U.S. Office of Personnel Management - Ensuring the Federal Government has an effective civilian workforce

Archive

Using Intranets to Communicate Performance Management Programs

Federal agencies increasingly are using intranets to communicate their human resources programs, including performance management, to their employees. As they do, they are discovering they can use intranets in many different ways and that intranets offer significant advantages over conventional internal communication methods.

• What are Intranets?
• Intranets and Performance Management.
• Advantages of Using an Intranet.

What are Intranets? Intranets provide information using the same standards and infrastructure of the Internet and World Wide Web, but keep away "outsiders" through the use of software programs known as "fire walls." In effect, they are like private versions of the Internet. With an intranet, employees can go out onto the Internet, but unauthorized users cannot come in.

Intranets and Performance Management. Agencies currently communicate a large variety of performance management information online. One of the simplest and first steps they usually take is posting their personnel manuals on their intranets. As a principal developer of the Internet, the National Science Foundation (NSF) saw early on the advantages of intranet communication and posted its Personnel Manual online in 1995. This has proved so successful that NSF no longer produces hard copies of its manual. When employees want a copy, they download it from their intranet. NSF also periodically conducts employee surveys on its intranet to gain a better understanding of its workforce.

At the General Services Administration (GSA), employees wishing to learn more about their awards program can log onto their intranet's Awards Manager Toolbox. These helpful intranet pages offer guidance on the various types of awards available at GSA, as well as descriptions of awards sponsored by external organizations. The site also offers links to articles on other types of awards programs, including gainsharing and goalsharing. In October 1999, GSA started a new electronic awards system, where it processes all cash awards up to $5,000, time-off awards, and travel savings awards electronically on its intranet. The new system offers awarding officials more options and convenience, and already has resulted in a 75 percent reduction of staff time devoted to awards processing in the National Payroll Center.

Advantages of Using an Intranet. According to USA Today, a recent survey conducted by Wyatt Watson Worldwide found that "80 percent of companies use their intranet as the primary method for delivering human resources services, up from 50 percent just 2 years ago." According to the survey, companies are turning to the intranet to enhance employee communication (78 percent), improve service to employees (59 percent), promote common corporate culture (45 percent), refocus human resources on strategic activities (29 percent), and reduce costs (28 percent).

A well-designed intranet provides an excellent way to unify an agency's far-flung operations and increase the quality, frequency, and ease of intra-agency communications. For example, when the human resources office of a large department posts a memo on its intranet, every department employee throughout the world with Internet access can read the document with just a few mouse clicks. All sorts of documents, such as training materials, phone books, and requisition forms can be put on an intranet, thus reducing paperwork and mailing expenses. Additionally, agencies can constantly update the documents at very little expense. Because the information is relatively easy to access and more current, employees generally tend to seek it out on their own, which can lead to a more proactive and educated workforce. Human resources staff benefit from spending less time answering routine questions and filing paperwork, while their customers benefit because they no longer have to wade through files and shelves full of manuals to find basic information.

Just as Federal agencies are making better uses of the Internet to communicate with the public, they are also increasingly using intranets to better communicate with their employees. Whatever methods they use, agencies are discovering that intranets can be very effective communication tools.

Originally published on April 2000.