Idea #33: Make the intranet available from home

At Mountain Equipment Co-op (MEC) many employees work part-time hours and don’t sit in front of a computer. After the launch of their new social intranet, MEC made it accessible from home computers and saw a great increase in traffic. By offering both critical information for employees and community pages for employees to connect on, MEC gave their new site powerful pull.^[22]

Idea #34: Encourage employees to upload their own profile photos

If you allow your employees to edit their profiles and choose their own profile photos, they’ll feel more invested in the intranet. You’ll also see people’s personality come through too. Some companies bring in an actual photo booth to take employee photos.

Idea #35: Write employee-centered news

What’s the most popular type of news on intranets? News about employees! Employees will always flock to stories about other employees, regardless of company size. This type of news is relatable, human, and interesting. Employee stories are also a fantastic way to tell your company’s brand narrative.

Idea #36: Have a photo of the day contest

One of our clients has a large backlog of photos to post because so many employees love the photo-of-the-day feature. It puts employees in the spotlight and highlights their creativity. If this is something your employees would enjoy, why not use it to drive more eyes to the intranet?

Idea #37: Make timesheet software accessible through the intranet

One of our clients launched their new intranet at the same time they launched a new online timesheet system. They made the timesheet system easily accessible from the intranet, which helped drive consistent traffic to their intranet.

LPK integrated their mission-critical timesheet system with ThoughtFarmer.

Idea #38: Make it mobile accessible

If you have ambitious adoption goals, your intranet must be easily accessible.  This means optimizing your intranet for mobile—either with a stand alone app, or with a mobile responsive design. This will make it easy for employees to search and locate all the information they need to get their work done.