Improving Internal Communications in Your Business

Internal Communications in Your Business: Around 72% of communications professionals worldwide see good internal communications as a key driver of employee engagement yet around 60% don’t have a long-term internal communications strategy — as found in research by Arthur J. Gallagher & Co. Another study, conducted by Hollinger Scott, showed that some 41% of businesses do not measure the extent to which staff are consuming internal content. Because internal communications are a key means for companies to share strategies, request feedback, and report recent news, all businesses should both measure and work to improve this aspect of their business. Read on to discover a few ways that they can achieve this aim.

Measuring the Success of Communication Strategies

Most companies use tools such as Yammer, Asana, or Slack to connect leaders and employees, share knowledge and documents, and send and receive news and other information. Analytics can be used to leverage the value of these platforms via measures such as drive adoption, which shows which employees or groups of employees are active and which are failing to engage with others. They can also help you discover trending communications activities and provide you with the chance to replicate best practises in your network while also identifying influencers within your organization. Analytics can help teams search for specific topics, detect experts on these topics, and glean the sentiment of employees.

Encouraging the Sharing of Information

Communication should not flow unilaterally. While managers can use internal communications tools to communicate news and information such as changes to procedures, safety, news on events and the like, they should also encourage others to use working channels to share important or useful information they find. Doing so will motivate staff while providing others with pertinent, trending, or important content that leaders may not be aware of.

Planning Person-to-Person Events

This is undoubtedly the age of remote working, with Forbes predicting that telecommuting will last way beyond the duration of the current global health crisis. As efficient as communications tools are, they fail to create the sense of connection that person-to-person interaction does. After all, human beings heavily rely on body language to connect with others. Leaders can overcome the challenges posed by remote work by organizing regular networking events. These can meet work and social goals, with conferences, workshops, and other events having the ability to ‘kill two birds with one stone’.

Relying on the Power of Games

Gamification is a buzzword in the internal communications sector, with research indicating that the vast majority of employees find games-based learning more engaging. Managers can use gaming strategies to encourage employees to be more active, providing leaderboards so that all employees can identify the most active users and teams. Some software programs allow managers to assign incentives to those who complete specific communications tasks, relying on a points system to identify winning individuals and teams.

Internal communications strategies are key to keep employees focused on a common goal. Companies can work to improve their communications by employing different strategies. These include analytics, openness to employee feedback and information, in-person events, and gamification. The latter in particular can motivate and engage those who enjoy competing against themselves and others.