Poll reveals what employees want most on an intranet

“The world has become so much more interactive and participatory, so it makes sense that employees demand the same from their intranets,” says William Amurgis, director of internal communications at American Electric Power. “We manage our intranet with the understanding that consumer technology drives employee expectations at work.”

Smaller groups said they want to see cleaned-up and improved content, mobile access, and more automated processes.

The unscientific poll’s results certainly highlight what intranet users want, but the numbers warrant a bit of scrutiny, Amurgis and other intranet experts say.

Numbers bolster anecdotal evidence…

Stephen Rahal, marketing communications director at Igloo Software, says the poll’s responses certainly reflect what he’s seen.

“It’s also often difficult to find information,” he says. “Content is buried beneath multiple levels of hierarchy, and search capabilities are poor.”

Likewise, he says, content is often stale, because only certain people have access to content-management tools.

“There is an inherent limitation on how well content can be maintained and the frequency in which it can be updated within a traditional corporate intranet,” he says.