Overview

The name of the digital workplace, its logo, and the visual relationship with the company’s external website are key elements to consider when establishing a brand and an identity for your digital workplace.  A weak or nonexistent digital workplace brand leads to poor credibility, adoption, and acceptance. 

Recommendations

• Include Marketing specialists on your digital workplace team: Most digital workplaces (intranets) are created and owned by IT, HR, Corporate Communications, or a combination of these departments. While these teams have the necessary skills to create and maintain great digital workplaces, they don’t usually include experts in branding. Employees in Marketing roles will have the branding expertise to drive adoption and engagement more effectively so be sure to include them on the digital workplace team. 
• Name the digital workplace: It’s important for an intranet to have a name, for two main reasons:
  • Identity: The name conveys the digital workplace’s goal and identity. A digital workplace called "Center", for example, can suggest to employees that it is the place where everyone congregates and gets information, while one called "Harmony" could indicate that groups recently merged or acquired will be working together. 
  • Reference: Employees use the name of the digital workplace to refer to it in speech and writing. The name should be easy to remember, spell, and pronounce. Employees should never wonder how to say the name of the intranet and they should not be embarrassed or shy about saying it.
• Get employees involved in the branding: Survey your employees, ask what they would call the Intranet?  Make it fun, make it a contest, by including the people you are more likely to have great user adoption. Check out the Name Your Digital Workplace engagement campaign for more ideas.