Senior managers should use, not just support, the intranet

Posted on April 12th, 2007 in Customer Centric, Intranets.

Toby Ward’s excellent series of intranet case studies illustrates, through a Nordea case study, an often underestimated dimension of intranet success: Senior managers personal use of the intranet.

We all want “management support”, right? Well, often enough we have it. In words. They say they understand and value the intranet. They want it to be the working tool of all employees.

But can anyone really understand and deal with the challenges of a staff centric intranet without using it regularly themselves? Getting senior managers to use the intranet might just be one of the most important tasks of your Intranet Team.

One of the reasons behind the portal’s success is the active involvement and support from senior management. “Senior management has been very actively involved during all stages of the development and implementation,” says Nordea Head of Online Group Communications, Kim Grue. “They all use the Intranet heavily supported by their own Communication Partner and their Management Support functions.”

 

3 responses

  1. Gerry McGovern (blog author) says:

    Added on April 12th, 2007 at 7:47 am

    Good point. Practice what you preach. We tend to follow the lead of those supposed to lead us. If senior managers are not using the intranet then the message is that the intranet is not that important.

  2. Bob Johnson says:

    Added on April 12th, 2007 at 10:04 pm

    A client meeting just today extends this message… successful intranets have to have content that people in the organization will want to see.

    Much discussion about how to get faculty and staff on campus involved with a proposed branding campaign. But little thought of how to use the school’s website to present external ads to the internal community before they are seen by the public. TV, print, radio ads all have a place on the web for promotion within the organization… create internal pride and buzz and just plain awareness. Then you avoid the otherwise inevitable scenes where friends and neighbors end up telling faculty and staff (in this case) about the ad just heard, read, or seen.

    For examples of how to do this right, see the University of Minnesota at http://www.brand.umn.edu/discover/howItUnfolds/index.php and another at St. John Fisher College at http://www.sjfc.edu/media/2007AdCampaign.asp

  3. Brian Lamb (blog author) says:

    Added on April 15th, 2007 at 11:52 am

    I agree that senior management support is vital but getting it for the mundane things (that intranets can do really well) is difficult. Managers tend to have some pretty specific tasks they want to do on the Intranet but the low number of transactions on these tasks makes the case for investment weaker. To get them fully engaged (and supportive) you need to show explicitly how much money every effort on your intranet can save or add to the bottom line.

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