In today’s world, the role of HR is changing and diversifying on an almost daily basis, hence increasing the need for HR to pass on some of the work that can be done in other more time-efficient ways. And one way in which organisations today can do this is by building an effective HR intranet system.

An intranet can be put to many uses within a company, from providing simple information such as phone lists to combining data from many different systems into one. HR intranets are no different in that they allow management and employees, to access and update personal data in a secure easy to use way, hence helping to increase employee satisfaction, eliminating errors and, more importantly, giving HR the opportunity to focus on more important strategic tasks. A good and effective HR intranet system helps to cut down on costs, improves communication and opens up information for management and employees, as well as helps to provide a better service. In this regard, HR’s role is to make the intranet a convincing business case for investment.

Keith Rodgers, co-founder of Webster Buchanan Research, in an article entitled “How to make your HR intranet work” in the People Management Magazine, explains how HR can ensure that the implementation of an HR intranet in an organisation is a successful one. Rodgers suggests the following: sorting out the basics; getting people to log on; using the intranet as a telephone substitute; thinking big on HR self-service; not forgetting the payroll; thinking outside the intranet; and finally, getting a second opinion.

With regard to the former, Rodgers explains how an HR intranet is all about using the internal IT network to communicate and collaborate. Essentially, this means that an HR intranet usually provides self-service access to the organisation’s central HR systems in a way that managers and employees can input personal data and carry out transactions online. Here Rodgers makes a reference to how some firms go about having sophisticated employee portals on the front, which is a sort of internal home page whereby employees can log on to different IT systems and obtain information.

Getting people to log on is the next crucial step for making sure that the implementation of an HR intranet is successful. Organisations need to ensure that their HR intranet looks good, in that it has a clean design that makes for easy navigation.

Making the Intranet useful then becomes very important. Businesses need to think hard about the kind of material they want to put out. This can range from having formal notices on HR policy to welcome notes about new starters. One good idea suggested by Rodgers is to publish an HR blog. Furthermore, Rodgers recommends organisations to think in terms of business outcomes. For example, every time an employee logs onto the system a graphic will tell him how much time he has had off sick and how many vacation leave he has left.

Another recommendation Rodgers made is to use the intranet as a telephone substitute by encouraging employees to log onto a “frequently asked questions” site on the intranet and find out the answers for themselves. This would save HR a great deal of time that would have been lost answering basic questions about HR or payroll.

Rodgers explains how the real value of having an HR intranet in place comes with employee and manager self-service, which reduces drastically the amount of data entry HR administrators have to do, gives employees instant access to the information they want and furthermore cuts down on the volume of calls made to HR.

Another potential cost-saver is the payroll self-service. By providing pay advice online − an electronic pay slip, HR is able to keep costs down. Moreover, such a system allows building up a pay history for each and every employee in a way that they are able to look back at their records whenever they need to.

The sixth recommendation Rodgers makes is to give employees secure access to the network whenever they are working remotely which would help to keep them connected as it allows them to check information whenever they are away from the office in their own time.

Finally, Rodgers strongly advises that HR obtains references from other customers before making such a significant technology investment. This would ensure that HR is buying a flexible, fully-featured and stable system.

Without a doubt HR intranets today offer the greatest innovation to HR departments since the advent of the desktop computer, as they allow the HR department to be virtually open 24 hours a day to efficiently perform many of the routine tasks required of the human resources function. Therefore, needless to say, having a good and effective HR intranet system has become crucial today for an organisation’s sustained success and growth.

Ms Camilleri is a researcher at the Foundation for Human Resources Development