The Key To Every Organization’s Success: Internal Communication

Imagine your staff knowing where they stand within your company, having higher levels of productivity and clearly understanding what’s expected of them. Sounds great, right? The good news is this, and much more is all achievable with a well thought out internal communications strategy. Implementing such a strategy has a major influence on your organization’s ability to function smoothly. When problems arise, your staff are more likely to talk about them, ask for help, and work together with others to create solutions. But only once they understand how your company’s internal communication process works. To make sure you’re not missing out on any of these benefits, we’ve broken down a few keys areas of internal communications below.

A Picture Is Worth A Thousand Words

It’s true—a picture is worth a thousand words. Using images in your internal communications is an extremely effective tool for accessing the emotional side of your employees’ brains, and creating lasting connections.Images streamline internal communications, and drastically increase the chances a message will be remembered by your staff. Because images are so powerful, there are a few things to keep in mind when using them in company communications.

Firstly, be sure to get the message right. One of the biggest dangers is that you’ll desensitize your employees by mindlessly posting images for the sake of it, without a genuine reason or specific point. Before looking to communicate with an image, have a think about what you’re really looking to portray. Decide on your message, and then start building an image. Remember, images stick in people’s minds, so the right message is crucial.

Also, be sure to keep your images simple. There’s no need to go creating complicated graphics. Often the most effective communication occurs through the simplest of pictures. Clearly convey your message, without any distracting details. This will make them the most memorable.

Finally, don’t be afraid to make a joke or two. We all know from personal experience that humor is the most lasting and effective form of communication. Even ‘Dad jokes’ will get your message sticking in peoples’ minds! Make your team laugh, engage their emotions, and you’ve gone a long way to communicating your message.

Giving Your People A Voice

Your employees’ opinions matter. What better way to let them know this than through your company’s intranet platform? Internal communications have traditionally been pigeon-holed as little more than the exchange of documents, information and critical communications. Continuing to take this approach is missing a massive engagement opportunity. By opening up communication channels with employees on your social intranet, you’re able to let employees know that their views and thoughts matter, and ultimately see them more engaged with their roles, their managers, and your organization’s mission.

Once open communication channels have been established with your staff, be sure to make the most of it. Perhaps the only thing worse than not having internal communication channels with your staff is having them but ignoring suggestions which come through. Ensuring that your staff feels heard increases engagement, and can help eliminate pesky problems in your organization. No doubt your staff have an array of ideas about how to improve processes, make work more efficient and tweak work conditions. Engage with these ideas, and you show your employees that their voices matter.Besides, you’ll be surprised at the ideas your employees come up with to make your business a more productive and efficient one.

Connected Employees, Wherever They May Be

Let’s face it – your employees no longer sit behind a desk, in a centralized office, all the time. Chances are you’re deluding yourselves if you don’t think this applies to your company. We live in the age of fluid work, and it’s time to accept this reality. One of the key benefits of having a company intranet is the ability to create a centralized, connected space for your employees, regardless of where they may be geographically. Develop your intranet with this in mind by making it mobile-friendly, and your organization’s internal communications will benefit enormously.

By allowing your employees to access company intranet while they’re out and about, you’ll get much quicker responses from them. Enabling the use of mobile devices to access the company intranet means important updates, announcements, and requests for information can be responded to much quicker by field staff. Productivity will also increase for out of office staff with a mobile-friendly intranet. Business trips, work-from-home staff, part-timers, field staff – all will have streamlined productivity if they’re able to access all relevant information, and communicate with the rest of your team at the click of a button.

Besides the obvious productivity and engagement benefits, mobile-friendly intranet also supports the ‘bring your own device’ trend. As nice as your company phones and computers may be, there will always be some employees who feel more comfortable working on their own devices. Why not embrace this trend, and use it as a tool for making employees feel more engaged and creative at work? Because the reality is, it will be happening whether you like it or not. By having an intranet that works across multiple platforms, you enable all employees to be connected and productive, regardless of their device.

It’s A Numbers Game

We all know that stories and images are what staff remember from internal communications. They create an emotional connection. However, numbers still matter, regardless of how cumbersome they may seem. It’s about using numbers to create an emotional connection in your internal communications. While your staff likely won’t be able to recall the exact statistic you communicated to them, they’ll be able to remember how it made them feel. The push that an employee might need to engage with a new strategy may be the feeling of excitement and possibility by being told that it will lead to a 30% increase in productivity, for example.For extremely effective communication, pair statistics with both stories and images.

While we’re on the topic of numbers, make sure you track statistics around internal communication. Employee engagement, job satisfaction, use of company intranet… all of these measures are important to understanding how effective your current internal communication strategy is. By measuring these elements, you’re able to improve communication, and ultimately generate higher productivity and staff engagement. And who doesn’t want that in their organization?

Clearly, leveraging your company intranet is a fantastic means of increasing employee engagement, and improving internal communication overall. You’ll find that your entire business runs smoother when internal communication is finely crafted, and company intranet use is maximized. If you’re ready to take the step that many other businesses have, and develop an intranet which will track employee statistics, be mobile-friendly, let employees know they matter, and allows great visuals to be used, then contact us today. MyHub can provide you with a cloud-based intranet to take care of all your internal communications needs, creating a better tomorrow for your business.

• Tags:
• Employee
• internal communications
• Staff

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