Amplify Brand Engagement | Employee Engagement Strategy

Apart from the ubiquitous e-mails, are there better, faster and interesting ways to communicate routine company developments to employees?

Yes, there are!

Team SoCXO has put together a list of communication methods that will help you communicate quickly, precisely and effectively to your teams:

Mobile

You’ve likely noticed it and implemented it already, but companies today are regularly increasing their number of workers in remote locations, different time zones and those who work flexible (even odd!) hours. Combine this with the current number of mobile device users today (nearing 5 billion) and it gives you a readymade platform to communicate through. Such devices often provide a ‘mobile office’ experience, giving workers access to company resources such as files, email and data stores. Use these devices to communicate information to your employees anytime, wherever they may be located.

Additionally, use applications that have push notifications and ensure that your employees receive time-sensitive updates in time, every time. They can then act on these through their mobile device if needed. The benefits of using this platform for internal communication within your company are outstanding – ADP reports that over 70% of companies that use mobile solutions report increases in productivity.

The security risks of this method are far outweighed by the benefits that are reaped. Your IT department can assist with educating users on keeping sensitive information secure on their devices, and can also implement policies that have the ability to locate and remotely wipe the device.

Social Media

Have you noticed that the average age of your employees is reducing? A study by the White House on 15 Economic Facts about Millennials states that Millennials (members of the population born between 1980 and the early 2000s) are the largest and most diverse generation of today. They have been brought up using Social Media sites and these have been an integral part of their social development. Latest statistics show that as of 2015, there are almost 2 billion social network users worldwide – more than a quarter of the world’s population! An ideal way to communicate effectively with these workers is through a means that they are already comfortable with and view as important – Social Media.

Social media platforms can be used to instantaneously reach a large audience to share content about your brand and also keep your employees engaged about opportunities that will help them develop professionally. Announce company events and reminders for your employees, use invitation and calendar features to make it easier for your workers to track where they need to be and when. This will bring your organisation closer and help different teams around the world work more effectively together.

Case in point: Alcatel Lucent uses the Yammer Social Media service to break down barriers between business units and employees around the world. They have over a thousand users with more than 200 comments posted a day. This platform helps subjects to be discussed at the grassroots level, such as how they use their own products internally, corporate policies, and cultural issues. Greg Lowe, a social media architect for Alcatel-Lucent, says “I think what’s really interesting is that people seem more engaged because it’s an open platform that isn’t bound by organization. Normal collaboration initiatives begin in individual business units and are often limited to that business unit, but Yammer collaboration crosses company boundaries.”

Remember, many of these sites are public and so use this to your advantage! Show off your company’s work ethic and philosophy through content that shows why your company is a great place to be right now.

Internal Company Blog

Good communication includes sharing knowledge and expertise. A way to do this that invites collaboration, yet doesn’t disrupt the workflow is through an internal blog that can be placed on your company intranet. Encourage employees and departments to have a voice. They can then use this platform to share their ideas and broadcast their experiences quickly and informally.

This will promote open discussion and collaboration within your workforce. Employees may be more likely to speak up and share their opinions virtually than face-to-face. The company blog will eventually become a searchable, permanent archive of expertise that will remain behind even after employees move on. Share the blog company wide and break the barricades between different office locations and departments as ideas are shared and discussed. Accountability is also taken care of as once something has been blogged about, it can’t be denied later.

Additionally, it is a great means to keep staff up-to-date on information that is important to them, but not enough to schedule a meeting – such as upcoming events and how the workforce can be involved. Employees could write and share about exciting personal announcements and profiles of new co-workers could be shared so that familiarity between teams is ensured.

Jive Software uses their internal blog in exactly these ways. As explained by their CMO Sam Lawrence, blogs are used for internal communications as a means for new employees to introduce themselves through the ‘First’ blog tradition, for meeting notes to be shared across the organisation, for providing status reports of projects, for documenting how-to instructions and for generally sharing fun information to liven up the workspace.

Keep watching this space to know about 3 more interesting and fun ways to communicate with your employees.