Imagine this all-too-common scenario:

• You’re trying to make a behaviour change in your organisation.

• You’re dead set on improving things.

• You are working so hard

• You miss out on one easy key action that has a huge impact 

What's the key action?

Make sure your intranet site is up to date! It is an easy one to forget about, but could become your number one communication channel!

The Intranet

Your internal internet site is your intranet. It’s a private network just for people within an organisation.

This place is a powerful tool for spreading out the word of your change, as it allows you to put your message to work even while you sleep.

Look at some of our customer's intranet sites for their reuse system

• University College London

• Imperial College

• University of Queensland

How do you get your intranet site to work for you while you do other things?

Friendly tone

We’ve witnessed poor communication proving to be a barrier to workers accepting new changes and practices, because people don’t feel engaged to what is happening around them. When things are poorly explained and the purposes are not shown, people don’t buy in and support things. If you can exterminate poor communication on the intranet and explain everything in a friendly and engaging way, showing what the objectives of your teams are, staff will be much more open to change.

You need to tell them

• What you are up to
• Why you are doing it
• How easy it is to participate
• and show them who else is participating (nice resource here)

About Us Page

Part of selling a behavioural change is being adept in the art of storytelling, and in this case, it’s digital storytelling. Write a compelling piece and appeal to the good nature of your colleagues to help you build rapport with them, and build support for your objectives. Steer away from corporate jargon and make it very human, very real, and show people how this change will benefit their lives.

Team pages

We've talked before about being the face for reuse. One additional way to get people to recognise your face is to put it on a team page on the intranet site. If you have others helping you enact this change in the organisation, check with them that they’re happy to be included here too.

Building trust

The FAQ page, building a team, digital storytelling - they’re all trust-building exercises, because one of your main goals is getting the required trust that people need to have to try something new. When you offer something different, people get scared. When you try to improve on something that hasn’t changed for a long time, people get scared. When trying to sell something new, it’s important to remember that people are more comfortable buying from people or businesses that they know and trust.  Your intranet site must build trust, and to do that you have to be a bold character that releases credible and consistent messages.

Build an FAQ

FAQs are databases of frequently asked questions, and are valuable tools for saving you time in the long run. Every time someone has a question or query about the change you wish to make in the organisation, write it down, then put together a well-written and coherent response. Each time a question comes through on the phone, via email or on the intranet site, it’s great free content for your mission. Make the questions and answers searchable, and make them easy to find and understand.

Summary

Now you know why and how to make your intranet work for you!

The intranet is one easy place to get your message out. Hit the download below to get your intranet template content for your reuse program.

Feel prepared to bring in change? Download the resources below which includes: FAQ for your reuse system and suggested intranet content.