[Sigia-l] Are all employee web sites created equal?

[MJJAIXEN at up.com]

It depends on what the scope of the Employee site is.  If the focus is
merely on HR, company news, and finance information, then I would probably
agree that there are a lot of similarities - and opportunities for
standardization and sharing across industries.  That's why packages such as
Oracle Financials, PeopleSoft, and SAP can exist; these are common
functions in just about every company in one form or another.

But, if this is an all-encompassing site (the classical "intranet" or a
conglomeration of various "intranets" within a company) which also has the
information that employees need to do their job, then I would disagree.
Every job, every business, and every company is different.  Microsoft is
not General Electric, which is not Kroger, which is not UPS, which is not
Joe's Diner.

I'm working on an online employee survey to help us reorganize our
Employees site; since we have 50,000 employees scattered across 23 states,
it is nearly impossible for a person at headquarters to accurately model
how those field employees really think.  (I can take some guesses, and have
come up with a prototype, but I have a low-degree of faith and confidence
in it.)

Mike Jaixen
Union Pacific

Jodi Bollaert <jodi at bluesunworks.com> wrote:
> Gotta question.  Seems like a silly one, but I have to
> doublecheck.  I have a client who recently told me
> that he believes the high-level info arch for an
> employee web site can pretty much be the same across
> industries.