Information is power. Understanding how a digital initiative is performing enables us to assess its effectiveness and take actions geared towards continuous improvement. This also applies to the digital workplace landscape, where analytics play a crucial role: as important as the tools and functionalities provided to employees or collaborators are, administrators of the Digital Workplace must have the ability to understand how users use and interact with them. This allows for the identification and leverage of strengths, as well as the identification of potential areas for improvement in initiatives.
In this article, we will explore the importance of analytics in intranets: what they consist of, the main benefits they bring, and the requirements they must meet to be useful.
Employee experience, the axis of talent attraction and retention
We start from the premise that the digital workplace, in its entirety, is the natural evolution of the workplace. It provides more effective ways of working and, among other things, enhances employee engagement and efficiency.
But what do we mean when we talk about the digital workplace? As of today, it is understood that a digital workplace is a set of collaboration, productivity, and security tools with the intranet at its core.
In recent years, organizations have been placing greater importance on the digital experience of employees. In research published by Gartner in 2021, the following key conclusions were already drawn:
– Traditional labor policies lead to worker dissatisfaction, resulting in increased turnover and reduced productivity.
– The need to support new work models due to the pandemic has allowed companies to accelerate the adoption of digital workplace environments.
– The digital workplace has been recognized as a critical component for the resilience of companies.
Hence, organizations are increasingly placing importance on being able to provide employees and users with communication and collaboration platforms that serve as gateways to corporate information and work tools. These platforms also act as hubs for connecting with colleagues and powerful drivers for employee engagement.
In this context, where employees are becoming more demanding of companies and, in general, are the ones deciding where to work, the relevance of analytics applied to intranets becomes apparent.
What do analytics applied to intranets involve?
When we talk about analytics applied to intranets, we are referring to the measurement, collection, and analysis of data related to user activity, which is a central element for continuously improving the experience. Analytics allow us to measure the impact and, in this way, guide the constant renewal of the intranet to generate the best version of it at all times.
There are many parameters that can be measured to understand how the employee experience is unfolding. Here, we will focus on two of them, essential for assessing engagement with the intranet—namely, interest and activity. The more interest and activity employees show, the higher their engagement with the intranet will be.
Interest
Interest is the result of three metrics: active users, page depth, and frequency.
• Active users: These are unique users who visit the intranet within a specific period.
• Page depth: This refers to the number of pages a user visits during a session.
• Frequency: This pertains to the number of sessions a user opens on a specific day.
Activity
User activity is typically evaluated through a scoring system, wherein various user interactions receive a value or score. It is worth noting that the weighting—meaning the value assigned to different user interactions on the intranet—may vary based on the strategic objectives of each client.
This scoring approach allows for assessing whether a session is of high quality or not. Therefore, user activity is systematically calculated by assigning values to different actions, making it easier to understand and track the user’s level of engagement.
Measuring when everything changes
Analytics are an essential aspect of any Digital Workplace solution, allowing owners to assess the experience employees are having and consider whether the organization’s objectives are being achieved. While each organization will have specific goals to meet, a common objective can be identified: adapting to the ever-changing nature of the digital workspace.
The digital workplace should be understood as a dynamic environment that evolves in tandem with the changing needs of employees. Therefore, it is essential to measure and evaluate the impact of internal communication actions and the tools offered.
In this sense, an intranet must undergo constant changes and improvements to maintain employee interest. This implies that analytics themselves must also evolve, ensuring that they always provide useful information to understand how our intranet is performing.
Benefits provided by analytics to companies
Let’s explore the main advantages that analytics offer, both for the communication and collaboration experience of employees and for resource management by the organization.
Allow personalization and improvement of the employee experience
Analytics data can be used to personalize the user experience on the intranet, providing relevant content and specific functionalities based on the individual needs of each employee.
This goes beyond content presentation; it involves optimizing layout, functions, and shortcuts to enhance employee efficiency and satisfaction. Additionally, it entails developing new features that address real needs identified through analytics.
Moreover, analytics reveal which type of content is more or less popular among employees. This knowledge enables intranet administrators to adjust the information offering, ensuring that the content is relevant and valuable. This not only improves efficiency but also contributes to a more attractive and motivating work environment.
Enable informed decision-making
Analytics can pinpoint usage patterns, such as which sections of the intranet are the most visited, whether sessions have been of high quality, whether users have reached the information they need, and which content is more popular. This information can guide decision-making on how to organize and present information.
They provide quantitative data on intranet usage, allowing organizations to make evidence-based decisions. This includes identifying areas that need improvement, optimizing the intranet structure, and prioritizing content and features.
Aid in resource optimization
Intranet analytics enable organizations to allocate their resources more efficiently, focus on high-impact areas, and ensure maximum return on investment. They provide a detailed insight into usage and impact, allowing the identification of underutilized areas, improvement of relevant content and resources, optimization of features based on actual usage, efficient navigation, and strategic planning.
What requirements should these analytics meet?
As in any field where analytics are applied, it’s not about measuring just for the sake of it. The collected data must meet certain requirements, such as enabling measurement of goal achievement, identifying missing tools or solutions, as well as evaluating investments in the Digital Workplace that have not yielded results, are unused, or are not useful.
In essence, analytics in intranets are crucial for assessing the effectiveness of the digital workplace, enhancing the employee experience, and making informed decisions that contribute to the achievement of organizational objectives.
They are key to reinforcing employee engagement by providing a digital environment that facilitates communication, collaboration, and access to relevant information. They not only offer information about overall performance but also serve as the foundation for continuous improvement and customization that elevate the employee experience to new levels of efficiency and satisfaction.
Discover how you can perform a profound analysis of intranet performance in TŌGŌ with our Star feature Analytics.
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