Improving the effectiveness of internal communications is often one of the key goals underpinning corporate intranets. In practice, this is often reflected in 'latest news' section on the home page of most intranets. While news on the home page is certainly widespread, the question needs to be asked: how effective is it?
This article explores the role of the intranet as a news channel, revisiting some of the assumptions about how best to deliver online news within an organisation.
News is often the central element of intranet home pages, filling up the central area of the page and providing the most frequently updated content.
This 'latest news' section is used to communicate a range of news items, including:
- CEO messages
- major corporate updates
- updated policies
- changes to the intranet itself
Updated regularly, this news section represents the intranet's role as a news channel, one that reaches staff throughout the organisation.
The fundamental principle is to provide a single location that staff can visit to find out the latest happenings and updates.
Intranet news is also intended to be a 'pull factor' that will draw staff to the site every day, as well as giving the intranet ever-changing content that shows that the site is both useful and up-to-date.
Challenges and opportunities
In practice, however, most intranet news services fail to deliver on these promises and hopes.
There are a number of challenges that confront the implementation of an effective intranet-based news channel.
These issues include:
- Poor design of the news section, which is often cluttered and missing key details.
- Prominence of the news section, which may overwhelm the other vital roles played by the intranet home page.
- Ineffective nature of the intranet as a 'push' medium, leading to staff missing (or ignoring) important updates.
- Limited scope of intranet news items, which rarely address operational issues within the organisation.
- Difficulty reaching all staff in the organisation.
- Competing news sections on business unit or regional home pages throughout the organisation.
- Reliance on the underlying usefulness of the intranet itself, to drive traffic to the home page of the site.
Many of these issues arise because the news section is implemented as a 'default' element of the intranet home page. Little consideration is given to the design or management of this news channel, beyond implementing a basic set of capabilities.
Intranet news can, and should, be much more than this. Staff have a great need for up-to-date information on organisational changes that impact their daily work, and with careful design and execution, the intranet news channel can meet this need.
