3 Company Intranet Best Practices That Support Strong Teamwork

Editor's Note: Take a look at our featured best practice, The Blue-Green Game (35-slide PowerPoint presentation). Introduction and Objective: The Blue-Green Game is a team-building activity designed to highlight the significance of Win-Win thinking and effective teamwork. In many organizations, achieving a Win-Win situation where everyone benefits can be tough due to a lack of trust, communication, [read more]

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They say “teamwork makes the dream work,” and it’s true. You need a strong team to get big results in your business. Your team members run the daily operations that keep your business going. If your team isn’t in a state of flow and harmony, your business will quickly become disorganized and may even become chaotic.

There are countless strategies and systems you can use to strengthen your team. For example, you can send all of your team members to training seminars run by the world’s top leaders in business. However, when your team returns to the office, you need a company intranet in place to support the expression of their new skills. 

Whether you’re just getting a company intranet or you’ve had one for a while, here are 4 best practices to ensure your team gets the most out of your intranet.

1. Integrate your intranet with Google Workspace

When you integrate your intranet with Google Workspace, your team will have access to the company intranet and Google’s entire collection of productivity tools all in one spot. Condensing the number of accounts your team members need to log into is critical for strong teamwork.

Google’s productivity tools will prove to be reliable long-term; the company isn’t going out of business anytime soon, and a team works ‘round the clock to maintain applications.

Using a Google Workspace intranet reduces learning curves

Most people are already familiar with Google’s productivity tools, which means your team can hit the ground running with little to no learning curve.

If you choose to integrate your intranet with non-Google productivity tools, you’ll have to create and manage those integrations individually. If one company goes out of business, your team will lose access to that tool, and you’ll need to find a replacement. This means starting the learning curve all over again, which can tank productivity.

A strong teams requires strong, supportive tools. There are plenty of good tools on the market, but Google packs them all into one suite that’s easy to integrate into your company intranet.

2. Use your intranet to recognize team members

Recognizing your employees through the company intranet is ten times more powerful than privately recognizing each employee. Private recognition has its place, but people feel amazing when they’re recognized in front of their coworkers. 

Anything you do that makes your employees feel respected, appreciated, and valued will make them feel amazing, which will automatically make them stronger team players.

3. Use your intranet to reinforce company culture

A clearly defined company culture is central to fostering strong teamwork. If you haven’t established the company culture you want your team to embody, that should come first. Your team needs a company-defined set of values and behaviors to follow. Otherwise, they’ll create their own. 

Use your company intranet to reinforce your company culture. For example, if part of your company culture is not addressing mistakes in front of a group, make sure you follow that on your intranet. If you have a specific way of approaching employees about issues, use that same guideline when approaching them on the company intranet. 

Your intranet is an extension of your office. Interact with your team through your intranet exactly how you would in the office, according to the boundaries of your company culture.

The values and behaviors you model will determine how well your team works together. Strong teams are on the same page when it comes to company values and behaviors. They operate as one cohesive unit with all their gears going in the same direction.

Use your intranet, but don’t lean on it like a crutch

A strong company intranet can strengthen your team through organization and eliminating the nitty-gritty of application switching. However, an intranet is not a replacement for leadership. Strong teams are organized and on the same page, but they must be cultivated by a strong leader.

Use your company intranet to strengthen your team, but don’t depend on your intranet to get you all the results you want. Focus on hiring A-players from the start, then put in the time and effort to develop your team members fully. Training isn’t enough. Respecting your team’s expertise and backing off isn’t enough. 

You need to be on the mat with your team to develop, train, guide, and keep them on track. Strong teams are always developed by strong leaders.

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