Ever feel out of touch your colleagues or out of step with your company? Do you understand your organization’s latest strategies – and how you fit in? Do you know exactly what’s expected of you, day by day, moment by moment, and where to find all the people and resources you need to succeed?

It’s not easy. Not when people, conversations and processes are siloed in a multitude of locations, apps and disconnected channels. Not when you’re deluged by non-stop communications and an onslaught of information, much of it irrelevant to your actual job.

Why Interactive Intranets Are Critical

The sheer complexity and near-chaos of work today are taking a huge toll. On corporate productivity. On operational efficiencies. On employee engagement and organizational alignment.

That’s why interactive intranets have become so indispensable to enterprises around the globe. To be clear, by “interactive intranet,” we mean something very different than the traditional company intranet. While the latter is often little more than a static website and repository for aging content, interactive intranets are vibrant people-centric hubs: places to meet and interact with colleagues; find essential information; keep track of what’s happening with your company and department; assemble teams and tackle projects together; share knowledge and expertise; and more.

There’s not enough room in one blog post to cover all the reasons why interactive intranets are a must-have platform for businesses these days, so we’ll make a long story short and just focus on the top five:

1. High-Impact Corporate Communications

For companies teams struggling to get the attention of busy, distracted employees, an interactive intranet can be a game changer. Corporate communicators and executives can easily publish eye-catching articles, blogs and announcements that are instantly delivered to employees in highly relevant, personalized news streams. Even “deskless” workers without computers (or company email addresses) get communications in a highly visible, consumable form, thanks to easy-to-use mobile intranet apps. And unlike traditional one-way corporate communications (email blasts, newsletters, static intranet postings), interactive intranets support rich two-way engagement. Employees can comment, ask questions, share and contribute ideas – turning passive consumers into active participants.

2. Better Collaboration

Interactive intranets function as full-fledged digital workspaces, offering one-stop access to all the people, information and tools that teams, groups and departments need to get work done. Interactive intranets can also pull in information from external collaboration and communication tools (SharePoint, Office 365, Google G Suite, etc.), bringing formerly siloed content and conversations into one centralized, searchable and organized environment. The impacts can be enormous. Companies that use Jive Interactive Intranets see a 15% increase in productivity, along with a 21% decrease in email and a 16% reduction in meetings (all based on independently verified research).

3. Greater Connection

An interactive intranet is an engine of connection. Employees meet each other in team and departmental spaces and comment strings. They form communities of practice and social groups. They find each other using built-in organizational directories that enable them to search by role, interests and expertise. They can “follow” and @mention each other to stay abreast of important developments and activities. Networks form organically and rapidly, bringing together people across the organization to quickly solve problems and accomplish tasks. Regardless of their physical location, people are always working together side-by-side in the interactive intranet.

4. Increased Employee Engagement

By helping employees feel better connected to their company and colleagues; by enabling them to get more work done with fewer frustrations; and by fostering a more collaborative, cohesive culture, interactive intranets fuel engagement like almost nothing else. Engagement, in turn, is a key to recruiting and retention. Companies using Jive Interactive Intranets, for example, reduce employee turnover by 24% on average. Given that the cost of replacing even a single employee ranges from thousands to hundreds of thousands of dollars (depending on level and salary), a 24% drop in turnover can give a massive boost to the bottom line.

5. Corporate Memory and Knowledge Sharing

Companies have a large investment in “intellectual capital,” which includes ideas, inventions, practices and the collective know-how of employees. Much of that investment goes to waste when that knowledge isn’t shared, or when it’s forgotten or permanently lost, as often happens when employees leave the company. The resulting brain drain and “corporate amnesia” hamper innovation, learning and execution. An interactive intranet gives organizations a way to create, capture and capitalize knowledge. Business-critical information, content, decisions and processes are collected and preserved in the intranet – organized, searchable and re-usable. In effect, the interactive intranet is a form of institutional memory, enabling businesses to learn and get smarter over time.

Any one of these five benefits would be reason enough to go with an interactive intranet. Together, the case is overwhelming. And, as we said before, these are only the top five of many selling points!

Learn more about the transformative impacts a best-in-class intranet can have on your business. Read the white paper "8 Ways Companies Achieve Breakthrough Business Results with Jive."