HR leaders face many hurdles in their ongoing challenge of attracting top talent, and then keeping them engaged and committed to the organization. Our State of the Intranet and Future of Employee Technology report offers insights for overcoming these obstacles with an effective intranet.
The workplace is stretched thin with qualified candidates, and the rise of remote and hybrid work models makes connecting, collaborating and communicating with both new and seasoned employees even more complex. But our survey of more than 1,000 senior intranet program leaders shows that leveraging a well-designed intranet with AI-powered employee experience capabilities like surveys and virtual assistance can significantly impact your organization’s ability to attract top talent and engage and retain your people.
Let’s dive into the data and explore how you can harness the power of sophisticated intranet technology to transform your talent management strategy.
The impact of effective intranets on employee experience
Our data highlights the transformative potential of the best intranet technology:
- 91% of organizations with well-designed, easy-to-use intranets report improved employee retention
- 97% report higher engagement levels, with nearly two-thirds observing substantial improvements
- 97% report a positive effect on employee well-being
Perhaps most striking is that our findings suggest an intranet’s impact on company culture and talent attraction is the most significant factor for employee retention.
This underscores the critical role that a sophisticated intranet plays in shaping culture and influencing talent attraction and retention strategies.
How intranets shape company culture and aid recruitment
Intranets influence culture by facilitating communication, collaboration and information sharing across an organization. They break down silos, promote transparency, and foster a sense of community among employees — regardless of their location, across the hall or around the globe.
Our survey found that 80% of respondents agree or strongly agree that their intranet impacts their organizational culture and ability to attract talent. Additionally, 86% agree that a sophisticated intranet can strongly impact employee retention, as it showcases the organization’s technological prowess and commitment to employee engagement — making the company more attractive to prospective talent.
That said, it’s important to note that technology alone doesn’t create culture, attract new talent, or make employees want to stay. Rather, it serves as a tool that, when aligned with organizational goals and supported by effective leadership, can significantly shape and reinforce cultural norms.
The key lies in the intelligent implementation and utilization of these digital platforms to create a positive, personalized work environment.
Now, let’s explore seven strategies that tap into the power of the best intranet technology for talent management.
1. Create a centralized digital workplace
In an era of digital overload, your people need one place to go to connect with everyone and everything they need to succeed. Reducing digital friction and frustration will boost productivity and satisfaction.
In our survey, 27% of respondents reported that having a single source of truth (and knowledge base) for critical information is a key intranet benefit. The right intranet can:
- Reduce confusion and misinformation
- Ensure consistency in messaging and policy
- Simplify information updates
- Reduce time spent searching for information
2. Leverage AI-powered personalization and targeting
With 87% of our survey respondents agreeing that AI is or will become an important resource within their organization, now is the time to close the gap between awareness and implementation to improve employee communications.
Driving engagement and increasing job satisfaction, AI-powered intranets enable targeted messages that cut through the noise, reaching the right employees in the right channels and the right time. They facilitate real-time updates and the ability to easily connect across devices and locations.
These dynamic, interactive platforms mirror the speed and flexibility of the communication tools your people use in their personal lives.
The most effective intranets offer personalized, multichannel employee communication options, from instant messaging and activity feeds to video conferencing and collaborative workspaces. They provide the speed of texting, the record-keeping of email, and the rich media experience of social platforms — all in a secure, work-appropriate environment. Multi-language support also helps ensure inclusivity as you scale, which is particularly important as workforces become increasingly global and diverse.
3. Unify recognition and rewards
Sixty percent of our survey respondents consider employee recognition a key feature of effective intranets — and we know that fostering a culture of appreciation enhances well-being and improves retention. “In the face of a global talent shortage, the quality of employee experience becomes a strategic differentiator,” says Miriam Connaughton, Simpplr’s Chief People & Experience Officer. “Companies that nurture their talent through continuous learning and meaningful recognition will lead the way.”
The most effective intranets support a recognition and rewards strategy that ensures recognition is personalized and timely and comes from all directions, and that rewards include financial and non-financial incentives which your people value and that echo your culture.
Intranets with unified recognition and rewards capabilities, powered by AI, make recognizing your people effortless and impactful.
From timely prompts for birthdays and work anniversaries, to personalized acknowledgments and insightful analytics prompting recommendations for action, intranet platforms that unify rewards and recognition ensure your people feel valued and appreciated in real time. “Imagine recognition that intuitively adapts to each employee’s unique contributions, within a system that’s so seamlessly integrated and intelligent that it becomes part of the daily workflow,” Miriam says. “AI-powered platforms like Simpplr do this, fostering personalized recognition that is meaningful and making a culture of recognition more easily attainable.”
Learn more about Simpplr’s Recognition and Rewards
4. Enable frictionless connections between people and the tools they need to do their best work
Using the intranet to connect and engage employees emerged as the highest priority in our survey, with 34% of respondents emphasizing its importance. Nearly a quarter of respondents highlighted the ability to connect employees with the right coworkers as one of the top two benefits of an intranet, and almost everyone (87%) agreed that facilitating cross-departmental collaboration and knowledge sharing was a critical function of their intranet.
Our data shows that the vast majority of respondents (86%) agree or strongly agree that their organization’s intranet makes collaborating simpler — underscoring the critical role an employee experience management platform plays in facilitating teamwork within modern organizations.
By providing tools for real-time communication, document sharing, project management and more, intranets reduce the friction often associated with teamwork — especially for highly distributed teams.
This ease of collaboration can lead to increased productivity, faster decision-making, and more innovative problem-solving and cohesion regardless of physical location.
One of the ways that the more advanced intranet providers create value and impact is through integrations. Nearly every respondent with an intranet said it integrated with two or more types of systems.
Leverage intranet features like employee directories, social feeds and instant messaging integrations (e.g., Slack, Teams) to make it simple for your people to connect with each other from one place — allowing them to move effortlessly between different modes of communication and collaboration. Our data reveals that 48% of respondents benefit from the integration of social, chat and collaboration tools. This is especially crucial for remote workers, with 55% reporting that intranets provide a sense of connection vs. 33% of in-office workers.
In addition to integrations with social collaboration tools, the high rate of integration (51%) with document management and IT helpdesk systems makes clear the importance of providing seamless access to business-critical files and documents and giving your people instant access to IT support services directly through the intranet. Integrated functionality like an AI Assistant decreases the time and effort it takes to log tickets and can reduce ticket volumes by making it easy for employees to quickly find answers, update information, and effortlessly resolve HR and IT requests.
5. Leverage robust analytics to keep a pulse on employee sentiment and take action
When employees feel heard and understood, it positively impacts their job satisfaction and confidence. By actively addressing their concerns and implementing improvements based on their feedback, you can significantly enhance employee retention rates, reduce turnover, and foster a positive work culture. Our survey found that 55% of respondents use employee engagement surveys to solicit feedback — but while surveys are valuable tools, they only measure a single point in time.
The best intranets centralize employee surveys, sentiment, engagement and insights in a unified platform.
Powered by AI, they gather and analyze employee signals across the platform — including surveys, sentiment checks, and everyday interactions like comments — so you gain a clearer, holistic view of employee sentiment. Unfortunately, 44% of our survey respondents who rated their intranet as “poor” and 50% who rated their platform as “very poor” cited sub-par intranet analytics as a barrier to success.
To deepen your employee listening strategy, leverage an intranet that augments surveys with AI-powered sentiment analysis and passive listening to empower leaders with actionable insights to elevate the employee experience. The best intranets support managers with team dashboards that give them instant access to employee feedback and sentiment data, offering real-time insights into the drivers of sentiment and recommendations to turn those insights into action.
6. Streamline and personalize onboarding
By providing role-specific content, tasks and training in one easy-to-navigate digital work hub, AI can tailor the onboarding experience for each new hire. With 81% of respondents agreeing that effective intranets improve the onboarding experience, this strategy can significantly impact new hire success and retention.
An intranet that leverages AI to tailor onboarding for each individual ensures that every new hire receives exactly what they need to integrate, learn and succeed from day one.
The best intranets bridge the gap between seasoned employees with years of institutional knowledge and less-tenured staff who “don’t know what they don’t know.” For example, the right intranet platform can streamline and automate onboarding workflows and facilitate mentorship programs that make it easy for experienced team members to share their expertise with newcomers. Additionally, you can send targeted communications encouraging existing employees to reach out to new hires, helping them quickly learn who’s who and build valuable connections.
7. Showcase your employee experience technology to attract talent
Industry-leading intranet technology demonstrates a commitment to providing cutting-edge tools that enhance the employee experience and facilitate meaningful work — and that’s a key ingredient for branding your organization as a place people want to work.
Leverage the state of your employee technology as a component of your employment brand.
People do not want to work for companies that make it unnecessarily hard for them to do their job because they underinvest or are not thoughtful with their approach to workplace tech. Demonstrate your ability, agility and strategic approach, then incorporate your intranet into the onboarding process to ensure your employment brand during recruiting actually meshes with peoples’ experience when they get onboard.
Read the executive summary for key findings from our full State of the Intranet and Future of Employee Technology report
Transform talent management with the right intranet technology
By implementing these strategies, you can create a digital workplace that attracts top talent and keeps them engaged and committed to the organization. The most powerful intranet platforms include features and functionality that enable employees to connect and collaborate no matter where or how they work, give and receive meaningful recognition, and align with their organization’s mission and values. These pivotal employee experience platforms help build inclusive company cultures and make your people feel appreciated and valued for their individual and collective contributions to the organization’s success.
As you’ve gleaned from our research, a well-designed intranet can significantly influence key metrics such as employee engagement, well-being and retention. At a time when it’s never been more challenging to attract, engage and retain great talent, a best-in-class intranet can be the difference-maker.
How Simpplr can help
Ready to transform your approach to talent management? Request a demo to learn about our comprehensive employee experience management platform. Our platform streamlines and automates end-to-end employee experience — from new hire onboarding to real-time sensing to HR services delivery.
