Reaching employees with critical information is no easy task in the modern working world.
Sometimes it can seem like nobody reads their email anymore. And you can forget about traditional outreach methods like fairs and flyers. Those would require employees to actually be in the same location at the same time — which rarely happens since hybrid and remote work became the norm.
But while it’s nearly impossible to gather all your employees in one place, you can put all the information they need in one place with HR microsites.
Related: El Camino Health Takes Their Benefits Fair Virtual with Flimp’s Benefits Showcase. Read it here →
What Is an HR Microsite?
A microsite is an individual webpage or cluster of pages designed to serve a single purpose or promote a single offering within an organization’s larger web presence. Microsites are typically built to be accessed directly (rather than through links on the company’s main website) and are self-contained.
An HR microsite is simply a microsite dedicated to a human resources topic, such as benefits or company policies.
Why Use HR Microsites?
The primary advantages of HR microsites are that they are centralized and accessible. Employees don’t have to dig through their inboxes or a pile of papers to find the information they need; simply click on a link, and the information is at their virtual fingertips.
Unlike meetings or fairs, microsites are not time sensitive. A microsite is accessible anytime, any day, and (if it’s well-made) from any device.
This is how people are used to finding answers in the digital age.
When was the last time you opened a newspaper to find a movie time or fished a menu out of a drawer to find out what a restaurant was serving? We do all these things online now, so why should gaining HR information be any different?
Uses for HR Microsites
A microsite is a one-stop information resource with limitless possibilities for HR communications. Any topic area where you repeatedly answer the same questions or distribute the same materials would make a good focus for a microsite.
To get your creative juices flowing about how you might use an HR microsite (or two) at your workplace, here are some of the most common use cases for HR microsites:
1. A Recruiting Microsite (Plus Employer Branding)
In today’s tight labor market, selling yourself as an employer and making it easier for job seekers to apply can help you win the war for top talent. An HR microsite can help you promote the benefits of working for your company — just like your company would promote the benefits of a new product or service.
Marketing technology firm HubSpot provides a superb example.
HubSpot’s recruiting microsite includes sections on (among other things) company culture, working locations, benefits, company values, and, of course, job listings. HubSpot also makes excellent use of outside resources, transparently linking to Glassdoor reviews.
2. An Employee Resource Center
Company policies evolve, benefit providers change, leadership comes and goes, and IT improves — that’s just the nature of business. But keeping employees apprised of every new development can get cumbersome, and employees are unlikely to remember every update you send.
An employee resource center microsite can be a year-round go-to source for up-to-date company policies and procedures. Employees can consult your resource center and get definitive answers if there is any question about, say, when company holidays occur or the proper way to lodge an IT request.
Internal employee resource centers can also provide easy access to essential links, such as payroll sites and software downloads.
3. A Benefits Resource Center
As you’ve probably experienced, employees don’t just have questions about benefits during open enrollment. Their questions come year-round, for example, when they try to use unfamiliar benefits, when they’re unsure about what their benefits cover, or when they have a life event that may require adding or removing someone from their coverage.
A benefits resource center is similar to an employee resource center but narrows the focus to benefits. Everything employees need to select, use, and understand their benefits year-round and during open enrollment is available in one place.
This mockup of a benefits resource center (created on Flimp’s Benefits Showcase platform) includes a welcome page that provides general open enrollment information and tabs for every major benefit area: medical, dental and vision, spending accounts, wellness programs, and so on.
Notice that nearly every page offers a brief explainer video — an excellent way to reach younger employees, who tend to prefer video content over text.
4. A Virtual Benefits Fair
Every year, your organization hosts a benefits fair to promote your new benefits and encourage employees to make informed decisions. But each year, fewer and fewer employees attend. (With so many employees working remotely, many live too far away to attend, even if they wanted to.)
Virtual benefits fairs transpose the best parts of attending a benefits fair online, making your fair accessible to employees round-the-clock and from anywhere. Employees can peruse virtual fairs at their own pace without having to fend off high-pressure sales tactics. And with a virtual benefits fair, your company can put your precious square footage to more valuable use.
Your microsite can be built with sections that mimic a benefits fair environment — with a “lobby,” “exhibit hall,” and “booths” — as this example made using Flimp technology does. Or, you can opt for a more stripped-down benefits showcase (see above).
5. An Onboarding Microsite
Employees that get acclimated quickly to a new job tend to engage more with the work, become productive faster, and stay with the company longer than those who get off to a rocky start. An onboarding microsite can help ease the transition for new hires by providing a clear and accessible roadmap for their first few days.
Again here, HubSpot provides a sterling example. HubSpot’s onboarding microsite includes a first-day schedule, benefits information, a video introduction to company culture, a list of pre-arrival tasks, and even a playlist for calming first-day jitters.
Building an HR Microsite Is Easier Than You Think
You don’t need any web development expertise to create an attractive, functional, and mobile-friendly HR microsite for your company.
Flimp can handle all the technical work for you, drawing from a library of proven templates and customizing your site with your branding and content. We’ll keep your site updated for you throughout the year and provide detailed tracking and reporting so you can see what your employees are viewing.