I ran an intranet feedback session with the Brisbane staff the other day. It’s the first of my end 2007/08 series, next week it’s Sydney’s turn.
The morning commenced by luring them with “Dreamy Donuts”. Personally, I have heard of Krispy Kreme, but not these, but as they were close to work I thought “why not”. Food works, let me tell you. It helps to kick off the session with a bit of a giggle as well as that person in the corner confessing they have already eaten 4 !! I managed to not eat any, very proud !
I try to keep these sessions quite open to allow staff to input their opinions. And quite a few usually do. You have the usuals who don’t say much, so to engage them, we go around the table at one time and ask them the applications they use most on the intranet.
What came out of this session? Well, there were a few words on the front page that were confusing them.
- Like, we have “What’s New”, they didn’t realise it meant, “what’s new on the Intranet” (we’ll change the wording), and
- we also have “…in the news”, thinking they would realise it’s about the company, but they didn’t. So, wording needs to change to “Urbis in the news”.
It’s funny, but it can be minor things like this that cause staff confusion and make me realise we need to keep the intranet very simple in it’s wording. I just “presumed” it was simple, as Melbourne staff had told me they understood the wording. Not the same for other areas.
What’s the main big thing here? The Intranet doesn’t have a search engine, and that is mainly holding people back as they feel frustrated about where to find things next time. Well, that’s up to the powers that be to invest in…(EOM)
