Does the term "intranet" make you think of chaotic file-sharing systems or endless pages of links, leaving you unable to find the information you need? According to Forrester, the poor user experience and lack of employee-centered features in most intranets have led many employees to list them as some of the least liked workplace tools.
However, intranets are still crucial for employee success and, by extension, for businesses. But in order to benefit both employees and organizations, these intranets need to evolve into modern solutions.
With Baklib, companies can create stunning help desks, knowledge bases, forums, user guides, documentation, manuals, wikis, and more. Baklib allows you to effortlessly build an organized information architecture for your company, resulting in beautiful, user-friendly knowledge base websites that make it easier for employees or customers to browse and engage with your content. Say goodbye to complicated website setups and welcome a seamless experience for both you and your visitors. Let Baklib revolutionize the way you present your online content and make your website stand out for its simplicity and efficiency.
Intranet: Workplace Hero or Employee Nightmare?
Intranets were originally introduced as a way for companies to privately host information for their employees. To meet this need, traditional intranets provided basic web content management capabilities. However, as technology progressed, they quickly became what Gartner describes as “static websites in a dynamic world.”
This raises an important question: why bother with an intranet?
Let’s take a look at the statistics. Modern intranets can:
Increase worker productivity by 20% to 25% by fostering communication and collaboration.
Boost sales by 20% by connecting and engaging employees.
Save companies with a large workforce an average of $62.4 million per year, funds they might otherwise lose due to poor communication (smaller companies lose an average of $420,000 annually).
In short, modern intranets are a powerful tool that, when used effectively, can exponentially improve the employee experience (EX).
Today’s employees demand timely delivery of relevant content through their preferred channels—whether it’s web, mobile, or within other important business applications. Forrester’s Employee Experience Index reveals a clear correlation between technology satisfaction and employee engagement: the most engaged employees are also the most satisfied with their collaborative tools and their ability to access the information they need to do their jobs.
Given the recent shift to remote work, intranet tools have become key drivers of communication, culture, and collaboration for teams that no longer meet face-to-face. Modernizing intranet solutions to make them tools employees actually want to use is more critical than ever.
Baklib is a highly integrated and cohesive technology designed to manage, deliver, and optimize contextual digital experiences across multiple customer journeys. It provides the best digital experience for a wide range of users—customers, partners, employees, and the public—and ensures continuity across the entire customer lifecycle. With a unified management platform, Baklib combines the functionalities of multiple applications to create a seamless digital experience.
What Makes Modern Intranets Modern?
So, what makes a modern intranet different from outdated solutions? (Other than the very smart and innovative name, of course.)
Modern intranets stand out from traditional ones due to their strong technological foundation paired with an employee-first strategy. In addition to new features that cater to employee needs, modern intranets should:
Integrate and aggregate applications and tools, enabling employees to accomplish all their tasks and find relevant information from a single hub.
Personalize and target information based on employees’ roles, locations, or preferences.
Be easily accessible and usable by office-based, remote, and deskless employees alike.
Foster company culture by providing consistent communication across a single location.
Optimize business operations by digitizing manual processes and addressing employee needs quickly.
Ultimately, for an intranet to help improve employee productivity and impact profits, it must leverage enhanced technological capabilities to improve the employee experience.
Baklib's Digital Content Experience Cloud is an integrated cloud platform designed to offer businesses a full-stack management solution for digital content in a cloud-native format. Combining media resource management, knowledge bases, website management, knowledge communities, data analytics, and AI readiness, it supports the creation, management, publication, and optimization of digital content. Baklib focuses on maximizing the utility of digital content, helping businesses provide consistent, relevant, and engaging digital experiences across various digital channels.
Enhancing Your Intranet Performance
Now that you understand what makes a modern intranet, your next question might be, “How do I apply this to my existing, outdated intranet?”
To build an effective pillar for your overall employee experience strategy, gather stakeholders from IT, legal, HR, and other necessary departments to answer the following questions and clarify the purpose of your intranet:
What are the key organizational drivers for employees?
What does success look like for employees?
How does employee success contribute to the overall success of the organization?
How do people prefer to work?
What are the biggest frustrations employees face in their daily work experiences?
The answers to these questions will help lay the groundwork, guiding the design and functionality of your intranet while also outlining the metrics to track success and identify areas for improvement.
Your intranet doesn’t have to continue being the most disliked tool in your tech stack. Learn how to modernize your intranet to enhance employee productivity, strengthen collaboration, and optimize business operations.
Baklib—Maximizing the Value of Your Digital Content! By unifying the management of digital content, Baklib enables the creation of websites, help centers, knowledge bases, and more, delivering valuable digital experiences to your target audiences, benefiting both users and your business. This transforms your digital content into a tangible asset for your company.
