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Keeping staff in the know is important to keep an organization running in tip-top condition. That’s why an internal communication strategy is necessary.
You can check out a list of internal communication tools to help you get started.
Organizations and Causes of all sizes face difficulties in making sure that staff are getting relevant and accessible information when they need it. That includes:
- Access to organizational practices and policy
- Updating staff on the field
- Communicating with remote staff
Let’s take a look at some examples of employee communication you can implement at your organization.
Setting up a knowledge base
A central hub for all of your organizations’ knowledge, such as policy information and best practices is essential for good internal communication.
Gathering the information and making it accessible to your staff might seem like a monumental task, especially if you are a large organization. But it is worth it for the convenience it offers in the long term.
The European travel technology provider, Amadeus has adopted Confluence as a knowledge base for over 12000 staff to collaborate between their teams and store the documentation needed for their organizations’ daily operations.
Keeping track of team progress
Managing projects and reaching team goals is much easier with a dedicated platform to keep track of your progress.
The Akilah Institute, Rwanda’s only college for women, uses task management tools like Asana to great effect.
By breaking big projects down into tasks, team members know the steps they need to take to achieve their bigger goals, such as setting up a series of open houses for prospective Akilah students or arranging the annual Akilah Entrepreneurship Fund Competition.
Sending mass updates
It’s tricky managing a workforce that’s on the move or working remotely, including sending them emergency updates or organizational notices.
The Nashville-based design and architecture firm Gresham, Smith and Partners found that their method of having staff call into a phone number and listen to a recorded message in the case of an emergency was not effective. Over a 2 week period, only a dozen out of their 680 employees actually checked the message over a test period.
Recognizing the need for proactivity when communicating with staff in case of emergencies, they implemented a system to send out text messages and emails to their employees to keep them updated. In 2016, the system came into play during two severe snowstorms, asking employees to stay off the road due to the weather. In 2019 you can go one step ahead. To improve your user experience, you can use a URL shortener (like Rebrandly) in your texts to not only shorten a link but also put your brand name on it
Employee surveys
Surveys are still one of the best methods for employee engagement. Not do they let your staff voice their opinions and allow you to learn from them, surveys can also influence your staff.
Asking people if they would like to volunteer for the American Cancer Society in a survey led to volunteer rates spiking from 4% to 31% for the organization.
In an employee survey by Facebook, they asked 30% of their employees if they were personally committed to improving their experience working at the company. They later found that the employees who were asked were 12% more likely to request a list of additional tools and resources in order to improve their engagement at Facebook.
Virtual Meetings
Traditional meetings, with people traveling from place to place, are costly. Webinars are one of the most cost-effective ways of engaging with any number of staff across geographic sites.
For the dulux paint manufacturer AkzoNobel, traditional strategy development meetings took place face to face, with eight speakers traveling to 6 regional offices to deliver presentations to the staff at each location.
Several obvious drawbacks of this were the costs of travel and accommodation for each speaker as well as the work hours lost. They have since switched to webinars for a simpler, more efficient approach to engaging their workforce.
By replacing six face-to-face meetings in favour of a single, one-hour-long webinar they are able to deliver key strategies to employees in a more cost-effective and resourceful manner.
AMA or Ask Me Anything sessions
For those organizations that struggle to connect managers with their staff lower down the ladder, this is a great activity to look into.
IBM has started adopting ask me anything sessions in order to boost staff engagement.
With senior executives, including the CEO, answering three selected questions from staff every week, in the form of a short video, they are keeping employees updated on the companies plan’s and boosting morale.
Good Internal communication helps bring your staff into the loop. The examples above give you some practical ways you can make sure your employees get the knowledge they need to do their jobs effectively.
Drop me a note at [email protected] and let me know how your organization is talking to employees. I’d love to know.
Feature image source: Amy Hirschi/Unsplash
