Feature

posted 3 Feb 2004 in Volume 6 Issue 8

Culture and climate: Their role in content and intranet management

Intranets have the potential to be powerful tools for promoting and enhancing internal communication and knowledge sharing, but if the culture of your firm is at odds with what you are trying to achieve, your investment will be wasted. Helena Twist examines the meaning and significance of organisational culture, as well as the importance of trust as a pre-requisite for knowledge sharing.

How often have we formed an opinion about an organisation based on apparently superficial factors: the way visitors are treated at reception; the appearance of the reception area; the layout of the offices; right down to the kind of clothes the employees are wearing? All these things are indicative of the kind of organisation it is and are as important as a corporate logo, brochure or mission statement.

The study of organisational culture is a relatively new field of management study and its origins lie in anthropology, a fitting genesis. In the early part of the 20th century, Edward B Tylor used the term ‘culture’ to describe “…that complex whole which includes knowledge, belief, art, morals, law, custom and any other capabilities and habits required by man as a member of society”. A shortened description of culture is ‘how we do things around here’. Today, instead of studying societies and tribes, some researchers interested in social interaction elect to study the way we behave at work, how we interact with our employing organisation and its customs and procedures.

There are a number of different aspects to culture, but space permits a description of only some. As well as examining how people behave at work, we need to look at the language of an organisation, its systems and procedures, ethical codes, physical environment and other visible manifestations.

Organisations vary in terms of how easy it is to read and understand their culture, particularly for new recruits. How transparent or opaque is an organisation, and how easy is it to understand the rules and learn how to be a success?

The language, stories and metaphors used by employees can tell you a lot. Phrases like ‘eat what you kill’ and ‘moving further up the food chain’ signify a fairly macho culture. Meanwhile, some cerebral organisations use chess metaphors referring to ‘white knights’, plans being ‘check mated’, employees being ‘pawns’ and redundant staff being ‘sacrificed’. The stories that are told, particularly the myths and legends surrounding an organisation’s founders or ‘heroes’ can also be illustrative of a culture and tell you quite a lot about the type of behaviour that is valued and emulated. However, organisations do change over time and an organisation that started out with a particular set of beliefs and rituals may change its culture as it becomes more established, or rather, a new set of norms and behaviours may evolve leading to a change in culture.

Ceremonies and symbols are also important. Ceremonies include induction and integration programmes, rites of renewal, like office parties, whether and where people go out to socialise together after office hours, and preferred venues. The kinds of ceremonies a company uses to reward, motivate and integrate will demonstrate its cultural values and interests. Symbols are also significant and not just corporate logos. The behaviour of senior individuals, what they stand for and whether they embody espoused corporate values is important. Is there congruence between what is expressed at senior-management level, for example, on questions like work/life balance and work-related behaviour that is actually rewarded?

The importance of trust

A spate of mergers and acquisitions in the corporate world during the last quarter of the 20th century, and the introduction of management concepts like empowerment and business-process re-engineering (the latter being a polite term for radical restructuring, which primarily led to redundancies and the introduction of tougher working conditions) have had an effect on organisational culture. This leads to my second point, which is about the importance of trust, particularly in the modern business environment.

When an organisation goes through major changes, like a merger or significant downsizing, trust that may have taken years to build and develop can be quickly destroyed. Moreover, re-building that faith can take a considerable amount of time. Continuous work is needed to maintain trust and many mechanisms are deployed to demonstrate corporate or organisational repute such as audits, corporate governance and quality processes. The social structures built into business organisations, like social events and even internal meetings, are also ways of promoting confidence. Organisations expend much energy trying to develop trust with their employees and clients. Actions in business life have the potential to erode or diminish employees’ trust. For example, employers closing final salary pension schemes, redundancies and recent high-profile failures in the corporate world, like Enron and Worldcom, have made a major dent in the trust and confidence we, as citizens and shareholders, are able to place in accountants, lawyers and boards of directors.

Communication

One way to think about trust is to think about the space it opens up for conversation and the exchange of ideas. If I choose to trust you then our exchange is likely to be more productive and revealing. As the world of work has changed, particularly in the UK, people have less time to talk or feel less comfortable about doing so at work. In a business world dominated by targets and performance measures, activities like chatting, which are not totally focused on work output, can be regarded as frivolous or time wasting. Yet conversation, or chatting, is often how the most creative ideas come about. For instance, it was as a result of a conversation that Spence Silver finally found a use for his glue that did not stick – it ultimately became the Post-It note.

Some companies have recognised that people now need permission to converse and have created café-style work areas to encourage interaction, innovation and conversation, but it seems that many of us do not trust this new approach. This is not surprising. When the actual and prevailing culture is telling us something different, we’re unlikely to be persuaded to share. Employees can detect inconsistencies and lack of congruence between organisational rhetoric and actual practice, which can have a negative impact on their ability to trust one another, communicate and share knowledge. I may not trust the new message about conversation, storytelling and sharing when I see that what continues to be rewarded is something very different, like meeting specific targets, presenteeism, and personal, as opposed to team, performance.

Can the corporate intranet be a positive change medium?

As companies have realised the potential of the corporate intranet, many have invested in it. As well as being a repository for useful information, intranets can be powerful communications vehicles and can support knowledge sharing through access to helpful information, internal networks, chat rooms and discussion boards. The best intranets and knowledge networks are those that sustain and promote real communication, putting people in touch with one another and offering networks to connect them.

The following are some of the enablers for effective intranets:

Senior-management involvement in championing the intranet, and contributing corporate and personal news items;
Good governance, including clear roles and accountabilities for intranet managers and publishers;
Clarity on the purpose of the intranet supported by key performance indicators for future performance measurement;
Intranet-only access to key processes or transactional services, such as booking holidays via line managers, booking internal meeting rooms, and access to the internal telephone directory or the employee-skills directory;
Clear guidelines and controls on intranet publishing to ensure consistency of appearance, navigability and language;
A good search engine;
A realistic budget;
Service-level agreements and workflow systems with key personnel in ICT and/or intranet publishing to ensure the system is stable and the published information is current;
Training for publishers, not just on how to publish, but also on the organisation’s style and branded image to ensure the ‘look and feel’ is consistent throughout all sites.

Case study

The following case study illustrates the issues often faced by intranet managers and content managers. AddisonBoyle Pharmaceuticals, a European pharmaceuticals development and production company, was formed following the September 2002 merger between UK companies, Addisons and Charles Boyle, both of which had offices and production bases in every European Union (EU) member state.

Immediately after the merger the new chief executive officer, Martin Wright (formerly the chief executive officer of Addisons), introduced a rationalisation programme intended to lead to cost savings and a reduced workforce. The European workforce currently stands at 20,000, whereas just before the merger it had been at 25,000. Staff left primarily as a result of a voluntary redundancy programme, although there were some enforced redundancies.

The workforce is predominately white collar (research and development, scientific and technical teams, and management), with 15 per cent in production and distribution. Ten per cent of employees do not have immediate access to a personal computer. The company continues to have offices and a production base in every EU member state following rationalisation.

You work for a management consultancy and have been commissioned by Martin Wright to do the following:

Review the company’s current intranet;
Clarify the objectives and purpose of the intranet;
Identify whether there are any management issues that need to be addressed;
Identify whether any changes are required;
If changes are required, make proposals.

Background information

Marketing and communications feel strongly that AddisonBoyle’s intranet should reflect its branded image and replicate the company’s internet site, which was recently re-designed and updated. But, at present, the intranet does not look anything like the internet site nor does it use or present information in the same way.

The intranet’s current purpose is as a vehicle for internal communications, particularly for divisional and departmental news. While it should reflect the company’s branded image, it fails to do so due to the many different styles and approaches departments use to display information on their sites.

Every division and department has its own intranet site, each with its own publishing rights. Publishing content is straightforward and easy, and as a result, there is a lack of consistency with regard to the use of colour, graphics, content and navigation. Because the existing framework is perceived by users and, in particular, site contacts and publishers, as rigid, boring and unsuited to their publishing needs, ingenious methods have been used to circumvent the templates and framework for publishing.

The intranet is the sole access point for booking holidays (booking must be done online) and for obtaining information about other employees. Every person in the organisation is listed on the intranet, with limited associated information about that individual, for instance, location, contact details and any specific skills. Corporate policies and procedures are published on the human-resources site.

The ICT intranet-development team (IDT) is responsible for making changes to the framework. It endeavours to consult with site contacts, the latter making proposals for change and the IDT delivering them. However, the ICT department is under huge pressure to deliver on a variety of IT projects and has difficulty responding promptly to change requests.

What you have discovered

Having had the opportunity to conduct an initial examination into the company’s intranet, you have identified the following issues:

People are unable to find what they want and need;
People do not trust the currency of the published information;
There is much duplication of information;
Many of the sites are out of date;
There is little consistency of approach;
Ownership of, and responsibility for, the intranet is unclear;
There are over 1,000 intranet sites with little consistency of design, approach or navigation. It appears that any department that is sufficiently powerful, or which holds a budget, can commission the development of its own intranet site using either internal or external resources;
There are some excellent sites and portals that are well designed, well maintained, accessible and usable;
The predominant language used on the intranet is English, but some non-UK based sites are in their home language only;
Type size, use of colour and graphics make some sites difficult to read.

Recommendations to the chief executive officer

Governance is already a concern. An intranet council (IC) should be established, composed of a selection of senior and interested people, to represent countries where the company has offices.

To understand what appeals to users, the IC or its delegate, ideally a project leader, should review all the sites and consult with representative users as a priority. Consultation is vital to learn more about people’s expectations of the intranet, to engage them in the process of change and to flush out good ideas. It will tell you what kind of information people would like to see displayed, and what kind of networks and groupings they would like to see to encourage information exchange and knowledge sharing.

At the same time, the project leader should review the architecture and current search engine (since the latter has a powerful effect on navigability) and, if necessary, a new search engine should be acquired. All sites should be reviewed to establish how often they are visited; it may be necessary to ‘switch off’ sites that are seldom viewed.

The roles and accountabilities of a number of interest groups will need to be established, for example, who and/or which department(s) will ultimately be responsible for the intranet going forwards? What will be the extent of publishers’ rights? And what involvement will be expected from marketing and communications, and ICT? Clarity at an early stage will prevent ‘turf wars’ occurring later.

Once the purpose of the intranet has been clarified, a dedicated project manager – who will report to the IC and with whom a costed project plan will be drawn up – should be appointed. The project may need to address IT architecture issues, as well as design, functionality and content. To ensure consistency of design and approach, the project manager should agree clear publishing guidelines supported by templates (after appropriate consultation to ensure they are workable), so that all publishers follow the same format. These guidelines should reflect the company’s branded image.

Whether the right to publish content should be restricted to a small group, such as marketing and communications, or whether it could be devolved, after training, to divisional and departmental representatives is an important question. The latter approach is more inclusive and is preferable, provided templates can ensure that the intranet’s ‘look and feel’ is consistent and that proper training is provided for intranet publishers. Workflow systems may need to be used to ensure content is current.

While the trend is for corporate internets and intranets to look similar, there are arguments both for and against this approach. English should be the language used for all central sites, simply because it is gradually becoming the universal language of business. But a case may be made for some sites being in both English and the local language.

Transactional sites should be set up for certain central key functions, like human resources and finance, and access to some forms and procedures, such as expenses claims, limited to the intranet. This will encourage, even oblige people to visit the intranet.

To extend access to all users, internet cafes should be established in canteens and other work areas, with people being actively encouraged to use the new intranet via poster campaigns, competitions and prizes.

References:

Brown, A. in Organisational Culture, Pearson Education, 1998
Tylor, EB., in Primitive Culture: Researches into the Development of Mythology, Philosophy, Religion, Language, Art and Custom, 1903
Zeldin, T. in Conversation, Harvill Press, 1998

Helena Twist is director of legal development at Hammonds. She can be contacted at helena.twist@hammonds.com.