Should large companies with dozens of departments, divisions or units allow employees within those separate entities to be in charge of their own sections of the corporate internet or intranet? It’s actually one of the tougher questions, only because there are legitimate pros and cons on both sides of the issue.
Pro: No one knows a department as well as the people who live inside that department.
Pro: Departmental employees know better than anyone else when important changes need to be made to their particular web page.
Pro: If a department has a certain ‘personality’ that makes it special and different, who better to communicate that than the people who give it that personality?
Con: Not every department, division or unit has a writer skilled enough to write appropriate web copy. Every page of every corporate site must be concise, effective and error-free.
Con: Departmental employees may just be too busy to take the time necessary to make web page changes and modifications. That’s not in their job descriptions—and they may even come to resent the responsibility.
Con: Just because a department has a personality, it doesn’t mean that personality should be part of the corporate site. There is often much more value in a corporate site having a singular, professional voice.
Of course, many large companies have a professional copywriter on board who is skilled at maximizing every department’s web page while maintaining cohesion on the overall corporate site. Other companies hire a full-service marketing communications firm that has expert writers, designers and project managers on staff to do it for them. After all, the larger the company, the more pros and cons need to be weighed.