June 2021 - Content Formula

15 more intranet best practices for success – part 2

Posted on 29 June 202129 January 2023 by Dan Hawtrey

We sometimes get asked by our clients: What are the intranet best practices we should follow? In our first post, we covered fifteen intranet best practices – the approaches, techniques and tactics that we have seen work time and time again in helping intranets to be sustainable and deliver value for both employees and organisations. In this second and final post, we cover fifteen more intranet best practices across different aspects of intranet management, including design, adoption and content.

Of course, every organisation and intranet is different, and a tactic that works well in one place might not be so impactful in another. However, the intranet best practices weve listed here are all approaches that were confident will have a positive impact if applied in the right way.

1 Focus on user experience with user-centred design techniques

A strong user experience is at the heart of a good intranet. An intranet that is not designed primarily around the needs of employees will not be a success, and will end up with low adoption. Here, applying various user-centred design techniques to the research, design and build phases of an intranet project is essential.

These techniques range from running user interviews, to drawing up personas, to mapping user journeys, to rapid prototyping and carrying out various user testing. Essentially, they are all about involving users in your intranet project. Over at UX Mastery, there is a comprehensive list of user experience methods that is worth referring to when youre considering your overall approach to an intranet project.

2 Have a user-focused and task-based information architecture

One area where its particularly important to apply a user-centred focus is your intranet information architecture and site navigation. Unfortunately, we still see intranet navigations that just mirror an organisational structure. This means that to navigate to a piece of content, a user needs to know which function manages that area; this is less than obvious in large, global organisations and even harder for a new joiner, making it hard to find the right content. Essentially, a navigation that is mainly an org structure is focused on the needs of content owners who own individual pages rather than on the needs of users and the way they think

To drive good findability, its essential to have an IA that helps employees find what they need and to get things done. Using intuitive and sensible labelling, avoiding acronyms and obscure brand names for different areas and shaping an IA around popular user tasks will make it easier for employees to find what they need and get the best out of your intranet.

3 Get users to help design and test your navigation

The very best way to ensure your intranet is focused on users is to involve them in defining and testing it. There are a variety of well-established techniques that can be applied here, including card-sorting and task-testing (sometimes called tree-testing) in order to define, validate, refine and improve the navigation. Whilst these techniques are often applied during an intranet project, applying them on a regular basis, along with insights from other data such as analytics and search logs, can help keep your navigation fresh and relevant.

4 Take a holistic approach to improving search

A key attribute of a successful intranet is having good findability; this is not only covered by a good user-focused intranet navigation, but also by having a robust search. Managing and improving search is a wide and complex field, and will depend on the tools, content and resources you have. Whatever you do, you will need to take a holistic approach and apply a range of tactics to improve your search.

A misconception about search is that you can just switch on a powerful search engine and youre done. Poor search can be as much a content issue as it is a search engine issue; reducing the amount of content you have, teaching content authors to tag content correctly and using sensible headlines will have a significant impact on findability. Improvements may require foundational work like creating a taxonomy and establishing content types. Optimising the layout of search can also make a difference. Ongoing management such as examining search logs and making tweaks, collecting search feedback and adding best bets may also move the needle on findability. Realistically, you will need to employ some or all of these tactics to improve search.

5 Make your site accessible

Accessibility is a neglected area in the digital workplace, and its surprising how few intranet sites actually meet the AA level of the WCAG 2.0 and 2.1 guidelines – the acceptable level that most external-customer sites aspire to. Ensuring that your site and content is accessible is not only important from a diversity and inclusion perspective, but also improves the general usability of a site.

Making a site accessible is rarely a priority in an intranet project because it requires ongoing efforts such as testing and reviews, as well as commitment to considering the content that is added, such as providing transcripts of videos, ensuring you have alt text for images and considering colour contrast when adding images to a page.

Working with your D&I team or the right Employee Resource Groups can raise awareness of the importance of accessibility for your internal digital channels, which can in turn support the business case for investing in accessibility.

6 Engage and support your publishing community

Good intranets need good content. Most intranets are based on a decentralised publishing model, with small central intranet teams especially relying on the actions of their content owners to produce good quality content. In our first post about intranet best practices, we prioritised having good content governance with named content owners, as well as ensuring clarity surrounding their roles and responsibilities. However, you also need to keep them engaged and supported. Generally, managing their intranet area is going to be an additional activity that is above and beyond their day job.

Spending tine on an ongoing training programme, providing an online community, driving engagement through recognition and providing the right resources and tools which make life easier for a content owner can all make a huge difference.

7 Include user-generated content and social elements

Modern intranets are lively and dynamic channels that stimulate dialogue, facilitate collaboration and drive a sense of community. Including user-generated content with conversations and contributions is a must. There are multiple ways to do this, for example: promoting employee blogs, adding news commenting, embedding social feeds, introducing models where everyone can publish, featuring peer recognition, using polls, having photo contents, including communities of practice or interest and more.

If your intranet is top-down and only focuses on dreary corporate content, adoption will suffer and youll miss out on opportunities to engage employees, amplify culture and get valuable feedback from employees.

8 Use newsletters to drive adoption

Often, an aim for an intranet is to reduce the proportion of email notifications which end up unread and clog up everybodys inbox. However, email is still an important communication channel. One common practice is to send out a weekly email newsletter that contains a round-up of the key intranet stories with links back to the relevant items. This helps keep employees who still live out of their inbox informed, but also successfully drives traffic back to the intranet.

9

Use a SharePoint intranet if you have Microsoft 365

We anticipate that not everybody is going to agree with this point, but we think its important! If you have a Microsoft 365 digital workplace, your intranet should be based on SharePoint. Successful intranets integrate with other elements of the digital workplace, and a SharePoint intranet has completely seamless integration with the Microsoft universe.

A SharePoint intranet means you can use Microsoft search on your intranet, embed Yammer feeds, provide a personalised list of Microsoft Teams, utilise SharePoint document libraries and facilitate integration with Communication sites. It also means you can embed access to the intranet within Microsoft Teams more easily, meaning the intranet is brought into the daily flow of work. To put it bluntly, if you have Microsoft 365, an intranet based on SharePoint is a no-brainer.

10 Limit intranet customisation if possible

Nowadays, the generally accepted practice for most IT teams is to limit customisation of platforms and applications as much as possible. This view is heavily influenced by the development of cloud-based services and platforms like Microsoft 365 which are constantly updated, but also offer more flexibility around configuration to meet the majority of potential needs.

This approach has completely flipped the world of intranets that in the past were heavily customised, very expensive and arduous to develop and then virtually impossible or too expensive to upgrade. The combination of Microsoft 365 and intranet software like LiveTiles likely provides over 90 percent of what you need on your intranet, with room to configure to your specific needs. Where there are gaps, you can usually find an app, a plug-in or customisation options to suit. The days of heavily customised intranets are over, and thats definitely a good thing.

11 Have a brand for your intranet

If your intranet is bland and corporate, youll likely miss out on an opportunity to give your intranet some personality and make it engaging enough to drive adoption. An intranet should always have a brand typically one that mirrors your organisational culture with an appropriate name, logo and design.

Perhaps your intranet is social and informal, or maybe its more work-focused. Perhaps its mobile-first, or even a bit of everything. Considering your intranet brand and aligning it with your intranets core objectives and how you want it to be perceived by employees will make it more memorable with your audience, and youll consequently be better placed to position it to drive adoption and craft a consistent and impactful experience.

12 Accept that an intranet is never finished

An intranet is never finished. There are always features you can add, content that can be improved, adoption levels to improve, integrations to create and gaps to fill. Employee needs and expectations are constantly changing, and organisations are always restructuring.

When you accept that an intranet is never finished, you can start to focus on a process of continuous improvement that ensures the intranet stays fresh and sustainable, and drives value. Continuously improving through small, iterative changes based on analytics and feedback also means your intranet stays closer to the needs of employees, and further supports adoption and growth.

13 Involve your security and compliance teams early on

Its essential that your intranet ticks all the boxes from a security, privacy, legal, regulatory and risk angle. This spans everything from data security, GDPR, where data resides, sector-specific regulatory issues and more. Of course, most intranet teams already know this, but there can be elements that get missed or emerge late in the day, putting an intranet implementation date at risk. There are also lesser-known ongoing issues, such as educating content owners and users not to add copyrighted material and images onto your intranet.

One thing weve learned from hundreds of intranet implementations is to involve your security, risk and compliance teams early on in an intranet project, and to maintain dialogue with them as new issues arise. This approach usually catches any potential issues that could block or delay an intranet project, and also means actions can be taken to mitigate those risks with less impact on the user experience.

14 Manage your intranet within the digital comms ecosystem

An intranet is often the central platform for your digital communications, but they also exist within a wider multi-channel ecosystem of other digital channels including email, social platforms, apps, digital signage, HR systems, IT service portals and even your corporate website. The opportunities for duplication and information overload are high, leading to disengagement, inefficiency and missed opportunities to drive more effective campaigns. You may also want other channels such as email to drive visits back to your intranet.

Therefore, an intranet should never be managed in isolation – it needs to be regarded as part of the wider cross-channel landscape where content and communications are co-ordinated to drive engagement and efficiency.

15 Network with your peers

The thing about intranets is that they are hidden from view and not available for everyone to see, so it can be harder for intranet teams to pick up tips, best practices and the latest innovations that can really help to get the best out of your intranet. It can also be quite lonely running an intranet; teams are often actually just one or two people, and the rest of your organisation doesnt usually understand exactly what you do.

There can be great value in networking with your intranet peers in other organisations to swap approaches and tactics, get inspiration, or even just have someone who understands intranets with whom to let off steam. The good news is that there are a lot of networks, communities and events that offer opportunities to network, and most intranet people are very friendly and open to help! We certainly love working in the wider intranet and digital workplace community.

Want more information? Get in touch!

Thats a wrap for our intranet best practices. Dont miss the first part of the series! If you want more information on any of these intranet best practices or would like to discuss your intranet project with us, then get in touch.

Webinar video: Yammer best practices

Posted on 18 June 202130 December 2022 by John Scott

85% of Fortune 500 companies are now using Yammer, but we regularly hear about poor adoption and failed implementations. What does Yammer best practice look like? How can you ensure that it works in your organisation?

In this Webinar we’ll share our experience and insights into what makes Yammer succeed within different organisations. Including:

Aligning Yammer with your company strategy
Establishing the right roles
Why and how to run pilots
Yammer for Internal Communications
Yammer for Leaders

Panelists:

Richard Gera, a Digital Communication and Engagement Consultant with a wealth of Yammer experience. This includes rolling out and managing enterprise collaboration as an external consultant and an in-house practitioner.
John Scott has worked across both design and technical disciplines – a rare combination that allow him to build a bridge between the user experience and technical teams. This means that feasibility, usability, delivery and ease of maintenance are baked-into all of our solutions.
Joe Perry oversees the technical delivery of all Content Formula projects. He works closely with our UX consultants and clients to understand requirements and design appropriate technical solutions.

15 intranet best practices you should follow

Posted on 14 June 202130 December 2022 by Dan Hawtrey

We sometimes get asked by our clients, What are the intranet best practices we should follow? This is not a straightforward question. Firstly, there is a very wide range of approaches, techniques and tactics that can be applied to make your intranet successful. These cover different areas from adoption, to design, to content; there is a lot a team can do that will make a difference. Secondly, the term best practices always needs to be caveated. What works brilliantly for one intranet is not necessarily going to work for another. Sometimes good practices is a better term – best implies there is no room for improvement, but thats not always true. You might disagree with us in some of our choices, too.

Having said that, we think there are some accepted common practices in managing intranets that weve seen work consistently over a number of years in helping deliver a successful and sustainable intranet. Weve put our heads together and come up with 30 which were going to share with you over two articles. so, here goes for our first set of intranet best practices.

1 Always have an intranet strategy

Intranets are strategic-level investments that deliver strategic benefits. Therefore, you need an intranet strategy! Having a well-thought-through overview of what you are trying to achieve with your intranet that aligns with your overall company strategy, as well as an accompanying plan and roadmap of how youre going to achieve it, allows you to maintain focus, prioritise efforts, win over stakeholders, unite different team members around the same goals and ensure your intranet keeps moving in a strategic direction. Without a strategy, an intranet is in danger of becoming directionless, running out of steam and ultimately holding less value.

2 Involve cross-functional stakeholders from across the organisation

Intranets facilitate different organisational processes including HR self-service, knowledge management, internal communications, leadership communications, collaboration, providing access to the wider digital workplace and more! Because of the intranets wide use and impact right across the enterprise, you need input and ongoing involvement from a range of stakeholders including HR, IT, Internal Comms, Business Operations, Leadership Function and more.

This involvement should usually be reflected in some kind of ongoing governance perhaps through representation on an intranet steering committee or as part of an intranet working group. When different stakeholders from varying functions are continually involved in your intranet, it has more buy-in, relevance and value, and can fulfil its full potential to enable and improve a wider range of organisational processes.

3 Ensure you have an intranet manager

Not everybody may agree with this, but we think every intranet needs an intranet manager. A named person should have overall responsibility and oversight of the intranet as a whole, both in its everyday management and its longer-term development.

An intranet manager doesnt necessarily need to be full-time; smaller organisations may have an internal comms person who is responsible for more than just the intranet, for example. Its tempting to give different areas of responsibility for the intranet to different roles this is certainly true for differentiating between content and technical areas, for example – but someone needs to be able to ensure all parts of the intranet are coordinated. Every single really successful intranet weve seen has had an intranet manager.

4 Provide clarity on whos doing what

Even with a dedicated manager and central team in place, intranets are essentially an ensemble effort, with a wide range of roles involved in looking after different elements of the intranet. A typical intranet team in its widest sense could involve content owners, the technical team, communications professionals, product owners involved with integrations, digital champions who promote the intranet and more!

With central intranet teams invariably small, they are usually reliant on this wider group; it really helps to provide absolutely clarity on who is responsible for what, clarifying what each person needs to do, the associated processes and any expectations, while also keeping people engaged. A RACI Matrix (Responsible, Accountable, Consulted, Informed) applied to all the sections of the intranet can be hugely helpful.

5 Carry out user research

You cannot define an intranet strategy or design and launch an intranet that is based on assumptions. Intranets must focus on the needs of users and be wrapped around the way they work; you need a thorough understanding of your employees, including their information needs and how they interact with technology, to design an effective intranet.

The only way to do this is to undertake user research; there are a plethora of technique options here, including interviews, workshops, surveys, observation, time studies, user testing, observation, reviewing relevant analytics and more. Taking this data-driven approach will also help legitimise and prioritise decision-making on your intranet, and is a good way to counter ill-informed stakeholders with strong opinions about the direction of your intranet that might not be beneficial.

6 Leverage digital and intranet champions for launch

Many of our clients have used a network of voluntary local champions to launch their intranet, invariably with very good results. By leveraging the energy and enthusiasm of voluntary champions, small central teams can get more reach in spreading the word about their intranet. They can also better explain its value through peer conversations which are usually conducted within a frame of reference that is relevant to the work done in a particular location, department or team, and resonate better than centrally-driven messaging. Ultimately, using voluntary champions gives momentum to an intranet launch and drives adoption.

7 Put content governance in place

An intranet is only as good as the content published within it. For content to be relevant, up-to-date, well-written, accurate, engaging, purposeful and on-brand, you need some kind of content governance in place. This includes a variety of different elements including defining publishing standards, ensuring each page has a named owner, carrying out content owner training, supporting content owners with appropriate page layouts and templates, applying approval workflow if necessary and having regular reviews of content, using automation if possible.

8 Act on what you measure

Using metrics to track the success of intranet is a given, and many intranet teams collect analytics on adoption and usage, reach, engagement, user satisfaction, search results, the individual performance of different content and more. However, while everyone may have to produce pretty charts for a quarterly report that goes to senior management, there is little point in measuring in detail unless youre going to act on what you measure and deliver a better intranet as a result.

Measurement works best when there is a regular process focused on continual improvement. When you measure, ensure you take time to analyse and understand what the numbers mean, make changes or adjustments, measure again to see what the impact was and then make further changes. In this way, measurement is part of the process to drive improvement and becomes a powerful tool. You also need to make sure youre measuring the right things that will drive long-term improvement.

9 Use employee feedback to drive improvement

Another essential approach in improving an intranet is to utilise employee feedback and suggestions regularly to inform changes. Getting employee feedback not only provides highly valuable and relevant information about how your intranet is used and perceived, but also engages employees who can see their opinions are valued and make a difference, meaning theyre likely to continue contributing feedback. There are various techniques to support gathering feedback, including creating a regular user group, running polls and surveys and creating feedback mechanisms via the intranet itself.

10 Use personalisation

For intranets to succeed, content and experiences need to be relevant to different roles, divisions and locations. Internal communicators also want to be able to target items to different sections of a workforce to deliver effective messaging. Leveraging personalisation so that relevant, targeted content appears based on an individuals profile (usually based on Active Directory) is now a must-do approach for a successful, modern intranet.

11 Give your entire workforce access

Intranets are a channel that everybody should access, as they help underpin transparency and accountability and support a level playing field by giving everybody access to information. During the pandemic, it has become clear how important is it for everybody to be able to access up-to-date digital communication channels.

Your entire workforce should have access to the intranet, either via the desktop or a mobile device. In the past, frontline workers were often excluded from accessing the intranet, creating a digital divide, although they are generally far more connected now. Outsourced or seasonal parts of a workforce sometimes still do not have access, although there can be some logistical or compliance-related reasons for this.

12 Make your intranet available anytime, anywhere on any device

Intranets can play a significant role in helping employees work from any location, as well as providing the information employees need to carry out their role and complete tasks. We are now in the era of the hybrid and flexible workplace where employees will be working at home, in the office, from a client or on-the-go, with the location potentially changing throughout the week. An intranet must be available at any time, from anywhere and on any device to support hybrid working going forward.

13 Make sure your leaders are visible

Intranets provide a highly effective vehicle for leadership communications, particularly during the pandemic. Leaders should be highly visible on your intranet, not only through news updates and videos, but also through participating in social channels and setting a good example for other senior management by exhibiting digital behaviours. This drives intranet adoption and participation, and demonstrates the importance of the intranet through effective senior leader endorsement.

14 Balance homepage news with features

An intranet is a digital communications channel that keeps everyone updated with the latest news, but its also a platform for completing tasks and finding information to support everyday work. The truth is that most employees do not primarily visit the intranet to view news, they go there to complete tasks; however, when accessing a link to an app or checking their annual leave balance, they do view news. Resist the temptation to dominate your intranet homepage with news – balance out these items with features, integrations and information that employees will find useful and make them want them to return to the intranet every day.

15 Make your intranet the front door to the wider digital workplace

Over the past few years, intranets have been morphing into front doors to the wider digital workplace, providing the single-entry point into the wider portfolio of applications used by employees throughout the enterprise. This helps save time for employees and supports good intranet adoption.

There are several ways to achieve this, including integrating apps with your intranet such as Workday, encouraging employee self-service; providing a central directory of apps through which employees can bookmark favourites and easily access them will also help. Additionally, deeper integration with other platforms, especially across Microsoft 365 with embedded Yammer feeds or links to Microsoft Teams spaces, will further promote the intranet.

Want more information? Get in touch!

Those are our first fifteen intranet best practices. Watch out for the next part of the series!

If you want more information on any of these intranet best practices or would like to discuss your intranet project with us, then get in touch.

How do you improve digital employee experience?

Posted on 7 June 202113 February 2023 by Dan Hawtrey

Employee experience is an important topic for senior leaders and HR functions, but also for digital workplace and intranet teams. Digital channels and workplace technology continues to have a prominent influence in how employees experience their work, particularly since the start of the pandemic and the increase in remote working. The projected future of hybrid working patterns means that improving digital employee experience will be a key objective for digital workplace teams going forward. Opportunities created by Employee Experience Platforms (EXP) such as Microsoft Viva also mean that there has never been a better time to start thinking about digital employee experience.

In this article, were going to explore some of the ways teams can improve digital employee experience. In reality, there is no single magic ingredient that improves digital employee experience; you need a combination of different tactics, underpinned by joined-up thinking, to make a difference. Improvement also doesnt necessarily happen overnight its about taking a longer-term, strategic view of the digital touchpoints that impact employees.

What is digital employee experience?

Recently, we tried to define employee experience and digital employee experience. We concluded that the term concerns the way employees experience workplace technology, and that it takes in a more a holistic and strategic way of thinking about the role of technology at work.

However, there is no exact consensus on the definition, and the term can incorporate different meanings and vary from organisation to organisation. For example, some define it as the equivalent of digital customer experience, while others place more focus on the lifecycle of an employees time at an organisation.

Lets explore some of the different ways digital workplace teams can improve digital employee experience.

1 Align with your organisations strategic view of employee experience

You cant improve digital employee experience without knowing what your organisations strategic view of employee experience is. What are the key elements of employee experience within your organisation? What is important for employees in your organisation? What are your strategic objectives around employee experience? What are the priority areas? Even if the strategy is not necessarily called employee experience, there will usually be some kind of equivalent which you should analyse.

The strategy and roadmap for digital employee experience must align with the overall strategic view of your organisation and follow it, otherwise your efforts can lack focus, might not get the necessary support from other stakeholders or may prioritise the wrong areas. Improving the digital employee experience is a huge topic and there is a great deal you can do to achieve it, meaning its sometimes hard to know where to start. Aligning and following the wider employee experience strategic view should help define your digital employee experience strategy and the related areas for prioritisation.

2 Involve the right stakeholders

Digital workplace teams will know the importance of involving key stakeholders in your digital workplace strategy and roadmap – the same is true of digital employee experience. Here, you absolutely need to involve HR for the employee experience element, and both IT and HR for the digital aspect. HR are going to be driving your employee experience strategy forward, and HR tech including your HR system of record like Workday, employee onboarding solutions, learning platform and more are going to be integral parts of your digital employee experience. You need consensus and joined-up approaches with these stakeholders to ensure you are working towards a common vision of digital employee experience, leading to a collaborative effort which can direct the specific tactics and measures that can enrich your strategy.

3 Focus on the moments that matter in the employee lifecycle

A common focus for improving digital employee experience is the employee lifecycle, following the journey from the time an employee is first hired to when they leave. Throughout the lifecycle, there are some key moments that matter that make a real difference to the employee; these include the onboarding experience, learning and development, internal career moves and being supported through key life moments such as starting a family. Identifying these moments and then optimising the digital employee experience around them can be a good way to prioritise and focus actions. Employee onboarding, for example, is often ripe for a better digital employee experience, and is an area where improvements deliver substantial value for organisations in helping to reduce employee turnover.

4 Understand your employees

You cannot improve digital employee experience without a thorough understanding of employees. If youre a regular reader of our blog, you wont be surprised by this, as we advocate undertaking user research for any digital project. Never design or build a digital solution based on assumptions! You need to understand the way employees work, their pain points, how they use technology, their information needs and what is important to them.

This is particularly important for a digital employee experience strategy that considers the wide series of factors that are combined to form the overall employee experience. Of course, there are numerous ways to undertake user research including surveys, interviews, workshops, quick polls, analytics, observation and more.

5 Craft individual experiences around different groups

Understanding employees will inevitably mean bringing in a diverse set of needs that reflect not only the diversity of a workforce, but also individual perspectives and circumstances. One of the major challenges of digital employee experience is trying to design solutions that will meet everybodys needs. Of course, thats not always going to be possible, but incorporating principles such as personalisation, targeted content and experiences, the ability for individuals to configure their experience around their needs, flexibility and choice will help.

Flexibility and choice are hugely important in the hybrid workplace, allowing employees to work from anywhere and at any time, giving them autonomy in defining their own employee experience.

6 Keep on involving employees to ensure better solutions

Improving digital employee experience must involve employees. Information and insights from ongoing employee feedback and input is like gold dust, and helps align your digital workplace to employees real-world experiences. Here, it is best to apply some kind of structure to gathering feedback, doing so through:

Creating feedback mechanisms and channels to capture ongoing input
Establishing formal groups of employees who are prepared to provide ongoing feedback over a prolonged period
Building employee feedback into project delivery and product management processes
Committing to more agile and iterative approaches to workplace technology.

In introducing these sorts of measures, you also need to clearly communicate and demonstrate that employee feedback is valued and makes a difference in order to encourage ongoing input.

7 Take an empathetic and human-centred view

Improving employee experience means thinking about the range of factors that impact our experience of work. This goes way beyond user-centred design, interface design or improving productivity. We need to think about elements such as health and wellbeing, diversity and inclusion, flexible working, personal development, career growth, employee engagement and more. We also need to contemplate the needs of different groups in terms of roles, locations, culture, background and demographics. On top of that, we must consider the scenarios and conditions people work in, including frontline employees who are on-the-go, knowledge workers sitting in an office and remote employee working at home.

This sounds straightforward on paper but is actually pretty complex, and an empathetic and human-centric view is needed to improve digital employee experience. This is especially true as we come out of the pandemic and senior leaders are more focused on peoples needs.

8 Measure in the hybrid workplace to drive continuous improvement

Using metrics to measure different aspects of digital employee experience is a prerequisite for introducing continuous improvement, gaining insights to make meaningful changes, and then testing the impact through further measurement.

Measuring for digital employee experience requires different approaches to looking at adoption or the success of internal communications, alongside a wide range of measures right across the hybrid workplace. People analytics, for example, is starting to look at the connection between health and wellbeing and the time spent on different systems. Using more creative and broader approaches to analytics is necessary, although this is an area where new practices are still emerging.

9 Properly resource your efforts

Digital employee experience is of strategic importance and requires adequate investment, not only in the technology solutions but also in ensuring there are people in place to launch, manage and improve these solutions. Investing properly in an employee onboarding solution, as well as in people to provide stewardship of that system, can have a significant impact on reducing employee turnover. All too often, organisations fall short on digital employee experience because they are simply not resourcing their efforts properly; unfortunately, ensuring availability of the right level of investment and resourcing is sometimes out of the hands of the digital workplace team.

Improving digital employee experience

Improving digital employee experience is an important area, and we hope this article has given you some ideas. If you would like to discuss any aspect of your digital employee experience, get in touch!