With limited time, resources or budget revamping your intranet may not be at the top of your priority list. But with remote and hybrid work fast becoming the norm, a seamless digital employee experience (DEX) has never been more critical.
Your intranet is key to that positive DEX and neglecting it could be costly.
Let’s dive in.
What is Digital Employee Experience?
Digital employee experience encompasses all the digital interactions and touchpoints that an employee has within your organisation.
It goes beyond simply providing technology tools and encompasses the entire journey, from onboarding to day-to-day operations, and extends as far as offboarding. A well-designed DEX ensures employees have easy access to the information, tools, and resources they need to perform their jobs efficiently and effectively.
Why Digital Employee Experience Matters
In the age of remote and hybrid working, the digital employee experience is paramount. It directly impacts employee satisfaction, productivity, and engagement. A seamless DEX fosters a positive work environment and empowers employees to be more productive and collaborative. It also helps attract and retain talent, as employees increasingly prioritise organisations that provide a modern, user-friendly digital workplace.
And employees do care. Over half think their organisation’s DEX needs a complete overhaul, or significant improvement.
“Once a luxury, an exceptional digital employee experience (DEX) is now a necessity.” – Forrester
Impact of a Poor Digital Employee Experience
Neglecting the digital employee experience can have detrimental effects on various aspects of your organisation.
Productivity
Employees struggling to find the information and resources they need to complete their tasks will result in decreased productivity. This inefficiency directly impacts revenue, as time wasted translates into missed opportunities and delayed deliverables.
59% have a central place for work-related information – like an intranet – yet employees still spend 5 hours a week searching for the things they need to do their job.
Simply having the tools in place isn’t the magic ingredient to boosting productivity. Having them designed and built in a way that’s intuitive and user friendly really makes the difference.
hours a week spent by employees searching for the information they need to do their jobs.
Retention
When employees feel frustrated and unsupported by their digital tools, they may become disengaged and seek opportunities elsewhere. This increases recruitment and training costs but also disrupts team dynamics and organisational continuity.
29% directly correlate poor digital experiences with employees leaving the company. In the UK, the average cost of turnover per employee is £30,614. If your turnover rate creeps over the average of 15% due to a poor DEX, that cost adds up to be…a lot.
Employees now expect the same from the digital experiences they have at work as they do in their personal lives. That means you’re competing with the likes of Netflix and Amazon. If your intranet is more Nokia 3310 than Netflix, your employees will go elsewhere to find better.
%
directly correlate poor digital experiences with employees leaving the company
The Bottom Line
With direct impacts on productivity and retention, your digital employee experience ultimately impacts your bottom line; companies with a strong employee experience see a 50% increase in revenue.
A modern, personalised, people-centred intranet is undoubtedly the starting point to give you that competitive edge.
%
increase in revenue with a strong employee experience
How Your Intranet Can Improve Digital Employee Experience
Investing in your intranet unlocks a range of benefits that enhance employee engagement, collaboration, and overall productivity.
1. Improved Employee Engagement
An intranet with personalised, relevant content specific to individual roles, departments and locations can help promote employee engagement. It serves as a central hub for news, updates, and announcements, fostering a sense of community and connection among remote and hybrid teams.
A generic, outdated intranet that doesn’t serve employees the content they want and need, simply won’t be used.
By integrating tools like MyTools or Viva Connections with your SharePoint intranet, you can serve that personal, Netflix-like experience that employees crave.
See How MyTools Can Help You Create a Personalised Digital Employee Experience
2. Enhanced Collaboration
SharePoint intranets offer powerful collaboration features, enabling seamless collaboration on projects, documents, and tasks. With features like document version control, real-time editing, and team sites, employees can work together efficiently, regardless of their physical location.
Designing your intranet with collaboration in mind makes it more than just a news site. It makes it a daily destination for employees to get the job done.
3. Streamlined Access to Information
A revamped intranet ensures everyone can easily find the information they need to perform their roles. Intuitive navigation, search functionality, and well-organised content make it effortless to access policies, procedures, training materials, and other resources, saving valuable time and effort.
Working with UX experts to curate an intuitive SharePoint architecture cuts down on those hours wasted each week searching for information, giving your employees time back to work on the tasks that matter.
4. Increased Productivity
Improving access to information and streamlining workflows empowers employees to work more efficiently. Automated processes, integrated applications, and personalised dashboards enable employees to complete tasks faster and with fewer errors, meaning increased productivity across your organisation.
Workflows and chatbots in Power Platform can help you embed those automated processes. Building automation into your intranet from the start will give it that modern edge that makes employees lives easier.
5. Sense of Belonging and Culture
The 2023 Gallagher report states that the main purpose of internal communications is to support culture and belonging. A well-designed intranet can help you do just that.
Features like employee profiles, discussion forums, and social collaboration tools like Viva Engage create opportunities for virtual water cooler conversations, team-building, and knowledge sharing. This helps build a positive organisational culture, even in remote and hybrid settings.
Tools like Beacon can also create that sense of community by bringing your company brand into SharePoint. Remote and hybrid working means that offices adorned with logos and branded merch are no longer the centre point of organisational identity. Investing that same level of care into branding your online spaces is a vital step in transitioning your employee experience into the digital world.
Bring Your Brand Into SharePoint with Beacon
Neglecting your intranet can be costly for your organisation. In the era of remote and hybrid work, a seamless DEX is crucial for productivity, engagement, and retention. Investing in your SharePoint intranet can save time and boost productivity, whilst also fostering a sense of belonging, improving organisational culture and enhancing employee satisfaction – ultimately giving you a better DEX.
Don’t let limited time, resources, or budget hinder your intranet refresh. Consider the long-term benefits and the potential costs of ignoring the digital employee experience. Take the necessary steps to optimise your SharePoint intranet and create a digital workplace that empowers your employees to thrive.
Start prioritising your intranet project today, and reap the rewards of a revitalised digital employee experience. Your employees and your organisation will thank you for it.
Get in touch to find out how we can help you improve your digital employee experience using Microsoft 365.
