A big part of internal communications planning involves managing an editorial calendar and keeping engaging content coming.
For intranets, content is king! Thus, our Intranet Content Blog Series focuses on several practical content tips organizations can use to keep employees coming back to the intranet.
On a recent webinar with KAR Auction Services, our guest presenter brought up the concept of what they call “Digital Coffee Breaks”. Different companies may brand these sites with other types of clever names, but the premise is simple: we all need to take occasional breaks during our workday to recharge. Why not have a place within the intranet specifically for these moments?
Intranet engagement: more than just documents
Essentially, this section of your intranet is carved out for interesting or helpful distractions, which should drive more frequent intranet engagement and help create the same sort of addictive muscle memory we get in our personal lives, like how we habitually check the same apps multiple times a day even though we don’t need to.
Here are some intranet engagement content ideas that help recharge employees:
An intranet can be a place to post articles that help boost employee productivity in the workplace, such as:
- Ways to improve your presentation skills
- Tips to show appreciation in the workplace
- Clever lifehacker style tips, like how to get on top of your email
- Tips to become more productive in the workplace
Share articles that may help you become a better person:
- Exercise tips for busy travelers
- Various TED talks that challenge you personally and professionally
- Tips to tackle procrastination
- How to keep your work-life balance in check
While others are just interesting, classic clickbait never gets old:
- Quizzes that guess where you’re from based on whether you say soda or pop
- Polls on whether you see a blue dress or a gold dress (and the psychology of why we’re different)
Social chatter or feed on the intranet
And ultimately, if you’re open to using social feeds in your intranet, the crowd uses it as a forum to share their own articles, funny musings, jokes, or life advice. This is where we see these sites really take off.
None of the content ideas are specifically unique, and many have been referenced in our ongoing content engagement series. The beauty is in internal branding. Much like the Seinfeld generation loved the concept of a show about nothing, employees are encouraged to hear about a place built for them to take a break and recharge.
Four elements you need to create intranet engagement:
- People
- Get interesting who can curate interesting content every day to get the momentum moving
- Promotion
- Promote this site and explain this is built to offer stress relief, provide helpful tips, and forge connections across the workplace
- Cultural willingness
- Foster the social aspect and show that it’s better for employees to connect here than on their personal Instagram (or other social media) accounts
- Moderators
- Choose excited employees to ensure the crowdsourced content stays appropriate and doesn’t go off the rails
When done well, digital intranet coffee breaks can help achieve all of the major benefits of an intranet: connecting distributed employees, boosting culture and employee engagement, bolstering a stronger sense of community, encouraging employees to take on a growth mindset, etc. Plus, let’s be honest, it’s a great tool to drive people back to the intranet on an ongoing basis.
Keep your organization engaged! Check out our intranet content blog series:
Create a “person on the street” videos for engagement
Creating a roadmap for your humans of New York-style videos
Intranet content CEO playbook
Essential content every intranet needs
Getting employees to complete their profiles
Intranet topics to engage employees for every month
