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Why Are Employees Resistant to Using Internal Networks? A look at how to show employees that using an internal network to communicate can save them time and frustration.

By Mikal E. Belicove

Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.

Illustration © Peter & Maria Hoey

Q: How do I get employees to communicate on our internal social network?

A: Good for you for adopting one of the more productive trends in intra-office collaboration, the internal social network. Closed networks, provided by Yammer, Jive, Moxie, Podio and others, offer access exclusively to a company's workers and invited outside contractors. The goal is to make it easier to search for task-related information and to make contact with colleagues who can help.

However, surveys from Forrester Research indicate that internal networks are vastly underutilized. So if there's a silver lining to your question, it's that you're not alone. To understand why and what to do about it, we sat down with Rachel Happe, co-founder of The Community Roundtable, a Boston-based organization geared toward helping business leaders manage effectively in online networked environments.