Tips on Using Your Intranet to Engage Staff During the Busy Summer Season

The hospital’s Intranet is one of the most important tools available to all hospital staff. Everyone with a valid login has the ability to log into the system and view policies, scheduling, see who is on call, and many other things that are important to the hospital’s daily operations. Intranets are typically reflective of the hospital’s logo or brand colors and generally contain a lot of text. Today we’re going to show you several ways to spruce up the look and feel and content of your Intranet to engage staff during the summer season, and improve communication with staff during seasonal holidays.

1. Countdown to Summer Holidays – Add a countdown timer on the welcome page to show people that you’re thinking about the upcoming Mother’s Day or Father’s Day, Memorial Day, or Independence Day holidays as much as they are and to create some excitement as these holiday near. Make it bright and cheerful to keep up morale.
2. Share seasonal gift or DIY project ideas – Encourage staff to share holiday or summer gift and summer DIY gardening projects ideas. By using your forum components, your staff can share great gift ideas for the upcoming holidays. Ask staff to share personal stories of their spring cleaning tips or ways to decorate their homes.
3. Promote Holiday Gatherings – Nurses and other staff who work the same shifts often build bonds of friendship. Use an Intranet Calendar to schedule or promote get-togethers or departmental parties, providing time possibly for outdoor barbecues (if applicable) and coordinate platters and dishes to pass.
4. Change the Colors to Reflect the Season or Holiday– A hospital Intranet is generally filled with a great deal of content. Try to enhance heavy content-filled pages with summer imagery. Or change the colors of your Intranet to red, white and blue, or perhaps multi-colored firework-inspired backgrounds for the upcoming Fourth of July holiday.
5. Create a relevant summer community pages – Allow staff to share photos of their vacations or favorite local, beach-themed shots. Summer is always busy especially around the Fourth. To boost employee morale during the dog days of summer, particularly when most would rather be outside, you can use your Intranet for the following: offer tips for barbecues/grilling, present a list with dates and locations of regional festivals, or spotlight great weekend daytrips.
6. Manage vacation time-off requests – Make it simple for staff to take time off. Encourage staff to use workflows for PTO requests, and use colors to highlight days off for certain staff members or departmental on call schedules.
7. Offer short breaks – Schedule short breaks during the days for workers; have lemonade along with an impromptu meeting to increase collaboration so they can stay focused longer and to continue to build a culture of engagement and high morale.
8. Holiday Notifications and Reminders – Alert staff of bbq parties, departmental gatherings, or outside picnics or community events. Set reminders for them to read holiday PTO or other policy documents using your Policy Manager workflow.
9. Use Scrollers – Set custom scrollers to alert staff of any changes due to summer hours or any IT downtime due to seasonal updates. Broadcast heat index or warmer weather updates for hospitals in high temperature seasonal climates.
10. Keep up with seasonal cafeteria meals and treats – Advertise a “summery” menu. The cafeteria staff at most hospitals enjoy making lighter fares for the warmer seasons. Highlight a low-cal plate or share lighter recipes that staff can make at home. Encourage staff to share their own favorite summertime recipes as well!
11. Spread the Holiday Spirit – Use executive blogs (CEO blog) to share thoughts about the Fourth of July Reflections or maybe almanac views from weather reports from last year until now.
12. Host a beach contest – Encourage staff to decorate offices or workstation areas with beach themed elements. Run a departmental contest and allow everyone to anonymously judge using a survey feature and offer prizes for the best decorations.
13. Post a corporate postcard – Create a fun summer-inspired post-card for staff to share with friends. Let them promote their staycation versus their vacation if they didn’t get to go anywhere this year.

The holidays hold special meaning for many people, and for many different reasons. Some wait excitedly year after year for the holiday season. With some small tweaks to your Intranet, you can reach your staff on a more personal level and help brighten their work days with seasonal and holiday cheer. It’s very important to keep staff morale up all year round, but especially during the warmer months when distractions are more.

HospitalPortal’s Intranet and Policy Management Software is designed to allow easy communication between employees, physicians, and board members. We know that you need to maintain open lines of communication to share vital information, policies, news, announcements, and more. Our goal is to make it easier to share this valuable information with all staff members. For more information about our products, call us at 866-580-7700 or email Sales@HospitalPortal.net.