In today's competitive academic landscape, schools at all levels face the ongoing challenge of attracting students and remaining relevant in a sea of options. While January 21-27 marks National School Choice Week in the United State, helping families discover the educational options for their children, prospective university students are also eyeing up college fairs and weighing their own options for their future. How can schools prepare to meet the questions and needs that help families make important educational decisions?
One key element that plays a pivotal role in informing the public about the benefits and differentiators of your institution is the establishment of a well-organized and efficient internal infrastructure, with a cutting-edge intranet at its core.
The Power of a Well-Ordered Internal Structure
Your school’s internal alignment is vital when communicating its differentiators. Being on the same page as colleagues and administrators—all speaking the same language—creates a positive ripple effect that resonates throughout the organization. This alignment is palpable and influential by students, parents, and prospective university students who are seeking a professional and supportive educational experience.
How an Intranet Plays Into Your School’s Overall Outreach and Recruitment Strategy
Information Access
Our education clients have repeatedly cited a lack of time as a blocker to connection with important communications and news across the organization. They are engaged with students, proctoring exams, giving lectures, tutoring, mentoring, grading, and the list goes on. Teachers have a finite time between these tasks, so providing fast and frictionless access to answers or important information is a make-or-break factor when it comes to a successful school-based intranet experience.
And for educators on the road at school fairs or meeting with potential students and their families, finding accurate information quickly is significantly more ideal than having to tell those families that they need to get back to them with an answer. It could also be during that time, students are lost to a competing institution.
Targeted, Effective Internal Communications
A good intranet serves as a central hub for communication within the institution, and serves to fill the gaps that email simply can’t support for a strong internal communications strategy.
Intranets facilitate seamless communication between faculty, staff, and administrators all at once, ensuring that everyone is on the same page. But an intranet must do more than house information; it must cut through the noise and reach relevant audiences.
Through targeted comms capabilities, real-time updates, news, and announcements, an intranet helps create a sense of transparency and openness. This level of alignment is essential for attracting top talent who values clear and effective communication channels and gives your institution the speed and accuracy to answer any potential student questions above other institutions that are more disorganized.
Collaboration and Knowledge Sharing
Top talent is often drawn to environments that encourage collaboration and the exchange of ideas. By having an employee intranet that acts as a platform for collaborative projects, discussion forums, and knowledge-sharing initiatives, that approach to learning and growth can then be adopted by students, as well. When educators and staff can more effectively collaborate and share knowledge, they can then work together to share their combined knowledge to students in a more cohesive way.
By fostering this culture of collaboration, universities and schools can demonstrate an appealing learning environment that attracts individuals who thrive in a community-driven atmosphere.
Streamlined Administrative Processes
A well-designed intranet can simplify administrative processes, optimize workflows, and shorten the distance between a question and an accurate answer. Specifically, an intranet can provide fast access to policies and important documentation, allowing staff and faculty to find what they need quickly, and focus on more value-added activities. Moreover, the most successful intranets are not overly reliant on IT and are designed for the everyday admin and user. This accelerates the time it takes information to get from an internal expert/thought leader to the intranet, where it can be mobilized to inform colleagues. When an organization is aligned, it’s easier to provide clear, accurate, and articulated information to prospective families.
Employee Engagement and Satisfaction
An intranet can contribute significantly to employee engagement and satisfaction. Features such as employee recognition programs, feedback mechanisms, and social collaboration tools can create a positive work culture. Happy employees lead to less turnover, resulting in less dilution of values, brand, and alignment.
For those educators working in school recruitment, being able to communicate about the school in a positive light as an employee will represent the school better to students. Finally, when turnover is reduced, it mitigates disruption of information and workflow, since information and roles are not being turned over to new joiners as often.
Finding an intranet to support education goals
The success of educational institutions in attracting top talent is closely tied to the state of their internal affairs. A well-organized internal structure, with a robust intranet at its center, sets the stage for a positive and productive work environment which, in turn, sets the stage for aligned and buttoned-up interactions with students and families. In this way, universities and schools can position themselves as magnets for top talent, creating a ripple effect that elevates the overall success of the institution.
When searching for an intranet to support your school, looking for excellence in these five features will be the keystone for success. Happeo has helped over 30,000 educators and staff roll out and maintain a robust and successful intranet experience that brings all school locations and educators–both in the classroom and on the recruitment trail–together.
Let us show you more. Reach out to us for an education-specific intranet demo.
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