From enthusiastic amateurs to professional content creators

Most information on corporate intranets is provided by employees with little or no training in content creation. It’s time for that to change, says Stephen Musselwhite.

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In recent years, intranets have undergone something of a transformation, evolving from very humble origins to emerge as one of the most important tools for communicating and distributing information that a company has at its disposal.

Alongside that transformation, the expectations of intranet users have also evolved.

For many, the intranet is the ‘central nervous system’ of the company they work for and, as a result, they expect to see it populated with content that looks professional, is up-to-date, presents minimal barriers in terms of usability and reflects their employer’s key messages and branding in a consistent way.

However, those responsible for contributing and managing intranet content typically receive little or no formal training on how to make consistently valuable contributions. And when training is provided, it tends to focus primarily on the provision of a narrow set of skills associated with the use of the technology behind the intranet.

This restrictive approach to training ignores the skills associated with the creation of compelling content that answers the needs of the user. But in the new age of the ‘professional’ intranet, ‘amateur’ content will not be tolerated.

The emergence of web content management (WCM) systems – implemented to distribute the responsibility of managing intranet content throughout the organisation – has only served to compound the problem. Now, everyone can contribute content. In fact, those contributing directly to intranets in larger organisations can sometimes number in the hundreds.

This creates a challenging environment in which to train users, especially if the organisation is global in reach and training in multiple languages is required.

That is because decentralised teams of content contributors require a unique approach to training. Admittedly, some organisations have made progress in improving the quality of their content through the creation of a centralised team of content experts responsible for adding content on behalf of the business. However, within most organisations, the role of intranet contributor is a part-time one. Typically, adding and managing intranet content are duties that fall to a particular employee in addition to their full-time role and responsibilities.

As a consequence, when urgent tasks that form part of that employee’s ‘proper job’ arise, there is a tendency to marginalise intranet responsibilities. The consequence of that is that intranet tasks are postponed or rushed, quality standards slip and content is not updated or managed as rigorously as it should be.

Part of the problem is that the breadth of skills required to successfully contribute content to the intranet are underestimated. A better understanding of these requirements and a broader view of training is required.

Effective intranet training

Effective intranet training is frequently hampered by a number of key issues. While the list that follows is not exhaustive, it does highlight the key areas that require attention when considering training:

Training for intranet success is not seen as a strategic issue and often only occurs when new to support upgrades or migrations from one system to another. Training for the intranet needs to be a continuous process;
Training isn’t recognised as a priority and fails to win sufficient funding from the already stretched intranet budget. Upgrades, new application developments and usability testing take priority;
Existing training has not kept pace with the requirements of the modern intranet – training focuses purely on the content- management system and ignores usability best practice and writing skills that actually improve the quality of content;
The role of intranet content contributor is almost without exception a part-time role and is frequently not recognised in an individual’s job description. This inevitably means that the responsibility of adding and, in particular, maintaining content becomes marginalised over time;
Sponsors allocate insufficient time for the content contributors to manage content on the intranet;
Usability and accessibility rules and guidelines have evolved rapidly during the past five years and understanding them requires clear training and good supporting material. It is essential to train content contributors in usability best practice.

In order to formulate an effective intranet training programme, the quality of content required for the intranet should be clearly defined and understood. It should be formally articulated in the intranet strategy using clear measures – this will enable training requirements to be defined and also support the monitoring of content quality after training.

Therefore, the first question to ask when assessing the current state of the training provision is this: How does the overall quality of content provided on the intranet match the requirements of the intranet strategy?

Where quality is falling short, it is important to identify the skills gaps that are leading to these problems. The findings of a skills-gap analysis will typically reveal weaknesses in these areas: writing skills; general usability issues (page length, structuring of content and so on); and conformance to accessibility requirements.

Focusing on providing training to address these issues is a priority. After all, a strong training programme that nurtures a community of skilled contributors is one of the key foundations that enables the achievement of the objectives of any intranet strategy.

The training needs of the developers and analysts responsible for the creation and maintenance of the technology component of an intranet are not under consideration in this workshop, but of course must be considered as part of the overall intranet strategy.

That essentially leaves four groups for whom training should be provided: content contributors; approvers; sponsors; and, intranet users (see figure one). It is essential that employees from any of these groups are familiar with the intranet strategy and with its governance models before embarking on more content-specific training for their particular group.

Of the training content identified in figure one, some areas, such as training on the use of the content management technology, lends itself to delivery via traditional classroom training. However, other requirements, such as best practice sharing and reminders, can be just as effective when delivered online in animated presentations or video, for example.

Jumping straight into technical training is one of the mistakes frequently made with intranet training. There are a number of areas that all of those involved in managing content need to understand before the technical training takes place.

One of the primary areas is that of rules and guidelines. Training sessions should always introduce and explain the roles and responsibilities of those involved with the intranet. It is essential that sponsors or content approvers properly understand the role of the intranet content contributor and vice versa. This will encourage sponsors to allow contributors sufficient time to properly conduct their vital role.

The intranet policy and governance rules must be understood by all and, once again, must be enforced by the content management system if they are to work effectively.

In addition to rules and guidelines, intranet contributors need to be trained in a number of key areas, all of which should be covered before trainees progress to learning about the technology behind the intranet:

Writing for online delivery

It is vital that content contributors understand the differences between the requirements of online media compared to more traditional media. This might cover, for example:

Tone of voice – how to get your point across in a consistent way and as defined by the intranet style guide;
Writing for reading on the screen – surprise the intranet content contributors by revealing exactly how users actually use the intranet;
The ‘inverted pyramid’ technique to structuring content – give the reader a brief introduction to the page at the beginning, then get into the detail;
Page length – avoid content extending ‘below the fold’ on section homepages for example.

Usability

Concise, well-written and easily navigable content is more rapidly converted into organisational decision-making information. Content contributors must understand the fundamentals of good online usability.

Consistency

Consistency across the intranet in terms of navigation and the presentation of content is essential. Users expect the same behaviour across the site and only consistent delivery of training can provide that. Content management systems can also play a part in enforcing adherence to content guidelines and to ensure content is consistent.

Managing metadata and using taxonomies

Metadata and taxonomies are two of the areas that may make perfect sense to the experts responsible for devising the rules, but without careful training, make very little sense to content contributors. Classroom-based training should be very clear on the requirements here and well- supported by online documentation. Again, the content-management system itself should play a significant role in enforcing any standards.

Then, and only then, should users be trained on using the system. The usability and efficiency of it, meanwhile, should be constantly reviewed to ensure that the technology has been implemented in such a way as to make the management of content as efficient as possible.

Who, how, why?

Once training requirements have become clear, the next question that needs to be answered is this: Who will provide the required training?

For a large organisation, the choice may be between an in-house training capability or external trainers. In-house training is the least expensive and simplest approach to providing training. If available, utilise the skills already available within your workforce. External training can provide deeper expertise and added credibility to the training – but that comes at a cost.

A wide range of approaches to training intranet contributors exists to satisfy the wide variety of situations for which training is required and the various preferences the trainees may have (see figure two). No single method should be relied upon to provide all of the training, but it would certainly be a mistake to not fully exploit the potential of the intranet itself as a training tool.

Training must be a continuous process, influenced by the turnover in intranet contributors and the stage of implementation.

Remember that team motivation should form a key element of the training process. Peer pressure has a role to play in raising the quality of content delivered via the intranet and accreditation in the form of intranet training certificates and page star ratings can provide much-needed recognition and reward. After all, the importance of the role of intranet contributor is rarely recognised and far less often rewarded. Recognising the responsibilities of intranet contribution in job descriptions is part of the solution, but that alone cannot guarantee that those responsibilities assume the appropriate level of priority.

A note of caution: rewarding contributions that meet all required standards and guidelines certainly has the potential to improve the quality of content – but the danger is that it encourages the contribution of content at the expense of careful content management. Contributors must be rewarded for properly managing the lifecycle of content. Again, providing accreditation is one means of ensuring that best practice prevails.

If conducted at least annually, a rolling programme of accreditation, where all contributors must achieve a certain score to continue to contribute content, provides an additional mechanism for ensuring content quality standards are met.

Providing accreditation may not suit all organisational cultures, however, and raises some interesting questions. How would failures to gain accreditation be dealt with? Unless dealt with sensitively, this could be counterproductive. How does the idea of providing contributor accreditation sit with the overall culture of the organisation?

Nevertheless, the provision of an appropriate and continuous programme of training is one of the key determinants of success associated with any intranet implementation. Well-trained and motivated contributors, after all, produce well-structured, meaningful and easily digested content. n

Stephen Musselwhite is global intranet manager at Electrocomponents Plc, the parent company of industrial product distributor RS Components. Stephen joined Electrocomponents in 1999 as ecommerce analyst within the e-commerce department before moving into his current role in 2002.

In summary

In the best intranet implementations, three elements need to consistently support each other: intranet policy; the operation of the content management system; and, the training provided to content contributors. The third element, however, is often missing. Best practice for ensuring that training does not get left behind includes:

Position training as a strategic issue and encourage holistic training;
Train for quality and relevance of content first, how to use the system second;
Provide reward and recognition for those contributing to, and managing content on, the intranet;
The role of intranet contributor has to be formalised if contributions are to be of a consistent quality across the organisation;
Provide the contributors with the full range of skills they need to make a valuable contribution;
Ensure a supportive environment is provided for employees contributing to the intranet;
Make use of the informal social networks that exist – but try to formalise this so expert ‘super users’ are providing the advice;
Content management is a process not a project – it needs continuous training and support;
Successful intranet initiatives recognise the need for high quality content and have continuous and effective training programmes in place to support this.