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Search results were cluttered with outdated PDF documents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 hard to predict.
To plan a content transformation program, the People and Culture leadership team needed clarity. They needed to see what content existed and understand why it was not working. They also needed guidance on how to approach a future site rebuild.
The approach
First, we reviewed employee feedback, Intranet analytics and HR Help Desk data to understand user needs. This helped anchor the assessment in real behaviour, 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 This highlighted duplication, outdated material, unclear ownership and content that was not supporting user tasks.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.
The outcome
Presenting the content inventory, recommendations and project plan was a turning point for the leadership team. They could clearly see the scale of the problem and the opportunity.
The work helped leaders understand the difference between ‘push’ content and ‘pull’ content. Publishing what teams want to say was often crowding out what employees needed to find.
Seeing the content mapped in one place also led to an important realisation. Less content means less maintenance, lower risk and a better experience for staff.
The team could see that visual noise, stock imagery and unnecessary documents were making content harder to read, not more engaging.
Most importantly, the assessment showed that investing in content design capability would directly improve employee self-service and reduce avoidable HR enquiries.
Reflection
This project reinforced the value of slowing down before redesigning. Auditing content first made future decisions clearer and more confident.
It also helped shift thinking away from the Intranet as a publishing platform. Content should be treated as a service that needs ongoing care and ownership.
That change in mindset was one of the most enjoyable and rewarding parts of the work.