• Back in the 1990s,  the intranet was often hand-coded HTML pages with links to documents, and the IT department clearly owned it. However, this was the time when the workplaces were not yet digital. Today, technology has improved and more and more businesses are taking advantage of this to create a digital workplace.

Now, the question still remains, who owns and manages your company’s intranet? Is it your internal communication team or the HR department? Perhaps, multiple departments can manage your intranet, right?

• Your employees should have access to important HR documents such as the policies and procedures. 

• You want to incorporate tools that will allow your employees to apply for annual leave, manage their employment documentation, deal with performance reviews, conduct training, and claim expenses. 

• Do you want to use it to develop a strong organisational culture and build your company brand? That’s definitely the responsibility of the HR department.

• Your intranet will either be successful or a failure. A modern intranet is usually owned by more than one department. It’s unfair for the IT department to claim ownership when they are not experts in fostering two-way communication. 

• Your management team is only able to handle and store data, thus giving them sole ownership over the intranet is not a good idea. 

• If your intranet should be owned by one group, it should be your employees. 

• They are the ones who are focused on using the intranet and communications. They are the ones who will report to the right department when they are experiencing issues or they can’t locate important documents. However, your employees NEED help to keep your intranet functional. 

• At the end of the day, no matter which department owns or manages your intranet, what is important is to ensure that the people using it have the ability to keep content updated, drive change, and make updates. 

• As long as your intranet can do that, you don’t need to worry too much because you’re on the right track!

• Include functions that need to be involved including HR. Communications, and IT

• Set up structures to improve communication and decision making

• Provide clarity on which department owns the different aspects of the intranet such as technical responsibilities, managing content, and design

By doing this, the question about who really owns the intranet is less about “IT department vs HR department”. Rather, it should be about the different departments working together to produce a functional and effective intranet.