Intranet promotion

[Goldilocks]

I need some ideas on how to promote a corporate intranet and encourage employees to use it. I have considered ideas such as 'forcing' them to use it i.e. making it the only way to access certain information within the company, but I would like more suggestions on other ways to do it.

Any ideas?

Thanks ;)

[Ian]

A few things to look at..

What benefit is it to the employees - how are they going to benefit by using it - what incentive is there to use it. ???

What benefit is it to the employer - how are they going to benefit from employees using it. ??

of course "forcing" someone to do what they don't want to do is only going to cause resentment and wont work. If it is used to access certain company info, then thats all it is going to be used for if thats the only place they can get the info, what other purpose does it have?

Expand a bit Goldi and we'll throw a few ideas about, I'm sure we can help you some how. :)

[fredricknish]

Daily news and announcements would make employees to use it.
Having a intranet forum or message board might be a good idea.If the employers dont mind their employees chating using the intranet,then you can add a intranet chat.

[dave92056]

Just a thought, throw in an anonymous forum for the employees. Let them air their greivances incognito.

Problem is, you might never get some employees off it!

[fredricknish]

Originally posted by dave92056
Just a thought, throw in an anonymous forum for the employees. Let them air their greivances incognito.

Problem is, you might never get some employees off it!

Ha ha ha ! Thats a good idea Dave.If a anonymous forum is made then we might see another post from Goldilocks asking -
"Does any one know how trace down anonymous messages in an intranet forums because the company's boss wants to know who posted the messages"

*_________*

[Goldilocks]

Hee hee! ;) Well a forum is something we have been thinking about for a while now but some of the managers are opposed to it because they know from previous experience it can get out of hand if it isn't moderated properly. It's still a possibility though.

Fredricknish suggested having daily news and announcements. In theory that's a good idea. We do have a news section but as the company is still relatively small there generally isn't much news to report. Even if there was, I wouldn't have time to keep it updated. I currently maintain the intranet single-handedly but perhaps the time has come to get more people involved in it's maintenance and development. If everyone was able to contribute more, maybe they would be more interested in it.

I'm not saying it has been a flop, it's actually been quite successful and grown enormously over the last year but there are still a certain number of people that won't use it unless they have to.

Ian - you made a good point about how it will benefit people. Maybe that's the key. Most people see it as a bit of a toy and don't realise the real benefits of it. Maybe there aren't many at the moment but very soon there will be as we've got various big plans for it. Perhaps we need to somehow promote all the benefits that people will gain from it and if we can make them see that then they might take to it more.

Anyway, this post is getting a bit long and I have to be off. Thanks for the help guys and if you have any more thoughts, let me know! ;)