A staff member should not need to remember three Teams channels, a bookmarked document library and a monthly all-staff email just to find out what is happening in the business. That is the practical test for SharePoint communication tools: do they make useful information easier to find, understand and act on?

For many small and mid-sized organisations, the issue is not that SharePoint has no communication capability. It is that the standard intranet feels unfinished. News is presented as a long list, important links disappear below the fold, people cannot identify the right colleague, and internal messages compete with every other notification in Microsoft 365.

The answer is rarely a larger intranet project. It is choosing a small set of tools that solve visible communication problems, putting them in the places staff already visit, and giving each one a clear job to do.

Start with the communication problem, not the web part

A good intranet is not a catalogue of features. It is a working front door for the organisation. Before adding anything, decide where communication currently breaks down.

Perhaps leadership updates are published but not read. Perhaps new starters do not know who does what. Perhaps teams keep asking where policies live, even though the files are technically available. Or perhaps internal communications has no quick way to gather a view from staff without setting up a separate process.

These are different problems, and they need different tools. Treating every issue as a news problem produces a busy homepage and very little improvement. A better approach is to define the desired staff action. Do people need to notice an update, find a person, respond to a question, access a key service or recognise a colleague? Once that is clear, the right SharePoint component is usually obvious.

The SharePoint communication tools that matter most

Make the homepage useful within seconds

The first screen should answer a simple question: what does this person need to know or do today? A branded welcome banner can make the intranet feel owned by the organisation rather than like a default Microsoft site, but its value is more than cosmetic. It creates a consistent place for a timely message, campaign or practical call to action.

Keep the message specific. “Complete your benefits selection by Friday” is useful. “Welcome to our intranet” is not, at least not after the first week. If a banner is permanent, it becomes background noise. Change it when there is a genuine reason to look again.

Present news as communication, not a filing system

Standard news posts are a sensible foundation, but the presentation matters. A news carousel can give priority updates the prominence they need while still allowing routine stories to remain available. This is particularly useful where internal communications teams need to balance business announcements, people news and operational notices on one page.

There is a trade-off. Carousels are good for a small number of high-value stories, not a backlog of everything ever published. Keep the featured selection current and limit it to the updates that deserve immediate attention. For critical messages, use a clear headline and a direct route to the full information rather than relying on staff to scroll.

Help people find people

In organisations of even modest size, staff often know the name of the person they need but not their team, remit or contact details. That creates unnecessary messages, slow handovers and repeated questions to managers.

An employee directory and organisation chart address different sides of the same problem. A directory helps someone search by name, department, location or role. An organisation chart helps them understand reporting lines and nearby roles. Both are particularly valuable for new starters, growing businesses and organisations with multiple sites or functions.

The data needs ownership. If job titles and departments are not maintained in Microsoft 365, a better directory will only make outdated data more visible. Agree who updates employee information and make that part of the joiner, mover and leaver process.

Give staff a low-effort way to respond

Not every question needs a formal survey. A quick poll on the intranet can help internal communications test interest, gather an initial view or prompt participation in a company initiative. It works best when the question is narrow and the outcome is visible.

For example, asking staff which topic they want covered at the next briefing is more likely to generate useful participation than asking a broad question about “employee engagement”. Where a poll informs a decision, say what happened afterwards. If people give input and hear nothing back, participation falls quickly.

Make recognition visible and credible

Peer recognition can help turn values from a poster into day-to-day behaviour. A simple recognition tool allows colleagues to thank someone publicly for support, teamwork or a job well done. It is especially useful in hybrid organisations, where positive work can otherwise remain within a small team or a private chat.

This should not become a popularity contest. Encourage specific recognition tied to a real contribution, and ensure managers do not become the only people receiving it. A modest, regularly used recognition area is more believable than a heavily branded initiative that fades after launch.

Remove friction from routine actions

Communication is not only about announcements. It is also about making practical services easy to reach. Clear navigation, enhanced search and personalised views of relevant email or calendar information can reduce the number of times staff have to ask, chase or hunt for something.

This is where intranet owners often see the quickest operational gain. If employees can find the holiday policy, the IT request route, the correct form and the latest departmental update without knowing the site structure, the intranet becomes useful rather than merely presentable.

Build for the audience, not the launch day

A common mistake is designing the homepage around what the project team wants to showcase. Staff use it differently. A frontline colleague may need quick links and shift information. A manager may need policies, reporting resources and team news. A new starter may need people information, key processes and a clear introduction to the business.

You do not need a separate intranet for each group. You do need sensible audience targeting and a homepage structure that does not assume everyone has the same priorities. Personalised content is helpful where it reduces clutter. It becomes unhelpful when people cannot discover information outside their immediate area.

Test the design with real tasks before launch. Ask a small group to find a policy, identify the right contact, locate a recent business update and complete a routine action. Watch where they hesitate. That will reveal more than a design review focused on colours and page layout.

Buy versus build: use the economics honestly

Many organisations can describe exactly what they want: a better news display, a staff directory, an organisation chart, a recognition area or clearer navigation. The question is whether they need to commission it from scratch.

Custom SPFx development may be justified where a process is genuinely unique, integrates with a specialist line-of-business system or requires a bespoke user experience. It also brings design, development, testing, deployment and ongoing maintenance to manage. A simple custom web part can easily cost £8,000 before the organisation has addressed support or future changes.

For common intranet needs, a production-ready web part is usually the more proportionate choice. ThePoint’s SharePoint Experience Pack includes 18 web parts built for communication, people, engagement, navigation and productivity. Individual apps start at £249 per year, while the five-app Starter Bundle is £999 per year and the Complete Bundle is £2,499 per year, each for up to 500 users with tenant installation and configuration included.

That does not mean every organisation should buy every tool. Start with the few components tied to a recognised problem, use the free trials to test fit, then expand if staff adoption shows there is value. The advantage is speed and lower risk: the web parts install inside Microsoft 365, inherit tenant branding and keep data within the tenant.

Treat ownership as part of the tool

Even well-chosen SharePoint communication tools fail when nobody owns the content around them. Someone must decide which news is featured, remove expired homepage messages, maintain key links and respond to feedback. This is not a full-time role in most organisations, but it does need named responsibility.

Set a simple publishing rhythm. Review homepage content monthly, or more often where communications are frequent. Check whether the most-used links still belong at the top, whether news is current, and whether search terms reveal content that staff are struggling to locate. Small, regular adjustments are usually more effective than a major redesign every two years.

Measure behaviour as well as page views. High traffic can mean the intranet is useful, but it can also mean people keep returning because they cannot find what they need. Look at searches, clicks on priority services, poll participation, news readership and the number of repeated support questions. These give a clearer picture of whether communication is improving.

The most useful intranet is rarely the one with the most web parts. It is the one where staff can find the next useful thing without asking where it lives.