Many organizations develop an internal online community to improve how employees collaborate. But what does this collaboration mean? Does it mean employees share more information and improve performance, or does it mean they waste less time? It can be both and we need to measure each separately here.
An internal online community can save time by improving how information is stored, tagging experts other staff can approach for information, reducing duplication of effort, and reduce the amount of time spent communicating internally.
For example, one survey determined that the average employee spends 38 minutes looking for each document. Similar amounts of time are likely to be spent searching for experts who can answer a pressing question.
In addition, information shared by email or in person is not captured for others to access and save later on. This often leads to staff repeatedly asking the same question or duplicating work which has already been performed elsewhere. A community can reduce the need to ask these questions.
To measure time saved, you need the following metrics:
- Time active community members spend looking for documents, experts, internal communications and on work that has been completed elsewhere each week (in minutes).
- Time non-active staff members spend looking for documents, experts, internal communications, and on work that has been completed elsewhere each week (in minutes). Both active and non-active members can be determined via sampling or a survey.
- The number of active members in the community (one visit in previous 30 days).
- Average salary of staff members in the community.
Community ROI Template
You can add these metrics into this spreadsheet or follow the process below.
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