What does an intranet say about an organisation’s culture? Possibly more than you’d think…

I’ve recently had the opportunity to look at newly launched intranets in two different organisations - both large, risk averse, geographically-spread and with diverse functions. Their intranets show a very different cultural approach to the role of staff in building organisational success.

Many organisations are shifting from a ‘top down’ management style to a more collaborative approach where staff are encouraged to solve problems and have their say – the end result being a more engaged and motivated workforce. 

One created a fairly traditional intranet serving as a repository of information and a channel for broadcasting messages from the communications team in home page stories. The only interactive feature was a “noticeboard” forum, where moderators deleted messages critical (or perceived to be critical) of the organisation’s current work and its leadership.

The other organisation also used its intranet as a repository of information. But it also saw it as place for staff to meet and collaborate and so incorporated social features – such as blogs, wikis, forums and personal networking – throughout. Social features were used by both the organisation’s staff and its leaders and they openly discussed the way things are and how they could be improved.

These different approaches reflect different organisational cultures: one is hierarchical and sees open discussion as threatening; the other is collaborative and sees open conversations with staff as a way of improving the way it works.

We know that open collaborative cultures outperform closed hierarchical ones, both in terms of staff engagement and in terms of organisational performance. Some try to introduce collaborative forums in hierarchical organisations in the hope that they will change. These attempts are often doomed: an organisation cannot be truly open and collaborative if its leadership isn’t. And social media will simply expose leaders as disengaged if they are not willing to change.

An organisation’s intranet speaks volumes about its organisational culture. 

What does your intranet say to staff about your organisation’s culture?