Training is a critical step to launching your intranet. If your intranet training strategy is unorganized, doesn’t fit your company culture, or does not show the value, your employees will be confused or resistant to use it.
We know what works because we’ve deployed Axero for hundreds of customers—like Toyota and Ikea and local banks and pet stores. It doesn’t matter your company size or industry, our 3-part training strategy will ensure every member of your organization learns how to use Axero, and has fun doing it.
By the time you finish reading, we will make sure you:
- Understand Axero: We’ll go over essential Axero features so you can prioritize what your people need to know first.
- Have a plan: We’ll share our 3-part training plan and brainstorm engaging activities you can incorporate into your training sessions.
- Think about company culture: We’ll get you thinking about your company culture and how Axero can make it stronger.
- Know your resources: If you ever have a question or want to brush up on Axero features, you’ll be able to find what you need in our support community.
You’ll finish this guide with the tools, knowledge, and confidence to implement a training program. In the end, your employees will understand how Axero works and the value it will bring to their day-to-day.
To get started, here are two resources that will be helpful:
Our onboarding video will walk you through Axero’s key features. Within five minutes, you’ll learn how Axero’s most popular tools work and you’ll see them live in action. It’s a helpful video introduction to share with anyone on your team.
Our training article will give you tips to educate your employees about how to use their brand-new intranet. At this point, you’ve met with our customer success team, planned with internal teams, and watched our onboarding video. You know how you want Axero to fit into your organization’s everyday life. Our article will help you turn these ideas into reality, and help your employees understand the purpose, too.
We recommend you watch and read through these two resources. Then, we can start planning your training strategy.
The Plan.
Training may seem like one of the most daunting parts of launching an intranet, but we make it easy with our 3-step training strategy. We call it the 3 Ws.
Here’s how the process works:
- Step 1 – The Who: We establish a group of individuals in your organization who will train people in their department or internal group.
- Step 2 – The What: We define what tools your employees need to know and how your trainers are going to teach them to use Axero.
- Step 3 – The When: We create a training schedule for your company to follow.
It doesn’t matter if you’re a company of 50 people or 50,000, this framework will keep you on track for a successful intranet training strategy.
The Who.
In this step, we’ll determine who your trainers are and the groups they’ll be training. We recommend organizing your company into smaller groups and designating an individual to train each group. This way, your employees can ask questions in a comfortable environment and you’ll know they’re retaining the information.
A good place to start is with your company structure. Are you organized by …
- Department?
- Division?
- Branch locations?
- Local boards?
- Projects?
Create a list of your groups. Then create a list of the key individuals in these groups. Typically, these people are directors, managers, or IT personnel. They are the mentors who will train your smaller groups.
If you already have a group of internal trainers and they’ve been meeting with the customer success team, you’re already a step ahead.
When you become an Axero customer, our customer success team builds most of your intranet and coaches a group of key leaders in your organization to use Axero. You’ve likely attended these meetings with other high-level directors in your organization.
Sometimes this group includes everyone who will be facilitating training. Other times, especially if your company is large or people were missing in our customer success meetings, there are others who need to learn the ins and outs of Axero.
If this is the case, now’s the time to determine who they are and make sure they’re trained.
Create a list of these key individuals who will train their teams. If anyone in this list has not met with the customer success team, schedule internal training meetings with those who have.
These training sessions should cover tools and functions, and their role in Axero. Since they will be managing parts of your intranet as a Site Admin or Moderator, add these functions into their training checklist:
- Creating and managing Spaces
- Adding content to Spaces
- Roles, Permissions, and Workflow
This is the group that needs to understand Axero first so they can lead implementation and ensure it goes smoothly. They need to know how the tools work and how they will be working in Axero as managers.
The What.
After you designate a group of trainers and make sure they know Axero, it’s time to establish a training guideline. This guideline will cover what tools your mentors will be teaching their teams and how they’re going to do it.
Envision what a typical day looks like for your employees using Axero. What actions are they taking? What tools are they using to complete those actions?
Remember that some internal groups may be using tools that other groups aren’t. Plan a meeting with your Axero trainers and brainstorm what tools they need to cover. Then write it down.
Here are some of the most common actions and features our customers incorporate into their training programs:
- How to log in – Every employee will log into Axero. You need to cover this in your training program.
- User profiles – Your employee directory is how your people find who they need and create connections. Show your employees how to update their profile and how to find colleagues.
- Navigating the homepage – The homepage will feature important announcements, typically company-wide information. Give your employees a tour of your homepage and where everything lives. Highlight the notifications feature, your launchpad, and other important tools on this page.
- Spaces – Make sure your employees understand how spaces work, the purpose of each space, and what tools they will be using when they are there.
- How to search and find content – Whether it’s an HR form, marketing material, or the photo album from your company’s 20-year anniversary party, show your people how to search for documents in the file manager.
- Org-chart – Show your staff how easy it is to see who’s who and how each person in your company is connected.
- Submitting a case – Walk everyone through the cases feature. Whether you’re using it for internal support, project management, or as a customer help desk, this is a tool that will make their lives easier.
- Finding the latest announcements and news – Go over where the latest announcements will be posted. This could include your homepage, space homepages, even the weekly digest email.
- Chatting with colleagues – Tour the chat feature and make sure everyone can search for conversations, send files and documents, and initiate individual and group chats.
These are some of the features you may need to cover. Tailor your training guideline to meet your needs.
Sometimes our customers divide their training sessions into phases. They turn off a set of tools and start with the basics. Once the majority is comfortable with the basics, they introduce another set of tools to take their experience to the next level.
TIP: Start your first training session with our onboarding video!
When it comes to how you’re going to train your employees, we always recommend meeting your people where they work best.
This could mean hosting in-person sessions and recording them for those who prefer to learn from their desks. As training seminars progress, you can add activities to test your employee’s knowledge and have some fun! Here’s some more ideas:
- Host scavenger hunts where employees complete tasks in Axero and win a $10 Starbucks card (or any prize of your choosing).
- Include a Axero tip in weekly newsletters to get your members acquainted with different features.
- Reward employees who ask a certain amount of questions per session.
TIP: Post about your launch on office monitors to create a buzz!
These are some ideas you can incorporate into your training strategy. Have some fun and make it an exciting experience for your employees. If you’re excited to teach Axero to your people, they will likely be excited to learn it.
The When.
Once your managers are trained and you create a training guideline for each manager, it’s time to onboard everyone else. Your managers should plan weekly sessions with their teams. They might want to schedule sessions twice a week or more—determine what works best for your people.
Your training schedule might look like this:
- Week 1: Login, Spaces, Search, Homepage, News and Announcements
- Week 2: User Profiles, Org Chart, Chat
- Week 3: Creating content, submitting a case
Depending on how often you schedule sessions, your training period can be condensed into a few of weeks or less. Just remember: You want the information to stick. Make sure you are meeting frequently enough and your staff members are retaining the information.
Your company culture.
Axero is much more than an intranet because it becomes your organization’s heartbeat. Every feature helps your people perform daily tasks, while connecting them to coworkers and your company.
Use this to your advantage. Do you have remote teams that feel too remote? Departments that are not looped into each other? Does your CEO wish for better and more personable and internal communication with the entire organization?
This is why we made Axero, to fill these gaps so your organization can work better and together.
Even if you’re not facing these issues—or similar ones—still consider how Axero can drive more conversations and connections. Post photos from company events, create a space for your sabbatical program, or post monthly video announcements from your founder. Let’s set long-term goals and meet them, together.
Employees who are passionate about their employer, are passionate about their jobs. They will be the first to go the extra mile.
Let’s get started.
If you’ve never launched an intranet before or don’t know where to start, don’t worry! Training your employees doesn’t have to be a headache. Take the time to plan a training strategy, get your managers onboard, and allot enough time for your organization to adjust to this new change.
The Axero team will be by your side, ready to help whenever you have a question. Aside from contacting your customer success manager, you can post questions in our Community Support forums. We typically answer questions within the hour.
Additionally, we have videos and manuals for features in Axero. Everything you need is at your fingertips.
By the time training is completed, you will be ready for a seamless and welcomed launch!
