HR Intranet content review and audit
The challenge
A national higher education institution asked us to understand why staff were frustrated with HR intranet content.
Feedback from employees was consistent and specific:
Information took too long to find.
Search results were cluttered with outdated PDF documents.
The same information appeared in multiple locations.
Navigation was confusing and difficult to predict.
To plan a future intranet transformation program, the People and Culture leadership team needed clarity. They needed to understand what content existed, why it wasn't performing effectively and where future investment would deliver the greatest value.
They also wanted practical guidance on how to improve employee self-service and approach a future HR site rebuild.
The approach
First, we reviewed employee feedback, Intranet analytics and HR Help Desk data to understand user behaviour to date. This helped anchor the assessment in reality not assumptions.
Next, we identified every source of digital HR content across the Intranet, HRIS, Payroll system and learning platform. This included pages, documents and video content.
We produced a detailed content inventory that showed what was published, where it lived and how it was being used. For many stakeholders, this was the first complete view of their content.
We then assessed the content against content design principles. This highlighted duplication, outdated material, unclear ownership and content that was not supporting user tasks.
Finally, we delivered a clear recommendations report and a practical project plan. This gave the team a step-by-step approach for building a well-designed and easy-to-govern HR site in the future.
Understanding employee needs
The review revealed that employees were not struggling because information was unavailable.
They were struggling because information was difficult to find, difficult to trust and often difficult to distinguish from outdated content.
Many pages had been written from an organisational perspective rather than an employee perspective.
Rather than asking, "What information do we need to publish?" the review encouraged stakeholders to ask, "What is the employee trying to achieve?"
This shifted the conversation away from content production and towards improving the employee experience and supporting employee self-service.
Findings and recommendations
The audit highlighted a number of opportunities to improve the HR intranet experience.
These included:
Consolidating duplicate content
Simplifying navigation structures
Retiring low-value content across Workday and multiple SharePoint sites
Reducing reliance on PDF documents
Improving content ownership and accountability
Strengthening content governance
Improving searchability
Reviewing the site's underlying information architecture
The recommendations focused on creating a simpler, easier-to-maintain experience for both employees and content owners.
The outcome
Presenting the content inventory, recommendations and project roadmap proved to be a turning point for the leadership team.
For the first time, they could clearly see both the scale of the problem and the opportunity for improvement.
The work helped leaders understand the difference between 'push' content and 'pull' content. Information teams wanted to publish was often crowding out information employees genuinely needed to find.
Mapping all content in one place also led to an important realisation - less content often creates a better experience.
The review demonstrated that reducing duplication, removing unnecessary documents and simplifying content structures could improve both the employee experience and long-term maintainability.
The team also recognised that investing in content design capability would strengthen employee self-service and reduce avoidable HR enquiries.
Reflection
This project reinforced the value of slowing down before redesigning.
Auditing content before rebuilding an intranet creates clarity, reduces risk and helps organisations make more informed investment decisions.
It also reinforced an important mindset shift. An intranet is not simply a publishing platform. It is a service that helps employees find information, complete tasks and solve problems.
By combining content design, employee self-service, content governance, searchability and intranet continuous improvement, organisations can create experiences that are both easier to use and easier to manage.