Best Buy's New Intranet Created With Help From Employees

Posted by Amanda Walsh

The large electronics retailer Best Buy tapped into their internal talent of Generation X workers to form a team for their new Best Buy Employee News, employee intranet.

Six employee volunteers were chosen to work on the project, which has proven to be a successful way for management to send out information and news as well as to receive feedback from employees. Some features of the newsletter include: News for My Job, News for Everyone and News for My Location. Sections have headlines that can be previewed with a short summary of the article by the movement of the mouse. Viewers have the option of subscribing to industry and competitor news stories; and even viewing them in Spanish. The intranet invites employee comments after each story in order to gain immediate feedback of what news is valuable and what is not. In addition, when a new product is not getting good reviews from customers, employees are able to quickly forward their comments and experiences to management.

The intranet has been a great improvement from past communication practices. The constant turnover of news and other product information was too much for the Director of Employee News, Barry Johnson, and his staff. According to the article, "On top of the constant content demand, it took three separate systems to distribute via e-mail and reach corporate and stores." Best Buy Employee News is now faster and more convenient to get news out to stores across the United States.

Johnson had this to say about the project, "The leadership at Best Buy created a culture that is honest and open, not hierarchical, so it is right for social media. We focus on employees' strengths; we focus on what they're good at."

This article was really interesting to me because it showed Best Buy's efforts to promote their employee relations. They reached out to employees and capitalized on their talents with social media and Web 2.0 resources. It has been beneficial for everyone because employees have a voice and management has a platform for rapid news dissemination and a way to communicate with all employees. To read more, please follow this link.