Meet your newest digital water cooler: Your employee intranet
Whatever happened to the workplace water cooler?
Water cooler conversations were never just about small talk. They helped build stronger teams, sparked collaboration, and made employees feel part of a welcoming company culture.
In today’s hybrid and frontline workplaces, these moments are a rarity. But the need for connection is stronger than ever.
83% of employees want their workplace to provide a sense of community, with more than a third willing to trade higher pay for meaningful workplace friendships or social enrichment.
Enter the modern employee intranet: A digital water cooler that supports seamless internal communication and boosts employee engagement. It’s a tool that amplifies company culture and gives all employees — no matter where they work — the connection and sense of belonging they crave.
Ready to take your intranet from dusty document repository to thriving social hub? Here, we look at how to upgrade the employee intranet — and why having a digital space for connection is so important in 2025.
The evolution of workplace connection
Remote and hybrid work have transformed employee communications. There’s less opportunity for organic office conversations, which means workplace relationships and employee engagement suffer.
This is nothing new for frontline workers who rarely step into HQ. Relying on paper memos and word-of-mouth messaging, they often miss out on essential company news and coworker camaraderie.
But times are changing. Many employers now recognize the critical role connection plays in employee engagement, retention, and productivity. And they’re turning to corporate intranets to bridge the gap.
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Rethinking the employee intranet: From static portal to social hub
You may be wondering how the intranet — that clunky and outdated software — can solve the employee connection conundrum. Traditional intranets, often relegated to the dark corners of the tech stack, have functioned as a digital filing cabinet. Certainly not a space for water cooler conversation.
But internal communications have moved on.
The modern employee intranet is dynamic and mobile-first. It’s designed to connect employees across locations — offering a single source of truth and need-to-know company updates. But also a sense of belonging, a deeper understanding of company culture, and a more satisfying employee experience.
Imagine this: A delivery driver rarely crosses paths with his teammates. With limited access to an old, static intranet that he has to access via a shared desktop computer in the depot, he feels like he’s working solo.
But, thanks to a new and improved employee intranet and personalized experience, he can check the company’s social feed on his smartphone during breaks. In one central location, he can add a reaction to a recognition post for top-performing drivers and even join a group chat where colleagues swap route tips.
Suddenly, he’s part of something bigger.
Social features that make modern intranet software more interactive and effective include social feeds, secure chats, Polls, Stories, and peer recognition tools.
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How to make your intranet a go-to digital water cooler (paper cups not necessary)
Ready to turn your modern intranet solution into the digital workplace hotspot? Here’s how.
Make it social
The best employee intranets replicate your favorite experiences on social media platforms. When employees can comment, react to posts, and share their own content, you create more compelling user experiences and make your platform more engaging.
Use bite-sized, engaging updates
Keep it snappy. Use short and snappy videos, GIFs, and eye-catching graphics. This type of content attracts attention and fits seamlessly into the busy schedules of both desk-based and frontline workers.
Encourage leadership visibility
Have executives and managers actively post, share insights, and respond to employee comments. Employees are more likely to engage with your intranet when they see that leadership is invested in two-way communication.
Leverage personalization
Relevant content is engaging content. So ensure employees see content relating to their role, location, tenure, and team. When staff enjoy a highly personalized intranet experience, they're more likely to log in regularly — boosting key metrics like employee adoption.
Make it accessible
All employees should be part of the conversation. So you need an intranet that your frontline employees, remote workers, and desk-based staff alike. Streamline the experience, provide a user-friendly dashboard, and make all essential features available via mobile access to create a solution that works for everyone.
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Turning employees into active intranet participants
You can build it. But will they come? And will they participate?
To prevent tumbleweed moments on your intranet platform, employee interaction is essential. Here’s how you can nudge workers in the right direction and develop a modern intranet culture that employees are excited to be part of.
Interactive content
Ask questions. Launch polls. Create employee recognition posts and ask teammates to add their messages of congratulations. Coworker connection is much more likely when you invite employees to join the conversation.
Informal content
Company updates are an employee intranet essential. But to foster connection, you need to leave space for informal conversation. So create fun content — like caption contests, a question of the day, and photos of the latest team event — to make your intranet more relatable and appealing.
Employee-generated content
Nothing inspires the reactions and comments of coworkers like employee-generated content. You can encourage employees to post their own content with a company-wide content generation contest — or by identifying and supporting employee influencers.
Gamification
A spot of good old-fashioned competition can prompt the intranet behaviors you want to see. A points system, a leaderboard, or digital badges inspire employees to take a more active role in the company intranet.
Communities
With Communities, employees can build meaningful connections with a smaller group of coworkers. These community-driven spaces link employees to their teammates or to coworkers with shared interests — and they’re great at driving engagement and participation.
These social communities are especially beneficial for frontline and remote teams who rely on digital collaboration tools to sync up with their colleagues.
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Measuring success: Is your digital water cooler thriving?
Once your digital water cooler is a hive of employee interaction and conversation, it’s time to measure its impact. Use analytics and employee feedback to assess engagement and optimize employee intranet platform performance.
You can track internal communication metrics by looking at:
- Intranet adoption rates
- Number of likes, comments, and shares
- Number of employee-generated posts
- Number of daily logins
Supplement this data with employee surveys. Ask employees what they think about modern intranet features, functionality, interactivity, and the types of intranet content they prefer.
You can then use this information to make meaningful adjustments to your intranet solution, making it more engaging and keeping up-to-speed with evolving employee expectations.
Give workers the social connection they crave with a modern employee intranet
A modern, social intranet isn’t just a tool for sharing information. It’s a powerful driver of culture and connection across the entire company — and a strategic part of your digital transformation.
Populate your employee intranet with key features, functionality, and content, and it becomes the gathering space of your digital workplace. It offers water cooler moments that enrich the digital employee experience.
Your intranet strategy doesn’t just benefit your people — it benefits for your broader business goals, too. By creating a deeper sense of connection and a more inclusive corporate culture, you can improve employee productivity, engagement, and retention.
