Websites for Employees: Top 20 Features and Tips

What is an Employee Website?

As an employee, have you ever felt lost in emails, struggling to find the latest company news or important documents? Imagine this information all in one place, where you can find company resources, keep up with news and connect with your coworkers. That is what an employee website aims to offer!

An employee website is like a digital home for your work life, where you can find information about your company and job. Depending on your team’s needs, it may include chat, forums and messaging systems to help you collaborate with your teams and build a sense of community. 

Jump to: Five setup steps · 20 feature choices · Five optimization tips

Benefits of an Employee Website

Building an employee website around your team’s needs can be rewarding. Depending on its features and how they are used, it can offer benefits such as:

• Increase company awareness. Instead of sending mass emails that might not be read, an employee website allows employees to see announcements immediately as they login. This can be done through features like pinning on website dashboards.
• All-in-one place. An employee website can bring together communication features, which may reduce switching between systems every day. Choose integrations around the tools your team actually needs.
• Knowledge sharing. An employee website is a great spot for staff to find company resources or learn about their work and industry.
• Keep track of projects. An employee website can help  managers give out tasks and see how the work is going. For example, features like “assign task”, “monitor progress”, etc. This gives teams visibility into progress, but does not guarantee deadlines or budgets. 
• Evaluate data protection. In today’s digital age, digital security is increasingly important. Check who can access company information and which authentication options the solution supports, such as two-factor authentication. Protection depends on the controls you select and configure, not on having a website alone.

5 ways to build an Employee Website

Here are 5 simple ways to get started on building your company’s employee portal: 

1. Determine the Purpose

First off, think about what you need your employee website to do. For example:

• Do you want to boost how everyone communicates? 
• Are you looking to make collaborations between departments easier?
• Streamline workflows 
• Increase engagement

Identify the purpose early so you can choose features around what your company needs.

2. Outline Your Needs

Once you have got your goals lined up, list the must-have features that will help you meet them. Some things you may consider include: news feed, messaging functions, spaces for collaboration, employee profiles and secure document storage. Gather input from different departments, and decide who may view and edit documents, profiles and requests. Check the HR integration and data-protection arrangements you need.

Microsoft’s SharePoint planning guidance asks whether an initiative solves a real problem. Here is an illustrative starting point, not a tested result:

3. Plan the Design

The design of an employee website is important. Aim to make it user-friendly and engaging. Here are a few tips:

• To make sure it gets many users, make the layout intuitive and easy to navigate. 
• Make sure it works seamlessly on mobile devices, as this can be essential for team members who are on the go or work remotely. 
• Use your company’s branding to keep the look of it consistent
• Make sure everyone can easily use the portal, no matter their needs.

While planning the design, try creating prototypes that can help you visualize your designs before starting the development process. Ask a small group of representative employees to try the priority tasks on the devices they use. Record completion, time taken and any confusing labels, missing information or access blocks; adjust the prototype and retest. As a SharePoint planning example, Microsoft recommends a rapid prototype with stakeholder access.

4. Assign Roles

You will need a dedicated team to bring your employee website to life. Assign clear roles: a project leader to oversee development, IT experts for tech-heavy aspects, content coordinators to keep the site fresh, and HR representatives to ensure it meets personnel needs. Assigning these roles helps keep the project on track and makes sure everyone knows what they need to do. For key content, name an owner responsible for accuracy and set the next review date or cadence. Microsoft’s SharePoint planning guidance asks who is responsible for content and how often it needs review.

5. Choose or Develop a Solution

Finally, decide if you are going to go with a pre-made solution or build something custom. 

• Pre-made employee websites: Are quicker to set up and often come with ongoing support and updates.  
• Custom-build an employee website: If you need something more tailored to your specific needs, making your own employee website might be the way to go. Note that it will require more resources and time, but offers flexibility and customization.

The linked Litespace homepage currently presents an AI Recruiting Assistant for hiring. That focus does not establish employee-portal fit; compare documented capabilities with your requirements before choosing a solution.

Overall, building a great employee website does not have to be complicated. By following these 5 simple steps, you can create an employee website that meets you and your team's needs.

Top 20 Features to Consider for an Employee Website

Use these 20 options to prioritize features around employee tasks. You do not need to implement every feature to get started.

1. Company-Wide Newsfeed and Updates

Keeping your employees updated is key in a busy work environment. A company-wide newsfeed will allow your people to stay in the loop for news and events happening within your company. This will help create a more tight-knit culture within your company too! Here are some tips: 

• Use videos, infographics, photos to make each story pop in your newsfeed
• Make it engaging: allow people to interact with posts through likes, comments and shares
• Adding a calendar! This can help your employees keep track of important dates and events 

2. Internal Messaging System

Imagine a workplace where communication is as easy and engaging as your favorite social media channel. An internal messaging system on your employee website can be a space where you can chat in real time, share files, and have both public and private conversations. Use it for quick exchanges that need a prompt response; discussion boards suit topics people return to over time. Some tools can include: 

• You can follow topics with #channels. For example, #marketing, #sales, etc.
• Get someone’s attention with @mention 
• An availability sign to see who is ‘available’ or ‘unavailable’ for a quick chat. This will help manage conversations effectively. 

These tools can help keep the team connected; choose them around how your employees communicate. 

3. Staff Profiles

Remember how overwhelming it can be on your first day, with so many faces? Staff profiles can ease that stress especially for new hires, and also boost connections across the company. More than just names and job titles, these profiles can include: 

• A profile picture
• Person’s skills
• Projects within the company
• Personal hobbies

This can also help you find and connect with the right coworker at the right time, be it for professional collaborations or sharing a common hobby. These profiles will help strengthen workplace relationships.

4. Resource Library

Your go-to spot for the documents you need – a company’s resource library. Keep maintained files such as job policies and statistics here, rather than mixing them with how-to answers or blog articles. With well-tagged and categorized resources, you can quickly find what you need. Reliability depends on maintenance: give each key resource an owner and a next review date, and update or retire outdated versions. Microsoft’s SharePoint governance guidance similarly asks who owns content and how often it needs review. 

5. Automated Workflow Management

Automated workflow management can reduce back-and-forth emails for approvals and help route requests. Whether booking leave or purchasing equipment, a configured system can guide your request through the necessary steps. Clear approval roles and exception handling may support faster approvals and a smoother flow of information, but results depend on the process and its configuration. 

For Litespace, confirm whether any offered scheduling covers employee requests, tasks or meetings; do not assume a hiring workflow meets these needs.

6. Discussion Boards

A place where everyone in your company can share ideas, ask questions and discuss important topics. That is what discussion boards on your employee websites are all about. Unlike immediate messaging, topic-based threads let people return to an ongoing conversation and contribute at different times, across the whole company or within specific teams.

7. Project Workspaces

No matter where your team is located, project workspaces on your employee website can support teamwork. These digital rooms allow you to brainstorm, share files, solve problems together in real time. Keep decisions and materials available for coworkers to catch up when they can, rather than assuming everyone joins live.

8. Survey and Poll tools

Want to know what your team thinks about the new office layout or where to hold the next company social? Surveys and polls make it easy for everyone to input quickly. They are not just for fun questions, you can use them to collect feedback too.

9. Training and Development Hub

Your employee website can be a powerful tool for growth with a special section for training and development. Here, employees can find all kinds of resources, training modules or workshops. This section will help build a culture of continuous learning and boost productivity. Plus, it should keep track of everyone's progress, which is key for professional development. The training and development section can be optimized by integrating tools such as the Skill Matrix tool that helps L&D and HR professionals to identify skill gaps and plan the periodic inclusion and update of new learning resources.

10. Integration with Business Applications

Make your work life easier by connecting your employee website with business tools you use every day, like Microsoft 365 or Google Workspace. Check whether single sign-on is supported for your selected applications and configuration; connecting tools alone does not establish a shared login.

For Litespace, verify the exact tools and integration scope offered before including it in your portal plans. 

11. Advanced Search Functionality

Consider advanced search if employees need to find information across many documents or profiles. Filters for tags, dates or topics may help them narrow results. Test whether employees can find the current information they need before deciding which search features to add.

12. Speed up onboarding

Starting a new job can be exciting yet overwhelming. That is why a good onboarding process is essential. By putting all the onboarding resources in one place on your employee website, new hires can easily fill out forms, learn company rules, and get to know their teammates. This helps new employees settle in quickly and start work right away. For Litespace, confirm any employee-onboarding capability and its scope before relying on it here.

13. Knowledge Base

Nobody should waste time hunting for important information at work. A good knowledge base on your employee website gathers reusable how-to and reference answers, such as FAQs and wiki pages. Use it to explain how to complete a task, while the resource library holds maintained documents and the blog carries editorial articles or updates.

14. Employee Recognition Platform

Everyone likes to be recognized and appreciated for their hard work. An employee recognition platform on your website can give shoutouts, celebrate 'Employee of the Month', or even have a #shoutout channel for peers to recognize each other. This recognition can help employees feel valued. If considering Litespace, verify whether employee shout-outs or awards are available rather than assuming recruiting tools include them.

15. Social and Fun Elements

Work shouldn't be all about work! Adding fun and social elements to your employee website can liven it up. Celebrate birthdays, share personal achievements, organize virtual team activities or set up sections for sharing recipes or finding gym buddies. These fun features help build a strong community and make using the website more enjoyable every day. Employee resource groups and interest-based groups can have spaces for team-building, DEI and social activities. With Litespace, verify any activity or community tools before planning around them.

16. Mobile Optimization

It is important for your employee website to work well on phones and tablets, not just computers. Mobile optimization means designing and checking browser access on the phones and tablets employees use. Whether you are checking updates on the go or catching up during your commute, a mobile-friendly site should support the priority tasks without requiring an app.

17. Searchable Blog 

A searchable blog is for editorial articles and updates, rather than maintained policy files or reusable how-to answers. This can include in-depth articles, detailed guides, expert advice, and long-term initiatives that can be published and easily accessed. The main feature here is that the blog is easy to search. Employees can quickly find specific information using keywords and tags. This makes the blog a very useful tool for learning and looking up information whenever needed.

18. Helpdesk or Support System

Got a problem with the employee website? A helpdesk or support system should show employees how to ask for help, which team owns the issue, and the available support hours. Route content or access questions to your internal team, and platform faults to vendor technical support as agreed. For Litespace, confirm support channels and hours directly; do not assume round-the-clock portal support. 

19. Mobile App

A dedicated mobile app is an optional addition to mobile browser access, not a requirement. Consider one only if it addresses employee tasks the browser experience does not serve well. Compare the available features, sign-in and device support before deciding; an app is not automatically easier to use. 

20. Gamification

What better way to make work more fun with gamification! This is by adding game-like elements into your employee website to boost participation and motivation. From earning points for completing tasks to competing in friendly challenges, gamification makes every day at work a little more interesting and a lot more rewarding.

5 Tips to Optimize Company Employee Website

Discover 5 strategies to make your company's employee website even better.

Tip #1: Have a FAQ Section

Start by setting up a Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) section. This is where you can answer recurring questions teams often have, such as onboarding details and everyday work queries. A good FAQ section can be very effective and can save everyone a lot of time. It is also about giving everyone accurate and standardized information without confusion.

Tip #2: Keep it Organized

Think of your employee website as a digital workspace – it should be neat, tidy and well organized. Create specific areas for different departments. An organized employee website can help everyone find what they need quickly, reducing frustration and increasing productivity.

Tip #3: Personal Touch

Make your employee website more than just a place to find information; it could also be a community hub. Feature employees’ success stories, such as an employee’s ‘Work Anniversary’ or an ‘Employee of the Month’ spotlight. This personal touch can help build connections and strengthen your company’s culture.

Tip #4: User-Friendly

To keep your employees engaged, your employee website must be user-friendly. This can be done by ensuring a design is simple and navigation is easy to understand. The quicker your team can learn to use the website, the more likely they will use it as part of their daily routine. Reuse the priority-task test with representative employees on their usual devices. Record completion, time taken and any findability or access obstacles; make adjustments and retest.

Tip #5: Share Company Mission

Your employee website is a great place to immerse your team in the company’s mission and values. By simply pinning the company mission at the top, can help employees feel connected to the bigger picture and motivates them to reflect these values in their work.

Conclusion

Wrapping it all up, building an engaging employee website is about more than just work; it is also about building a community, and fostering a connected, well-informed workplace culture. Choose one priority employee task, pilot the corresponding feature with a small representative group, and use what you observe to improve it before expanding. 

Before choosing a provider such as Litespace, compare its documented scope with your employee-portal needs and confirm the features, access arrangements and support you require.