10+ Intranet Design Examples and Best Practices for the Retail Industry
There’s often a disconnect between the information corporate headquarters (HQ) passes on to frontline retail employees and the information these employees actually receive. The burden of relaying information is often left on the shoulders of store managers or warehouse managers who are overworked, stressed, and juggling multiple responsibilities. An intranet that’s designed to make internal communication easy is part of the solution for this pressing challenge.
This article showcases X intranet design examples that simplify internal communication in the retail industry and create a digital communication environment your frontline staff will want to use.
The look, feel, and functionality of your intranet impact what it can help you achieve. Here are a few intranet design examples that will help you achieve five critical outcomes relevant to your retail company.
1. Break Down Silos with Constructive Knowledge Sharing
Frontline associates in retail companies want to learn new skills that can help them develop their careers. According to McKinsey, 32% of frontline retail employees say the biggest motivator to quitting a company is the lack of career development, with particular emphasis on three areas:
- Opportunity for growth
- Knowledge and skill building
- Internal mobility and coaching
Research finds that retail managers are actually at a higher risk for turnover than their nonmanager counterparts, with 63% reporting that they have considered leaving the job in the near future. The same McKinsey surveys show that access to information is also an issue for managers, with 29% citing a lack of career development and 21% citing a lack of resources as a motivator for leaving their job.
A well-designed intranet provides a space for C-suite execs to create a culture of knowledge sharing that will improve retention rates for managers and frontline employees — whether it's regularly sharing messages and updates from leadership that facilitate two-way communication or providing digital spaces for training and upskilling.
Finish Line, an athletic shoe and apparel retail company, created an intranet to help improve communication between corporate headquarters and its 14,000+ retail employees in stores. This new intranet allowed each Finish Line employee to connect directly, where previously there was only one generic email address per store. Now, employees could connect to the intranet to find company information, important updates outside of their specific store, and collaborate with employees at other store locations for ideas on how to be more successful in their store.
2. Allow Your Team to See Your Retail Calendar at a Glance
Retailers typically use either a 4-5-4 or 4-4-4 calendar format to compare sales across corresponding periods. These calendars help retailers and their teams plan for key sales days and offer relevant incentives to customers. It’s important that information from your company’s retail calendar is clearly and effectively communicated to your frontline team.
You can use your intranet to add key retail events to each employee’s calendar. Those events can also be linked to tasks so that your team can be on the ball with what needs to be done on the ground.
3. Use Custom Integrations that Help Your Team Work Efficiently
LumApps is the recommended intranet for leading digital platforms like Google Workspace and Microsoft 365. With in-depth LumApps integrations, retail brands can extend the efficiency and reach of these powerful platforms by connecting them to frontline staff and management through a mobile-friendly employee dashboard.
Another retailer, ETAM Group, utilized LumApps’ Microsoft 365 integration to make it easier for teams across multiple locations to collaborate using Teams, Yammer, SharePoint, Outlook, Planner, Graph Notifications, Azure Active Directory, and more.
“Without disrupting the existing IT infrastructure at our headquarters, we needed to digitize all the outlets of our 3 brands — Etam, 1.2.3, and UNDIZ — in order to share real-time information and respond to the business needs of our stores. Microsoft 365 + LumApps was the natural solution.” - Céline Wargnier, Head of Communications, ETAM Group
Read this case study to learn more about how LumApps’ intranet and Microsoft integration helped ETAM Group share real-time information and respond to business needs in its 1,400 stores across 54 countries.
4. Create a Multi-Site or Multi-Brand Environment
Forbes Advisor predicts that 20.8% of retail purchases will occur online in 2023 and 24% will occur online by 2026. This means that at least 79% of retail purchases will still occur in-store (at least over the next three years). With this in mind, retailers will continue to create the best possible in-store experience for customers across physical locations.
An informed and highly engaged retail team will help you create the best in-person experience for your customers. That’s why your retail intranet should focus on addressing critical communication problems that occur within a multi-site environment.
One of the key issues is the ability to efficiently explain new products, collections, and messaging strategies to employees so they can effectively sell to customers. Making merchandise details, promotional plans, sourcing details, and other key information available through a central, mobile-friendly platform helps ensure your frontline staff is aligned with the headquarters no matter the site.
Here’s how the LumApps intranet can help retailers create this type of multi-site, multi-brand alignment:
Showcase products that are relevant to each of your locations…
Highlight key areas of focus for each of your locations…
Personalize resources for each store using custom widgets…
Showcase key metrics and data on a store-by-store basis…
Galeries Lafayette uses LumApps to connect multiple employees across 290 stores worldwide. The company continues to grow and needs a flexible intranet that would facilitate the addition of new site-specific communication hubs. LumApps provides that flexibility by allowing each new entity to access news from company headquarters while also providing them with their own customized pages.
Read the case study to learn more about how LumApps helped Galeries Lafayette connect employees across the group’s brands.
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5. Ensure Mobile Compatibility
A mobile-compatible intranet keeps your retail staff connected to what’s happening within your organization, even when they can’t access desktop devices. With a mobile-compatible design, your team can connect to your intranet anytime, anywhere.
Mobile compatibility was another important intranet feature for Galeries Lafayette. LumApps provided a mobile intranet design that allowed employees to have their own digital identities and log into the intranet from their smartphones.
At least 12% of Galeries Lafayette’s active users accessed the intranet from their mobile devices by the end of 2020.
Experience the Benefits of LumApps
A well-designed intranet improves communication between your retail staff and corporate headquarters while providing the integrations necessary for your team to work efficiently.
Designing your intranet to address the specific needs of your retail company will help you get critical information directly in front of all your team members, access important data for decision-making, and provide your customers with the best possible in-store experience.
LumApps is a trusted intranet solution used by more than 400 companies. With LumApps, you get an intranet designed to your specifications with fully customizable layouts that align with your branding. The best part? You don't need coding knowledge or experience to use it!
Schedule a demo today and discover how LumApps can help your retail organization excel.
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