For businesses looking to better streamline their business processes, there is no better way than having a fully-functioning intranet. When choosing the right intranet solution, there are many things to consider. Your intranet should reflect your business and provide your employees with the right tools to help them succeed in their job. A good intranet functions as the main point of reference for information, but through the use of social features it can also help teams work more collaboratively even when they work remotely. The following list provides some tips and key information so that you can make a more informed choice when choosing the right solution for your business. Forum and commenting capabilities A good intranet makes it easier for employees to share information and ideas. As a result, this should help foster good organisational communication. Allowing staff to comment on news articles can also have positive benefits to the organisation as it can help staff stay more engaged and invested in what is happening around the business. Forums provide a more organised way to display public discussions. More importantly, they provide an outlet for sharing ideas and participating which can lead to more innovative and creative ideas for management to consider. Calendar Calendars allow teams to keep on top of upcoming events, meetings and deadlines. A good intranet would have a comprehensive calendar system that allows users to create events and add important information such as time, place, attendees and set up of category filters. Required reading A required reading functionality allows management to track documents, training materials, health and safety information, induction or other materials that are required for their teams or work units. It ensures that employees are up to date on important company information and makes it easy for managers and directors to disseminate information easily and keep record of who has or hasn’t read the information. Bookmarks / favourites Once your intranet is up and running you will surely have a lot of content and you'll need to find a way to access important information quickly and easily. Bookmarks or favourites help you “save” items that you access regularly or contain information you want to access later. This helps teams save valuable time that they would otherwise be spending searching for information. Smart search and information discovery As your organisation grows you need an intranet capable of handling the expanding catalog of documents and information. Information discovery is an important part of day to day business processes, by not having a good categorisation (tagging system) you risk wasting precious time looking for information on the intranet. Tribe contains multiple tagging systems to allow users to search the way their are most comfortable with and quickly refine their search results. Easy to use user interface and design Your intranet's user interface (UI) should be as simple as possible, to ensure the easiest experience for the user. The UI is the part of the intranet that relates to the functionality such as the dashboard, buttons, layout, filters, etc. The user interface helps the user navigate the intranet and therefore it has a big impact on the way your employees will interact with it. If the user interface is difficult or confusing it will create frustration and discourage people from using it which will create inefficiencies in the long run. Design The design of your intranet is one of the key elements of the user experience. The design is the look and feel of your site. A well designed intranet, which is clean and minimalistic not only makes it pleasing to the eye and inviting, but also makes it easier to navigate. A messy, unorganised or convoluted design will make even the best features difficult to use. Quick and Easy to implement Launching an intranet can be a complicated and time-consuming process. Especially if it is handled in house. When looking for an intranet solution it is best that a specialist team manages the launch process in full, o therwise your IT will have extra stress and additional work to deal with. But most importantly, they are bound to run into implementation issues because they might not fully understand how the technology works. A fully-integrated intranet with all the features out of the box and managed by a dedicated team of experts ensures that the implementation will run smoothly and you can focus on growing your business. Compatibility This aspect is often overlooked, but depending on your business network setup, some technologies might not be compatible right out of the box. Particularly for government and local councils, certain restrictions may apply. Make sure you discuss this with the service provider to ensure that the solution will work for you. Simple administration A well designed intranet should make it easy for anyone in the organisation to manage all aspects of the intranet. This empowers users to make smart decisions and contribute to the upkeep of the intranet, keeping it relevant and up to date. It also spreads the responsibility so that you don’t rely on one individual or a small number of administrators. If administration is made difficult, the intranet will most definitely suffer and quickly become dated as a result. Mobile responsive Nowadays many people do as much work on their mobiles and other mobile devices as they do on their desktops or laptops. Moreover, remote staff might need to access files and information while they are out in the field. Therefore, being able to access the intranet remotely from a mobile device is a must in today's day and age. An intranet that is designed with mobile functionality in mind will ensure that your platform has a longer shelf life as we transition to a more mobile work environment. ...in conclusion A good intranet works as a central point for your staff to share ideas and gather important information. Managing information sharing in a systematic way will help your company’s overall success. There are a lot of options available in the marketplace; therefore, it’s important to do some research and choose a product that is compatible with your IT infrastructure, is mobile friendly and that meets the unique requirements of your organisation. Ask yourself: What areas within the business do I want to improve? Eg: Encourage more collaboration across working units? Improve internal communications? What features do I need to achieve our goals? Eg: Smart search? Forums? Is this product flexible and easy enough to use for everyone in the organisation? Are there other added benefits this products offer beyond my business goals? Motivated and engaged employees are the foundation of any organisation. Collaboration and strong internal communications will lead to better results. Good intranets can greatly improve the day to day work environment for your staff, boosting morale and productivity; which in turn will help your business grow and thrive. Invest in a product that provides you with a great interface, that is mobile responsive and contains all the features that will help your staff communicate and collaborate better. Try Tribe today! Contact us today for a live demonstration and find out how quickly you could be boosting productivity with Tribe.

Simple and easy to use Intranets are becoming harder and harder to find. The more bells and whistles that are added, the greater the confusion and stress for staff; leading to lower productivity. There is no doubting the effect that technology has had in our lives. We have never been more connected. We are able to share information in real time to millions of people anywhere. Technology has also improved productivity in the workplace by making processes a lot faster and more efficient. This has helped organisations become more agile and achieve greater efficiencies. Infact, information technology has made it easier to communicate when staff are located in different corners of the globe or even the floor below, which in turn has helped us work more collaboratively. However, having the wrong mix of tools in your technology toolkit can often have the opposite effect. Providing employees with the wrong technology can lead to disengagement. According to Gallup , actively disengaged employees cost the U.S. $450 to $550 billion per year in lost productivity. On the other hand, highly engaged employees tend to be more productive, estimated to be up to 38 percent. In addition, happiness in the workplace can boost productivity by about 12 percent and making communication more efficient can also help employees become more productive, up to 25 percent. Therefore investing in an intranet that is easy to use can make a big difference in helping your team achieve great results. Tribe is a tool that is simple to use and is built with achieving high productivity in mind. Features such as ‘Teams’ allow for more focused communications within working units. Within it, members can find information specific to their group including team events, team documents and team contacts. Tribe is also great for teams on the go as it can be accessed remotely from their phone or tablet . Login is securely managed through active directory integration so that users have access to key documents and forms from the field. Contact us today for a live demonstration and find out how quickly you could be boosting productivity with Tribe.