A well-designed intranet is the heartbeat of effective internal communications. It keeps your employees informed and engaged and makes their workday easier. Research shows that a successfully implemented intranet can improve employee engagement by up to 92% and productivity by 25%.

But here’s the (ugly) truth: Most company intranet platforms become bummers. Yep, while starting with the best intentions, if not taken care of properly, an intranet can quickly turn into information maze with a trillion PDFs, tons of outdated content, and random announcements that no one cares to read. Eventually, employees stop using it, and it slowly becomes like the Bermuda Triangle, where everything that enters it gets lost. Including employees that are looking for answers.. real-time.

Releatable? If yes, here’s the good part: it doesn’t have to be this way. But what’s the trick? In this blog, we’ll discuss some proven intranet best practices to enhance collaboration and engagement outcomes. Read along to learn what it takes to ensure your intranet is functional, easy to use, and enjoyable for everyone.

Here are the four do’s of building an intranet your people (actually) want to use

Do #1: Define a clear intranet strategy with measurable goals

If your social intranet has no clear purpose, take our word that it will fail. So, your first step must be pondering over questions like why it exists, what problems it solves (or you want it to solve), and how you will measure success. If you want a tangible ROI, you must be clear about such fundamental answers before launching or revamping your existing intranet. 

When you dive into the goal-setting exercise, ensure your definition aligns neatly with your company’s big-picture goals. If your intranet aims to improve communication, build in features like company news updates, employee shout-outs, and discussion threads. Conversely, if the goal is to simplify and align processes, ensure you do what’s needed so critical resources are easy to find and access. And whatever you do, ensure you’ve set measurable goals like increasing adoption rates, reducing email overload, or cutting down on time spent searching for information. Without measurement, your goals will just be dreams. You won’t be able to improve to your full potential and will struggle to prove the intranet's worth to leadership.

Do#2: Ensure mobile accessibility

In this day and age, you’ve got to ensure your intranet is mobile-friendly. The world is shifting to hybrid work, and people are working from everywhere: coffee shops, airports, cabs, and even their couches. This means accessibility is key, and your intranet needs to be as helpful on mobile as it is on desktop. In fact, mobile-friendliness is even more critical if you have frontline employees who are often on their feet and cannot log in to a desktop during their shift. Think about it: If these employees can’t check updates, access files, or communicate on the go, won’t they be inclined to stop using your intranet?  

To ensure it’s not a forgotten dead corner of the internet, ensure your intranet has a clean, responsive design that works on all devices. We mean stuff like no tiny fonts, no clunky navigation, and no having to pinch and zoom just to read an announcement. 

Do#3: Implement an intuitive navigation and information architecture

People should be able to find what they need fast on the intranet. This means the next to-do to prioritize is to ditch the clutter and ensure your intranet navigation is intuitive.  Your vision should ensure that it takes the fewest clicks possible to get to something and that even a new hire can figure it out on their first day.

To get there, some things to do include keeping your menus simple, organizing content logically, and ensuring the search function works. See that no endless drop-down menus make people feel like they’re hacking into a government database just to find an HR policy. Ask your employees what they think about navigation or ease of finding information with polls and surveys. Test what you’ve got, and keep iterating until you’re proud. 

Do #4: Sprinkle interactive features to foster employee engagement 

People engage with what they enjoy. If your intranet is just a dumping ground for static information, people won't feel like skimming through it or logging in. This is where you’ll lose out on all the engagement you can earn using it. So, you’ve got to keep it fun and alive, and that’s where interactive elements can help. 

How? Think discussion forums, Q&A sections, social feeds, recognition programs, and polls. You could make it feel like a community by encouraging employees to share updates, celebrate wins, and give shout-outs to colleagues. The more your people contribute, the more valuable your intranet becomes. You could even go for gamification and introduce leaderboards, badges, and fun incentives. These can go a long way in keeping engagement levels high.

Here’s what to avoid: The 4 dont’s to remember when choosing your intranet 

Don't #1: Overcomplicate the design.

In the world of intranets, less is more, and simplicity wins. People will bounce fast if your intranet looks like a chaotic mess of widgets, pop-ups, and unnecessary features.  Frontline workers, especially, won’t have the time to decipher a clunky interface. They’ll need something uncomplicated and familiar that is easy to learn and use from day one. 

So, choose an intranet platform with a clean, intuitive design that mirrors the digital experiences they love and are comfortable with.  Look for platforms( like, hint hint: Speakap) that keep navigation seamless and interactions effortless while ensuring visually appealing interfaces. 

Don't #2: Overload with unnecessary PDFs and static content.

We believe there’s only one thing worse than an intranet no one uses. It is an intranet your people try to use but can’t. 

One reason for this can be that it’s packed with a trillion documents that take forever to load and are impossible to search. PDFs and static content are the enemies of efficiency. To avoid this, you need to ditch them and prioritize dynamic, searchable content. So, start using wikis and interactive guides. Switch to sending out real-time updates instead of expecting employees to dig through an endless archive of files. For situations where you must use a PDF, ensure it’s optimized for search. This way, people can find what they need when they need it. 

Don't #3: Neglect user feedback.

If you don’t listen to employees about what’s working (and what’s not), you’re setting yourself up for failure.  An intranet should evolve based on user needs, not just what IT or leadership thinks is best. After all, your intranet isn’t just for leadership—it’s also for the people who use it daily. 

So, to avoid neglecting user feedback, regularly ask everyone what they need or think. Run surveys and set up feedback channels. Make sure these are short and sweet (and not fifty pages). Once you get the response, act on what you find out(no one wants to give opinions they believe don’t matter). For instance, if employees keep saying the search function is far from ideal. The to-do for you is to investigate and fix it. Similarly, if no one uses the company newsfeed, figure out why and address it.

Don't #4: Let content become outdated.

If your intranet is filled with outdated policies, irrelevant announcements, and broken links, we’re sorry, but it’s useless. Think about it: who will rely on it if half the content is outdated?  It can even be damaging, destroying your people's trust. 

Set up a content review system to ensure this isn’t the case and your content is always fresh and fragrant.  Ensure every information posted on the intranet gets checked, updated, or removed periodically. Schedule it in the calendar. Alongside, make content ownership a real thing. Assign specific people with the responsibility and ownership to keep different sections current. 

Make your intranet a living, breathing platform your employees love

Intranets that are a graveyard of antique files are not the vibe that wins engagement. Modern intranets that are killing it make employees’ lives easier, not harder. When implemented right,  social intranets boost productivity, strengthen communication, and get used. The best part is that they have a measurable impact on engagement. 

Getting there is easy by following intranet best practices and keeping your employees' needs in mind, for instance, by ensuring mobile accessibility, intuitive navigation, and avoiding outdated content, and a long archive of PDFs. Just by sticking to some basic first principles, you will be able to build an intranet that your employees love, and that gives you the engagement you want. 

Ready to transition to an intranet that works? You know where to find us. ;-) Let’s make your workplace communication seamless, simple, and fun.  Talk to an expert.

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