Why employees stop using the intranet

1. Initial interest does not guarantee long-term use

After a new intranet goes live, traffic is usually high. Employees are curious, fresh news is being published and the project team is actively looking after the content. After a few months, usage can drop if the intranet does not become part of everyday work.

The problem often lies not in the platform itself but in content ownership, the structure of the information and the way it is accessed. The four most common reasons are set out below.

2. First reason: the content has no clear owner

An intranet often has a technical administrator, but no named people responsible for the accuracy of individual content areas.

If an employee finds a policy but does not know whether it is still valid, they will check the information with a colleague or with the relevant department. Once that happens a few times, they no longer trust the intranet.

Assign ownership by area and, where possible, by name. HR content should have a dedicated editor, safety instructions another owner, and technical procedures should be owned by people who genuinely understand them. A review deadline and a cover arrangement also need to be defined.

3. Second reason: employees cannot find the answer

A user is not necessarily searching for the name of a document. They are looking for the answer to a question such as "how much leave am I entitled to when I move house" or "where do I submit a travel expense claim".

Search cannot help if documents have cryptic names, content has no descriptive titles or key tags are missing. The problem is therefore often in how the content is prepared and organised, not in the search engine.

Before going live, pick ten real employee questions and check whether a user can find the answer with a single search or in a few clear steps. Use the results of that testing to improve naming and navigation.

4. Third reason: the structure follows the org chart, not the tasks

Organisations often arrange the intranet by department because that structure is easy for the editors. Employees, however, usually think in terms of the task: they want to order equipment, report an absence, find a form or check an instruction.

If they first have to work out which department is responsible for the content, it takes too long to reach the information. The main navigation should therefore follow the most common tasks and needs of employees, with the organisational structure available as an additional option.

5. Fourth reason: access is not suited to all employees

Employees in production, in logistics or in the field do not always have permanent access to a work computer. An intranet designed only for use in a desktop browser will struggle to become their main source of information.

At the design stage you need to check which devices employees use, how they sign in and which information they need on the move. The solution may include a mobile-friendly layout, access through Teams, shared devices or a well-considered link to other communication channels.

6. What to address at the design stage

• Assign an owner and a review deadline to every content area.
• Design the navigation around the most common employee tasks.
• Test the search with real questions and real users.
• Define rules for naming, tagging and archiving.
• Plan access for employees without a permanent computer.
• Start with a smaller amount of good content instead of migrating every existing file.

7. How to monitor whether the intranet stays useful

The number of visits on its own does not tell you enough. It is more useful to track:

• which terms employees search for and which of them return no useful result,
• how much content has passed its agreed review deadline,
• which pages employees actually use in their work,
• how many different editors regularly publish and update content,
• which questions employees still frequently send by e-mail.

This data shows whether the intranet is solving real needs or is mainly a channel for occasional news.

8. A BizIT example

At Porsche Slovenija we rebuilt the intranet in SharePoint Online. An important part of the project was not only migrating the content but also sorting out the roles and the way content is published, so that different editors can look after their own areas independently. That way the intranet does not depend on one person and the content is easier to keep up to date.