Intranets are breaking down communication barriers, taking the way organizations communicate to a whole new level. |
It’s no surprise that local governments are always looking for ways to increase efficiencies. Providing your organization with an intranet is one way to do this. Don’t be left behind without an intranet connection! Intranets are breaking down communication barriers and taking the way organizations communicate to a whole new level.
An intranet is a private online network accessible only to an organization’s staff. Local Governments are realizing many benefits intranets offer through providing an online community for staff, with little or in some cases no additional costs.
There are options in how an organization chooses to structure their intranet. Access can be provided to staff through an IP address that can only be reached on site, or pages can be set up that are password protected. Intranets can be connected to your website, or set up as a separate website.
Contact an E-Gov representative to evaluate which option may suit your needs best.
While each organization may require different structure, or uses for their intranet, there are many universal benefits to be gained with an intrantet.
Following are some ways intranets help improve efficiencies for local governments:
Provide staff a quick and easy way to find documents, forms, directories, schedules and important information.
As they say time is money, and how often is time wasted by searching for information such as forms, schedules or directories, which are needed for daily tasks. Intranets allow you to store any information you would like in one searchable central place. This means sharing cross department information as well, which allows for immediate retrieval of information that otherwise may not be readily available for a staff member.
Give staff leverage to provide better service to citizens.
The range of services local governments provide to citizens is wide and very active on a day to day basis. Intranets provide staff with tools to proactively serve citizens versus being reactive and scrambling for information. For example, let’s say a citizen enquires about multi departmental information. Rather than routing that citizen to several different departments, the intranet will allow any staff member to efficiently find the tools to answer the citizen’s needs.
Provide private pages for council members or project based content.
Local governments are taking advantage of private pages to be utilized among council members. Some advantages recognized are ease of communication, ability to keep projects moving along, keeping all parties on task and up to date information on schedules, proposals, promotions and research. Additionally, open discussions can be initiated where best practices can be shared. Like pages designated to council members, private pages can also be created for special projects, giving access to appropriate staff members.
Promote open discussions across multiple departments.
Where does the time go? How many times do we find ourselves asking that question? While most staff would love to share information, bounce ideas off cross organization departments, or stay updated on current projects, the reality is often time won’t “physically” allow for these discussions.
However, an intranet provides the platform to promote these discussions and information sharing across all departments within an organization. Publishing discussions or blogs is a great way to share best practices across multiple departments. These discussions could bring to light information to multiple parties that may otherwise be overlooked.
Improve the management of business processes across the organization
Provide staff with a self-service option to access data they may need at any point during their work day. This cuts down on phone call and e-mails, and repetitive mundane task that can “busy up” a work day. Information can be organized at a team level or department level or government-wide level. Also, information can be kept current. When it comes to ordering office supplies, scheduling vacation time, reporting budgets, all can be completed online, and automated to be directed to the appropriate staff member for action. Forms can also include triggers to display certain fields, prompting the user with necessary reminders, etc.
Increase employee morale and breakdown organizational barriers
Intranets seem to be an online environment that promotes cross organizational relationships. The conversations on the intranet often provoke meaningful “offline” exchanges and partnerships. This is a great place to share accomplishments, best practices, discussions and opportunities. Also, consider publishing employee profiles on your intranet. Employee profiles add value to the organizations culture while recognizing the individual staff members. This is also a great way to encourage bringing staff together and helping new hires get acclimated.
E-Gov Link implements intranets as a cloud based solution, so no additional hardware is required. And customers who are currently using WordPress, the market-leading web content management system, may already have access to all tools needed to implement an intranet with little or no cost.
Your organization will likely realize the benefits of an intranet quickly. Keep in mind with any new technology there is always a transitional phase before reaching the highest level of efficiency. For this reason, we recommend you pick two to three high priority features to implement in the beginning. Once staff is familiar with these areas and using seamlessly we recommend building more options as needed.
E-Gov Link is more than just a website design and development provider, we partner with you to Build A Stronger Link To Your Community!
Create a more user-friendly experience
Provide residents more self-service options
Save staff time & increase productivity
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