Why Does HR Struggle to Persuade Leadership of Intranet Value?
More employees are onboarding in a hybrid and remote way than ever before. Few workplaces, however, are prepared to provide ample tools and technology to help those employees get started on the right foot.
This summer Origami Software surveyed 200 organizations in North America, Europe, and Oceania on all aspects of their workplace technology. In organizations with 100 to 500 employees, 1 in every 4 surveyed HR professionals said their organization failed to provide such basic employee tools as documented policies and procedures. Almost half lacked performance management and tracking tools, and even fewer reported established career and development programs – let alone Diversity Equity and Inclusion programs, which exist only in about 1 out of every 3 of those organizations.
In 2020, 32% of workers who quit their jobs believed that technology “was a barrier to their ability to do good work,” up from 22% pre-pandemic, according to Workfront, 2021.
With this pressure mounting, many leaders push to implement digital HR solutions and engagement tools like company intranets—yet they are often completed in a silo. HR initiates almost 80% of the intranet projects in mid-sized companies.
While it’s great that HR takes the initiative to bolster the company intranet and technology, the news isn’t all good.
HR stands alone
Many critical business projects, such as the implementation of a company intranet, are not recognized as company-wide initiatives—by leaders or employees.
More than two-thirds of these initiatives are treated as HR department projects and fail to receive adequate support from IT and company leadership. For example, we often come across a startling budget expectation where the entire intranet cost is expected to be about 1 month of the average FTE salary. With such a small budget and such a large job, there is no time allocated for project management, technology support, or even training on how to use the tool.
In fact, the vast majority of HR-initiated intranet projects are implemented by the same person, in-house, who is also running an already busy HR operation.
It’s no wonder that many of these projects result in poor employee adoption and ultimately fail to meet business needs. This can frustrate employees and HR teams and lead to lower engagement and longevity.
So what can be done differently? The survey data provides some useful insights for companies.
Why is project complexity so poorly understood?
Through our study of intranet projects, we discovered a correlation between leadership support and how many departments work together on a given project.
Naturally, leadership support and approval are easier when HR collaborates with IT on a technology project. More specifically, when HR actively collaborates with IT during software selection, leaders amplify their view of the project as a strategic priority—more than doubling their support.
What causes this shift?
According to our survey, IT teams innately understand the complexity of running a software project and can help HR pros relay that in the business case with the leadership.
When analyzing the most valuable services and features for IT as compared with non-IT survey respondents, we see that IT is twice as interested in project management and training for software projects than their non-IT counterparts. Project management, particularly when multiple teams across an organization come together, can make the difference between successful technology implementations that encourage employee loyalty and wasted time and money from a lackluster effort.
Why is project management so important for successful intranet implementation?
If we look at the scope of HR-centric intranets, it often appears to be limited. Many such intranets have a page or two to help employees access policies and handbooks, locate onboarding resources, and that’s it. This relatively small initiative doesn’t sound like it would require IT or a significant budget. So departments often buy a silo tool to solve their needs.
So why do we need to complicate things with the project management?
Any process and technology introduction is a change, even if it makes our lives easier.
Employees and even leaders naturally see most changes as risks. Ask any change manager, and they will say that leadership support is a key success factor in any project implementation. Even leaders need to be guided through change.
Project managers are there to make sure that change is implemented gradually, consistently, and that the project stays on budget. This is critical for any technology project, intranets included.
How to find a budget?
You might be thinking, “that all sounds great but where do I find more funds if my budget was small to begin with?”
You can find it by combining forces with IT.
Instead of buying a one-off HR-centric software to meet two or three HR-specific needs, you can combine forces with IT on their ongoing digital transformation initiatives. For example, many IT departments are moving their software to the cloud and have room for additional components. These HR-specific components can often be added to the larger suite at a very low cost compared to buying a silo tool.
If your HR intranet solution could be part of the bigger IT initiative to move to the cloud while also including the needs of other departments, this would likely spark greater leadership interest, prioritization, and budgeting.
Stronger together: The value of combining forces with other departments and stakeholders
Recently, Origami had a chance to see how one HR leader at a professional services organization with 500 employees operating across 4 states successfully combined forces with IT to gain executive support for an intranet project.
The organization was moving their IT resources to the cloud as part of the digital transformation project. IT had been allocated a substantial budget to perform data migration and project management, and selected Microsoft 365 and SharePoint as a platform for moving forward.
The HR leader envisioned this as an opportunity to connect with IT and share resources. The scope for IT included data migration, employee productivity, and enabling remote work. The scope for HR was remote onboarding, policy access, and training.
Instead of buying an isolated intranet solution to only meet department needs, this HR leader worked with IT to include HR requirements as part of Microsoft 365 migration project. It turns out the requirements could be easily met with the platform, and IT picked up the cost for the project management, training, and support. As an added bonus, employees enjoyed a single sign-on experience without having to log into a separate system for HR-specific needs.
The bottom line
HR leaders are often surprised that their department’s needs can be easily met within the scope of larger IT projects and transformations. In reality, many intranets already come with features that can readily solve HR needs. Start by collaborating with your IT counterpart to see whether you can combine forces and enhance the employee experience, all while saving time and money.
Authored by Yaroslav Pentsarskyy, origamiconnect.com