Intranets, anyone: take the Guesswork out of using electronic channels

Communication World, Jan-Feb, 2004 by Angela D. Sinickas

When we turn to electronic channels for communication, that decision is often based on popular wisdom. Sometimes communicators follow their gut feelings on what to do. At other junctures, executives dictate what should be done. Fortunately, we've had electronic channels available to large numbers of employees long enough to now have hard research available to help answer the most common questions about electronic channel selection and usage.

ARE EMPLOYEES GETTING TOO MUCH OR TOO LITTLE INFORMATION ELECTRONICALLY?

Employees often complain in focus groups about receiving too many e-mails. We asked employees from nine companies whether they were receiving the right amount of information, or too much or too little, through various information sources (Figure 1). On average, just under half said they were getting the right volume of information electronically, with the other half evenly split between wanting more electronically and wanting less.

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The findings at individual companies are not always so well balanced. At two companies where most employees work outdoors away from computers, more than half of those employees said they wanted more electronic communication. But at a similar company, where virtually all field staff have regularly scheduled access to computers as part of their paid work time, nearly half of employees said that they were getting too much information electronically.

WHAT TOPICS DO EMPLOYEES LIKE TO LEARN ABOUT ELECTRONICALLY?

Figure 2 shows some of the topics that employees most and least prefer to learn about electronically, on average. On every topic, there is a wide response range from company to company, depending on their employees' access to electronic channels and how effective the channels are perceived to be (Figure 3). When we survey employees on topic preferences by channel, they are allowed up to two choices per topic. Thus their preferences can add up to as much as 200 percent, as indicated on the figures.

Communicators take it as a truism that we need to provide a variety of information sources for audiences, but we generally guess at how many different sources and if the sources should vary by topic or audience. The data in Figure 4 show how often employees' top two information sources are in the same family of sources. For most of the surveyed topics, between half and three fourths of employees want a mix of channels (electronic and face-to-face, or print and electronic, for example). And yet communicators report that many of their executives want to distribute all information solely via electronic channels. Unfortunately, employees tell us through these surveys that few of them will exclusively go online for their information needs.

In fact, when we ask employees what role the intranet should play in the mix of communication channels available to them, just over one third say they would prefer to rely on the intranet exclusively. More than half want to see it as a part of their mix, and nearly 10 percent say they don't want any information through the intranet (Figure 5).

WHEN CAN I PUT ALL MY PRINT CHANNELS ONLINE?

Maybe never. Despite the supposition that once everyone has online access, print communication should die a quick death, more than three-fourths of employees at six companies respond that they want printed versions of publications to remain available (Figure 6).

Print is preferred not only at companies with large numbers of employees lacking electronic access. Field sales reps also report that they're more likely to read a printed publication while in their clients' waiting rooms than an online posting when they return home or to their hotel room at the end of a long day. Consultants who spend most of their week at client sites often have difficulty surmounting firewalls to access their own employer's electronic channels, and say they prefer to read print when traveling or commuting. Even IT employees say they get tired of staring at their screens all day and prefer to read paper versions of publications.

Ever since intranets and e-newsletters popped up on the corporate landscape, communicators and non communicators have assumed that the electronic channels can replace print, Although that's often what we've done with our channels, the fact is that increased availability of electronic channels actually reduces employees' reliance on face to-face communication more than it kills their appetite for print.

This surprising conclusion was the result of analyzing employees' preferred information sources in companies where electronic sources were and were not available (Figure 7). Because the surveys used in this research allow people to select up to, but no more than, two preferred sources, someone choosing an electronic source (that is new and available for the first time) must "give up" a vote previously pledged to a different type of channel. It turns out that very few people chose to give up a print source; employees were more likely to trade face to-face communication for electronic.