Site Governance

Key Resource - Intranet Manager

The intranet is an ongoing, continuous change project. The project does not stop at launch; instead, to ensure that it delivers a ‘better experience’ for employees, it must have focused resources (including staff time and budget).

With that in mind, an intranet requires dedicated resources, such as an intranet manager, to thrive. It is essential that an Intranet manager is assigned at the beginning of the project.

An Intranet Manager is responsible for the overall visual design, site navigation, site content, engagement and training of content managers, coordination with key stakeholders, and oversight of the technology.

This role usually sits within the Communications team of an organisation but should also have a strong connection to the Quality, Governance, and IT departments.

The following table is an example of primary responsibilities an Intranet Manager may have within an organisation. It can help your organisation understand the scope and breadth of the tasks (strategic and operational) needed to maintain and grow the intranet.

Intranet Manager – Primary Responsibilities

Content and data:The words on the intranet

• Manage the homepage to maintain a proper balance of content and tools
• Maintain an employee-led site navigation (information architecture)
• Oversee authoring and proper use of online channels for official company news
• Lead projects to improve sections of the intranet or deliver new tools through the intranet
• Monitor user-generated content for appropriateness (titles and metadata including contacts, descriptions, categories)
• Monitor site analytics and report on key performance indicators (KPIs)
• Review search terms used by employees to assess missing content and inadequately labelled content
• Monitoring and deletion of duplicate content
• Policies and procedures – for content creation, page layouts, workflow and approval processes and home page governance.
• Content – writing, creation, maintaining, auditing, reviewing, migration from other systems and meta data. Co-ordinate the update of content between many parties

Technology: The underlying hardware and software

• Ensure proper coordination between the IT Department and intranet software vendors
• Manage common administrative tasks in the intranet software

Engagement: Interaction with users and stakeholders

• Coordinate the efforts of central content owners, including an annual review of articles and section pages
• Support intranet group owners in maintaining active communities
• Provide training and support to administrators
• Involve users in structured feedback and planning activities
• Conduct research on an annual basis to understand user needs around content, functionality, and navigation
• Work closely with key stakeholders to understand their needs and involve them in planning and problem solving (including Communications, IT, HR, Risk and Legal, as well as executives and administrative employees)
• Intranet usage – analysing site usage and trends, reviewing content and quality.
• Needs analysis – conducting regular needs analysis sessions, evaluating usability, recommending, and implementing improvements

Governance Model

A successful intranet relies on a business-supported governance model.

The key to a good model is adequate resourcing and disseminating ownership.

Intranets are not self-sustaining organisms. They need constant attention. User generated content and a well-set-up intranet will only take a site so far.

• Allowing for feedback, questions and comments is easy. It’s responding to this which requires resourcing. Have Service Level Agreements (SLAs) around how and when users will receive a response. Bring conversations and opinions into the heart of the intranet
• Commit internal resources to creating good content, including writing workshops or training
• There should be clear ownership and archiving processes
• Revise navigation as the site and/or organisation grows and changes
• Put a weekly, monthly and yearly content schedule in place, and make sure there are adequate resources to manage and maintain it. Staff must understand the reasons for updating the intranet, and must be provided with the time needed to make those changes.
• Create and maintain a rolling activations calendar for new features
• Schedule continuous improvement activities. The launched site is a first iteration that should be expected to change
• Define a content release schedule for news, annual events, staff accolades etc. Note - don't commit to a schedule ( e.g. for local news)  if there are no resources to maintain it
• Establish ongoing engagement activities

The Platform Owner should be appointed from top-level management. They should understand the importance of the intranet to the business, and be prepared to set the agenda for the intranet over the long term, in order to align with wider business needs. They should be able to put the case for the platform at the top management level and be able to secure budgets required for its successful ongoing operation. We recommend bi-annual meetings between the Platform Owner and the Platform Steering Committee in order to communicate top-level agendas.

The Platform Steering Committee consists of the Platform Manager and representatives from IT, Internal Comms and any other relevant business areas. They report bi-annually to the Platform Owner, and take the top-level agenda from the Platform Owner, putting into place execution plans.

The Platform Team, led by the Platform Manager, consists of the various content owners, producers and communicators as required for the daily operation of the platform and execution of any rolling activation plans.

Also included in this team are the platform champions, tasked with promoting local awareness and engagement with the platform. The platform team is responsible for responding to user queries, and can escalate any issues to the Platform Manager, who will raise it in turn with the Platform Steering Committee. They will work closely with SMLWRLD in the event of technical issues, or if any operational assistance is required.

Feedback

Create a dedicated intranet page to explain all possible routes of feedback:

• Feedback form (private form only seen by the Communications Team)
• Staff forum – intranet feedback topic (other staff can add to / comment on your ideas)
• Mark content as out of date
• Respond to feedback
  • Comment on individual posts ongoing
  • Do a summary each week of feedback / requested changes and say what has already been actioned (could be a news item)

User profile completion - align with staff processes

Staff profiles are critical for a complete and trusted intranet.

If possible, the completion of staff profiles should be:

• A Key Performance Indicator (KPI) within annual reviews 
• Part of the induction / new starter process - i.e. add  ‘has filled in their staff profile and been given a tour of the intranet’ to the induction checklist

Content updating and archiving

Articles can be set with review, archive and/or deletion dates. We recommend leveraging this functionality to ensure good content oversight.

Terminlogy:

• Archived articles: remain on the site but are displayed with an 'Archived - For reference only' watermark 
• Deleted articles: are no longer displayed on the site. Site administrators can access and re-instate deleted articles (if needed) from the Article Finder Tool

Process for notifying / automatically archiving content

• At the point of creation, an article must be given an archive date
• An email notification is sent to the article's author and/or contacts and/or content team to let them know the article is about to be archived
• If the article and its archive date are not updated, the article is then archived. An email notication is sent to confim this

The same process applies to automatically deleting content.