Track utilization of resources.
An average company will probably provide its employees with a plethora of resources (tools, guides, tutorials, etc.) they can use to do their jobs better. But do you really know which tools your employees are using and which ones they aren’t? Probably not.
Track with objective statistics. If you have technical resources that you are making available to your employees, chances are you can use some sort of analytics to track the true usage. Internal web sites can be tracked, computer programs can be tracked, etc. Using technology to obtain the data about the usage of your resources is a great way to understand how they are utilized and if they are being utilized effectively.
Ask (with a survey). Survey your employees and ask how they using the various resources available to them. Ask about what they find helpful, what they don’t use, what they still need, and so on. Ask about the effectiveness of the current resources, their ease of use, and so on. Design your survey to give you actionable data (i. e. if you’re curious about navigation, ask questions that will help you understand how your employees navigate the resources available to them).
Use your data to draw conclusions. If your analytics show that people are clicking to several different pages before they stay on a page for a while (indicating it takes them a while to get somewhere) and they complain about navigation in the survey, something is obviously wrong with the layout of that particular tool or resource. Figure it out, ask employees if that is actually the case, and then take action.
Ask (with an interview). Once you have some initial points collected and to work off of, interview some employees about what resources they utilize and how they utilize them. The interviews should be open ended and pry around for additional information and additional areas to work on. The more you know, the more you can do and the better spent your time and other resources will be.
