We live in a world where adapting to fast-changing markets is no longer an option for companies and business owners. Rethinking employee communication and embracing digital technologies is here to stay and we all need to make the necessary changes to stay current and competitive. Since the start of the pandemic, new employee communications trends have emerged, and business needs to adapt to them to improve workplace communication.
What does growing a business in an ever-changing world mean?
Basically, it means that you need your employees to have a deep understanding of your business goals, stay on top of industry trends, and come up with strategies that will take your product or business to the next level.
In short, you need to help your employees adapt to change and provide them with the right communication technologies.
Does Employee Communication Impact Your Business Success?
Hang on a minute — What Is Employee Communication?
Essentially, employee communication involves the exchange of information, ideas, and feedback with and among employees to achieve the business goals originally set. Employee communication is critical to a business’s success. It’s the glue that holds your business together. This has been particularly true during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Having an effective communication strategy in place helps you improve collaboration in the workplace, employee productivity, and employee engagement. It’s also a great way to motivate your employees and enhance innovation in the workplace.
It is not surprising as our economy reopens that improving communication in the workplace is a top priority for most businesses.
What’s more, employee communication is crucial when it comes to building a strong company culture. The way you communicate the company’s values, vision, and strategy will have a direct impact on how your employees feel about the company.
Five employee communication trends that can reshape the workplace today and beyond.
1. Instant access to information
The way we communicate has changed; we expect information to find us immediately rather than having to spend time looking for it. So, when communicating with employees ensure you send direct links to the information you want them to take on board to keep them engaged.
2. Adequate content distribution
In most companies and organisations, HR and communication teams create material for their employees such as newsletters, campaign material, event planning, and ad-hoc surveys while marketing teams produce educational and engaging content such as videos, infographics, success stories, quizzes, coffee table books or eBooks to reach their target audience and increase brand awareness.
Many internal communication professionals have realised that the distinction between internal and external communications is not the best approach to keep employees engaged. Instead of excluding marketing materials from the content they share with employees, they are now merging internal and external communications.
In other words, they don’t build their content distribution based on their audiences (internal vs external stakeholders). Instead, they have a holistic approach where they distribute content based on their audiences’ needs.
At the end of the day, what matters is not to only share content across the organisation, but to share verified meaningful information with your employees.
3. Mobile-first communication
Millennials represent 50% of the workforce worldwide and they are projected to represent 75% of the workforce by 2025.
As we all know, millennials are tech-savvy and mobile-oriented. So, if you want them to engage with the content you share with them, you will need to adapt your internal communication to their news consumption habits.
In short, you will need to turn your internal communication into mobile-first employee communication. Sending emails across the organisation, or hosting meetings where your audience are not paying attention or are doing other work is not the best way to get your message through to your employees.
To improve employee communication, more and more businesses are launching communication apps where employees can find the latest company news and the materials they need in their news feed. That way, they can communicate with their employees in a fast and engaging way.
4. Personalised communications
Most employees feel that they are dealing with too much information and information overload has negative impacts on their ability to focus on a task – avoid “spamming” employees as this makes them less engaged.
Instead of pushing standardised (and sometimes) irrelevant messages, make sure you share the right content with your employees. After all, employee communication is all about supporting employees in their jobs and keeping them inspired.
At the end of the day, it’s a win-win situation: your employees are well-informed and enjoy a great employee experience. At the same time, they can do their job effectively all while feeling more connected and engaged.
5. Visual storytelling
Welcome to the visual world! Gone are the old days where you would share company news through your monthly printed newsletter that not everyone would read are over. Most employees are not that interested in reading long emails or detailed activity reports. So, if you think about it; why do people browse their social media feeds several times a day?
The answer is simple; they are looking for entertainment! What’s more, they are looking for content that drives the most engagement on social media includes videos, infographics, and pictures. So, if you want your employees to interact with your content, make it fun and engaging. And to do so, you will need to tell stories by including visuals in the material that you share with your employees. With visual storytelling, not only do your employees read your content, but they also interact with it more often.
The shift towards visual storytelling has already started; more and more businesses are sharing infographics, videos, interactive newsletters, and quizzes with their employees.
(Source: Poppulo.com)
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