Earlier this week US-based usability guru Jakob Nielsen released his annual list of 10 Best Intranets of 2010. The list is usually used by intranet professionals around the world, including some of our members, to make the case for additional resources and intranet support from management. Is there any correlation between having an award-winning intranet and being a great place to work?
The Great Place to Work Institute is one of the most established and recognized global organisations that has been identifying great workplaces since 1980. Their online search engine covers all past global and local lists. It would seem that you don’t necessarily need a great or innovative intranet to be a good company to work for.
I do agree with the many intranet experts who claim that the intranet can have a significant impact, but rather than claiming that the intranet will make your organisation a “great workplace”, I would encourage you to focus on creating value and use a business case to win management support.
A search among the 2010 Nielsen winners showed the following:
- 7 Nielsen winners (Enbridge, Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI), Huron Consulting Group, Jet Propulsion Laboratory, The MITRE Corporation, SCANA, URS) has never made it on any of the Best Companies lists
- GE has made it several times in European lists, but in North America it was most recently 100 Best Companies to Work for in America 1984
- Japanese-based Trend Micro made it onto Best Workplaces in Germany 2007
- Walmart-Stores was most recently among the 100 Best Companies to Work for in America 2002 (ranked: 94)
If we look at the 2009 winners, the results are similar:
- 5 Nielsen winners (Altran, Environmental Resource Management, HSBC Bank Brazil, Kaupthing Bank and McKesson Corporation) have never made it on any of the Best Companies lists
- Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) most recently made it onto 100 Best Companies to Work for in America 1993
- German-based BASF has only made it onto listings for Latin and South America, most recently Best Companies to Work for in Latin America 2006
- Denmark-based COWI was on Best Workplaces in Denmark 2001 (ranked: 30)
- L.L. Bean was on 100 Best Companies to Work for in America 1999 (ranked: 100)
- Deloitte was listed in 100 Best Companies to Work for in America 2009 (ranked: 61)
Nielsen is not the only one crowning intranet winners. Australian-based Step Two Designs also hands out Intranet Innovation Awards every year. Their winners have likewise rarely been recognized as great workplaces:
- 7 innovative intranet winners (AEP, CRS Australia, ChTPZ, IDEO, NYK, Prophet, SunGard) have never been recognized as a great place to work
- IBM in the US was most recently listed in 100 Best Companies to Work for in America 2004 (ranked: 72)
- Sabre have been recognized in Europe and Latin America, but never in the US, where they have an innovative intranet
- Again, Denmark-based COWI who has been recognized by Nielsen, was on Best Workplaces in Denmark 2001 (ranked: 30)
Finally, UK-based Intranet Benchmarking Forum has BT (former British Telecom) as their top 2009 intranet overall for each of the quadrants assessed – strategy and governance; communications and culture; performance and metrics; and design and usability. BT has never been recognized as a great place to work.
Getting business support for your intranet is indeed a good thing and awards might help get management attention. In the long-term nothing beats an intranet that creates real and lasting value, such as monetary savings or improved business processes.
Join our full day seminar, the International Intranet Day, on March 24 in Copenhagen, to learn from case studies from several organisations and network with other intranet professionals.
Andrew Wright January 6th, 2010 16:49
This is an interesting post – is there any correlation between having an award winning intranet and being a great place to work? I guess there are many factors that make an organisation a great place to work, and the intranet is just one of them. However, it would be interesting to know if there was some kind of a relationship…
Your article reminds me of a question I posted on the Intranet Benchmarking Forum blog last year. I asked whether they had done any research showing a correlation between organisations with effective intranets (as identified by the IBF) and key organisational performance indicators (such as share price, profitability, employee engagement, financial growth, staff turnover, a great place to work, customer satisfaction). – http://www.intranetlife.com/intranet_benchmarking_for/2009/08/the-inside-out-intranet.html
There was no response to the question so I would assume that the IBF are yet to do any research in this area. As an intranet professional myself, I think if a relationship like this could be established (eg. great intranets lead to higher staff satisfaction, higher levels of employee engagement, lower staff turnover, higher profitability), then it would be a lot easier to gain funding and support for the intranet.
There was a study done a few years a go by Alex Edmans, MIT Sloan School of Management, directly linking employee engagement to profitability. He analyzed the financial performance of a portfolio of stocks selected by Fortune magazine as the “Best Companies to Work for in America” from 1998 -2005. By the end of 2005, these stocks “earned average annual returns of 14 percent by the end of 2005, over double market return”.
http://www.hrmreport.com/article/Employee-engagement-is-good-for-the-bottom-line/
As a result of this study (and other similar studies), ‘employee engagement’ is now firmly on the radar of many CEOs and funding is more readily available. It would be great if there was similar research done about intranets!! I have been looking but haven’t found anything yet… if anyone knows of any research like this, please let me know.
P.S. In the post, you mention that 7 of Nielsen’s 2010 top 10 organisations have never been on any of the best companies list. Just to let you know that The MITRE Corporation is number 66 in FORTUNE’s 100 Best Companies to Work For® 2009 (http://www.greatplacetowork.com/best/100best-2009/100best-2009-list.php). And MITRE is also listed for previous years (I would assume it’s the same company).
cheers
Mark Morrell January 6th, 2010 16:49
Janus,
Thanks for the good words about our intranet. Actually Human Resources are constantly bombarding me with various awards given to BT as a great place to work – diversity, fairness, etc – but obviously not publicised widely enough!
I believe the key distinction to make about NN/Group awards is they are for great intranet projects rather than just great intranets.
The winners fully justify their award for all their hard work and achievements and I congratulate every single intranet person recognised now.
But for BT it will be harder to show how a great intranet can get so much greater to meet NN/Gp’s criteria.
Am I right or wrong?
Mark
Fredrik Wackå January 6th, 2010 16:49
Interesting post, Janus, but isn’t there a huge methodological problem regarding this comparison (and the awards as such)? I’m thinking about that all these intranet honours are awarded the very small number of companies/organisations that choose to compete.
It obviously can’t be done any other way so I guess we’ll just have to live with the fact that the world’s 10 “best” intranets just are the 10 best of the 11, 20 or 200 that entered the judgement process.
But we don’t know if the best places to work have better or worse intranets, do we? They might just have chosen to not send in award papers and screen dumps. Maybe they’re not interested, maybe they haven’t heard of it, maybe they think it’s too much work entering. We don’t know. And we don’t know, as a result of this, if there’s any correlation between intranet performance and work place satisfaction.
Louise Hewitt January 7th, 2010 16:49
Hi Janus,
Interesting issue here. I agree with Fredrik, the comparison is not complete: some awards rely on nomination / application; some are dependent on membership and participation.
Would it be better to refine the comparison by looking at companies that were in the running for more than one of the awards? Are there IBf member who also submitted to Step Two’s list? Which intranets were assessed by NN (I’m assuming he hasn’t done a deep analysis of all intranets worldwide).
My question? Is there an assessment of what factors contribute to making a workplace ‘a best place’ to work? If so, how regularly are intranets cited (either directly or laterally).
Lou
Barbara Schelkle January 8th, 2010 16:49
Hmm… isn’t it the other way around? A company that is a great place to work typically has good management, accountability, clear processes, engaged staff,… all important prerequisites for creating a great intranet.
Building a successful intranet in a perfect environment? Easy. The challenge lies elsewhere…
Carolyn Clarke January 19th, 2010 16:49
I would be surprised if a company that was great to work for had a third-rate intranet, because a company focused on being a great place will have addressed the needs of communication, collaboration, and all those good things, and IMHO would also have approached the intranet as a fairly level field where things are shared, in the form of discussion groups, wikis, social tagging, and so on. Staid, old-fashioned companies with a top-down, controlling approach are in my experience always the proud owners of a top-down, controlled intranet, where communication and casual interaction are discouraged.
And an intranet that was devised to be great can degenerate, once launched, into something unloved, unused and unwanted if the culture of the company can’t or won’t support the interaction and openness it supports.
Marcelo Durruty January 24th, 2010 16:49
When you take a deep look at the GPTW Survey you realize that almost a third of it was designed around the relationship between workers and bosses. That is, not that much around the relationship between the Company and people but about those who daily interact at work.
Since the Intranet is a Corporate communication tool, it looks like a lot of things must actually happen BEFORE a corporate tool can help achieving this “Great Place to Work” vision and goal. I mean, workers need to address their needs to their direct bosses and need to get from them the empowerment, the respect, the credibility, the fairness and so on.
Does the Intranet help? Probably. But, IMHO, as all corporate tools, it only supports the daily work of those who are in charge of people.
In a nutshell, You can have an excellent Intranet because you’ve got a Great Place to Work, but you won’t necessarily generate a GPTW because of an excellent Intranet.
Regards
Marcelo Durruty
http://www.durru.com.ar