available on the public Internet for anyone to see (though the key areas are of course password protected).

MyBenefitsAtBaxter.com features:

• Personalized health and welfare personalization tools
• Online health and welfare enrollment (U.S.)
• New hires
• Current employees with life changes
• Annual enrollment
• Online access and search of benefits information including summary plan descriptions
• Online access to pension estimates and commencements

MyBenefits replaced the former voice recognition system (VRU) which accrued savings of between US$300,000–$350,000. The online system has replaced any print materials that existed formerly. Now employees have the option of printing from the benefits portal.

The portal itself was rolled-out over a four-phase period spanning seven months and is outsourced to EDS using their Authoria product.

Challenges to implementing the benefits portal:

• Resistance from HR and employees to move from high touch, hand holding
• Employees speak many languages (many do not speak or read English)
• Many employees have limited computer skills
• Some employees have limited access to computers

 To overcome thee challenges the portal team developed and implemented a comprehensive communications strategy. Communications was tailored by audience: HR, new hires, existing employees, and senior leadership. A Field Change Team (HR professionals working at locations who helped design the site and the communications) measured the pulse of the audiences and collected input and feedback for making changes and tailoring the benefits portal.

Some print marketing is done to promote the annual enrollment including:

• Special preview
• Q&A and supporting documents
• Reminder e-mails and v-mails
• Enrollment packet and wallet card mailed to home
• Payroll inserts (no longer done)
• Local communications toolkits
• Talking points for local HR leaders
• Articles in local newsletters
• Posters and computer screensavers

Baxter’s Pamela Friedman, senior manager, global HR services, says that one of the key lessons is that you can’t communicate enough! Particularly the ‘why’ and ‘what’s in it for me’ (employee). However, she adds, “The first time is always the hardest (moving online); each year gets more routine.”

Other key lessons offered by Friedman and her colleague Dawn Weber, corporate counsel and director, global HR services:

• Don’t underestimate the impact of local HR reps
• Be vigilant about shadow organizations

The key benefits to self-service benefits for Baxter have been:

• Supporting growth
• Employees better understand their compensation
• Information is managed more effectively

Source: Intranet Communication Planning: Improving Understanding, Awareness, and Results, Pamela Firedman & Dawn Weber, Baster International, June 01, 2006

RELATED READING:

The promise of benefit portals

eHR delivers whopping value

For more intranet news visit www.IntranetReport.com

© 2006 Toby Ward - Prescient Digital Media