Having engaged employees is essential to growing and improving your company. One of the most powerful ways to engage your employees is through effective internal communications, supported by today’s digital workplace capabilities.
When companies rely on old-fashioned one-way, top-down internal communication methods, it prevents employees from participating in the company culture. The usual result is disengaged employees and high turnover, with all of the attendant disruptions, expenses and quality issues.
Effective internal communication, however, creates a sense of ownership that gets people on board to sustain company goals.
Using a well-designed corporate intranet and tools such as Microsoft Lync and Microsoft Yammer allow employees to have a say, share feedback and engage in discussion. When employees feel this sense of ownership, they are more likely to go the extra mile, resulting in higher retention rates and increased customer satisfaction.
With people increasingly working remotely and on geographically distributed teams, sound internal communication has become more important than ever. The more mobile your workforce becomes, the more your employees need to be in the know and feel connected.
Since many people now work from the road via mobile devices and collaborate across vast distances, today’s employees need anytime, anywhere access to internal communications, whether that means mobile access to a corporate intranet or apps for Yammer and other social enterprise tools.
Here are three internal communications tips for engaging employees, helping your company to grow and improve:
- 1) Develop a balanced communications strategy: In the past, a monthly newsletter was standard for corporate communication. But that’s probably not enough for even the most traditional organizations. A balanced strategy should aim for consistent internal communication that uses the right medium in the right amount.Just what makes up that balanced mix is unique to every organization. While a single monthly newsletter isn’t enough for some companies, a daily social feed might be too much for others.
- Matching communication tools to company culture: Choosing the best internal communications tools depends on your organizational culture and employee makeup.Younger employees, for example, tend to prefer using mobile devices to keep in touch with friends, rather than sitting down at a desktop computer. In this case, enabling mobile access to internal communication is likely to be more appealing to younger workers and help them be more productive.In a more traditional company culture, however, employees might be put off or overwhelmed by the Twitter-like, constant newsfeeds available in enterprise social platforms.
- Accountability for adoption: When you introduce a new capability or medium into your internal communications, it’s important to make someone accountable for adopting the new approach. Depending on the organization, the accountability could go to marketing or corporate communication, human resources or the executive suite.
By developing an effective strategy for internal communication and supporting it with the most appropriate technology, you’re able to improve the employee experience and better meet employee expectations for communicating in the digital workplace.
Communication tools are a vital component in employee engagement and job satisfaction. Improving internal communication encourages them to become more collaborative, productive and creative, helping the company to grow and improve.
Learn more about helping your organization leverage today’s digital workplace capabilities by contacting Portal Solutions
