Mercedes-Benz
Employee Intranet

An employee intranet is a private, internal online network of business-critical information and applications. A successful employee intranet also serves as an extension of internal communications and drives employee engagement.

The Opportunity

In 2019 Mercedes-Benz USA (MBUSA) transitioned to a new global employee intranet platform that we call the Social Intranet. This change broadened the content scope, allowing access to information across the entire Daimler network and sub-brands, not just our Mercedes-Benz employees in the United States. I joined the company during the final phases of the MBUSA transition just a few months shy of the official go-live date. Moving to this cloud-based platform transitioned ownership to the departments, giving us full control of what is shared internally. As the Content & Communications Analyst for the Mercedes-Benz Academy, I was tasked with building out our department's subspace - a microsite to promote our team within the Mercedes-Benz network.

The Problem

Fast forward to 2021, I joined the Corporate Communications & PR team leading internal communications. By this time, the social intranet had fully transitioned and the former platform sundown. Moving into this role challenged me to look at the site through a new lens - employee engagement. I saw an underutilized platform, broken links and blank pages. I started to ask questions. What is the purpose of the social intranet? How are our employees using the site? Who "owns" the company's landing page and department subspaces? Through asking these questions I identified a problem and took it upon myself to find a solution - all without being asked.

The Solution

As I mentioned earlier, a successful employee intranet should serve as an extension of internal communications, but was still largely managed by tech teams. I collaborated with our IT colleagues to transition ownership to me - a task they gladly pushed off their plates. I developed a multi-step approach to enhance the current platform and encourage colleagues to see the potential I knew was hidden beneath three year old content.

Step 1: Identify content owners. To no surprise, many employees involved in the transition had either changed departments or left the company. I dug through 100+ subspaces in attempt to identify an owner and sent outreach to every department to understand who is in charge of their communications.

Step 2: Delete outdated information. In my opinion - the fun part! The purge. Through step 1, I found numerous subspaces that had not been touched since go-live or remained blank from day one. With support from the newly coined content owners, we identified 57 subspaces to be archived, equating to a reduction of approximately 38% of content. Eliminating old or unnecessary information provides a better user experience, allowing quick access to business-critical content so employees can easily move through their workday.

Step 3: Landing page content audit and design refresh. The social intranet is every employee's default landing page on all web browsers within our network. The landing page was not updated regularly, so employees lost trust in the accuracy of information. Links were broken and department subspaces were hidden. I moved critical information to the top, rearranged quick links and consolidated content in a more aesthetically pleasing and brand-compliant format. Now with just a few clicks, employees can navigate to the document, video, article, application, etc. they need from the landing page. The search function, however, remains a pain-point as it searches global content, not just within the MBUSA space.

A major, but less visible, change was moving our internal blog to the social intranet, which was previously housed on a separate WordPress site and hyperlinked from the landing page. Utilizing the existing blog function within the platform keeps all content in one place and expands content sharing. Every employee across the globe has the ability to write a blog on the social intranet, thus expanding potential blog contributors from just one (me) to hundreds of thousands.

Step 4: Ongoing communication and training. This project is not over - and in truth, never will be; even if/when we move to a new platform. We must continue this conversation and provide training opportunities for employees and content owners. In weekly Tech Tuesday newsletters I include bite-size tips, tricks and training with links to manuals and videos. I implemented regular check-ins with the content owners and hosted one-on-one training sessions in attempt to ensure pages do not go untouched for another three years.

Below are before and after snapshots of the MBUSA landing page. No, you do not need to adjust your glasses. Images have been blurred to protect sensitive information since employee intranets are private networks only visible to internal stakeholders.