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Employee engagement ideas for deskless

employee engagement ideas for deskless workers
employee engagement ideas for deskless workers

7 employee engagement ideas for deskless workers

No matter what message or policy you want to communicate, unless your deskless workers are engaged, it’s effectiveness will be limited. With 80% of the world’s workforce consisting of deskless employees, and traditional methods of communicating no longer cutting the mustard, it is time we addressed how we communicate with these people and introduced new employee engagement ideas.

Traditionally, frontline employees have either relied on their line managers to disseminate a message, perused a noticeboard or logged into a shared computer. While once upon a time these were the only options, today we have technology that can make communication equal, no matter where your employees work.

Whether you have already identified the employee engagement channels you need to deploy or are still researching your internal communication and staff engagement options, below is a checklist that will help you create an effective internal comms strategy for your hard to reach employees.

1. Ensure the basics are covered

Before you embark on an all guns blazing communication strategy that focuses on granular details it’s important to remember, when your deskless workers have been working remotely with limited communications, they may lack some of the basics around the purpose of their role. Ensure you include company strategy communications into your plan so that everyone understands what they are doing and why are they doing it. That way, everyone will be able to see how their role fits into the bigger picture and they are more likely to engage with your new employee engagement ideas.

2. Make information more personal and relevant

Digital capabilities mean we no longer have to push the same comms to everyone. By taking time to understand what is relevant to an individual and what they would like to hear about, you can instantly improve engagement. A starting point is to create segmented groups for email sends or you could paint a more accurate picture by using an internal comms app that has the capability to report on engagement with each piece of content.

This would enable you to build up an ‘engagement profile’ of each of your employees, not only enabling you to send them communications they want to hear, but also helping you to identify brand and communication advocates who you can recruit to further improve your internal communication strategies.

3. Give deskless workers a voice

Traditionally, many deskless employees have to communicate their opinions or ideas through their line manager but this no longer needs to be the case. An employee engagement app will give your hard-to-reach employees a voice. In a structured way, they can feedback their thoughts and ideas directly to those who want to hear, giving them the empowerment needed to motivate and encourage innovation.

4. Show recognition

While it is often harder to recognise frontline employees because they often work alone or in silos, it is important to find effective methods to recognise your remote teams. Whether that is setting time aside in schedules to engage in conversations that aren’t directly linked to day-to-day work, highlighting the purpose of a team and their performance in a company briefing, or providing a channel for colleagues to recognise one another.

Whatever the right approach for your organisation, make the necessary changes, promote the reason for the changes, onboard champions to push your message out and ensure you recognise employees equally and consistently.

5. Provide direct access to documentation and people

One of the greatest challenges for a workforce constantly on the move is having access to the right information at the right time. You cannot expect an operative to memorise your policies, but if you give them direct access through an internal comms app or file storage facility, they are far more likely to reference it. Likewise, without direct access to forms, it is highly likely that some of your employees will cut corners or ‘wing it’. The same applies with communication. If your deskless employees don’t know who to speak to, they may just not bother.

With immediate access to a searchable people directory, you can connect your frontline team with colleagues across the organisation and encourage collaboration.

6. Provide options to your deskless workers

No one person is the same, everyone will have their own preferences for how they consume information and how they communicate. It’s important to give your deskless teams options, none more so than during a period of change. As you introduce something new, such as employee engagement software, ensure your existing channels run in tandem. Overtime you may be able to decommission certain channels but you need to ensure everyone is familiar with their options first.

7. Learn and evolve

With an effective two-way communication strategy in place you will have the insight you need to inform and confirm your strategies for years to come. Whether it is the results of a satisfaction survey, the comments on an article, or a month-on-month content comparison, feedback is invaluable. For optimum efficiencies it would be beneficial to have all this information within one employee engagement platform but whatever information you collate, ensure you do so in a structured manner so that you can utilise your data as effectively as possible.

With the seven employee engagement ideas above in place you will engrain a culture of inclusivity and empowerment. Your deskless employees will want to familiarize themselves with and engage with the communications you send and you will have an effective employee communication and engagement strategy that works for everyone.

If you are ready to change how you engage, get in touch with VRAMP today and we will show you how our employee engagement software can improve the effectiveness of your frontline employee communications.

daniel wright

Daniel Wright

Marketing Assistant

With a desire to grow personally and a wish to improve working lives through employee engagement, I am thrilled to be part of building an internal comms system that connects everyone.

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Blog Internal Communication

Internal Comms Strategy

internal communication
internal communication

Internal Communications Strategy

What exactly are you trying to achieve? Every company will have different goals, based on their individual needs. However, in a successful internal communications strategy, there are some goals that should be the gold standard. These are:

  • Share information – ensuring employees are kept fully informed
  • Unity culture – imparting the values and ethics behind business decisions
  • Employee feedback – offering employees a platform to share ideas and concern.

While the primary goal of internal communication is to keep employees informed, it is also crucial to ensure that a unity culture is strived for and two-way internal communication channels put in place. Ask yourself the 5 best internal communcations questions.

Who is it aimed at?

Never forget to focus on who your internal communications strategy is aimed at.

Your employees have a lot on their minds, from the stress of the job they have in hand to worries about what the future has in store. They have personal matters and concerns too. Your job is to cut through all the noise and get your company message heard.

To get, and keep employee engagement you will need to understand your workforce and what information they will find interesting and important. It may be helpful to segment the audience into specific groups based on age, locations, teams and attitude. Messages about pensions will be more important for older employees for example, as anyone under 25 plans to live forever!

Don’t expect a single internal communication to work for every employee. Use a range of techniques in your internal communications strategy to allow for individual needs.

Why do you do it?

To get the most out of your internal communication strategy, you need to define your goals.

This will be different for every company and it can’t be just “make more money”. For some the goal may be to improve staff retention levels, while for others it will be about improving productivity.

Using an employee engagement app like VRAMP give you the ability to set benchmarks and monitor engagement to achieve these goals.

Once you have strong, clear goals in mind, the rest of your internal communications strategy will fall into place much more easily.

What are you sending?

You need to always consider the two questions that reside in the minds of your employees, “why should I care?” and “how does this affect me?”. Employees will see everything you are saying through their own personal filter.

Your internal communications strategy will work best if you have already mapped out some outcomes that will interest them. Making their jobs more enjoyable and easier for example.

Not as easy as it sounds I know, you can’t put a positive spin on everything! This is where a positive unity culture comes into play, the bad news needs to be on everyone’s shoulders in the business, not just the shop floor.

How is it received?

It’s important to consider how your messages are transmitted when creating an internal communications strategy.

Will they respond to a company-wide email, a social media channel or perhaps a messaging service like Microsoft Teams? Your best option is always to provide a choice of channels to allow your employees to receive information the way they like it.

An employee engagement app offers a range of channels, tools and feedback mechanisms. Providing a two-way communication stream for maximum employee engagement.

When are you broadcasting?

Like comedy – timing is crucial in both external marketing and internal communications. It is a balancing act between announcing too early with incomplete information, and leaving it until after the office grapevine is in overdrive!

When your internal communications become sporadic and only when there is a crisis you will find engagement levels begin to suffer as employees feel forgotten and side-lined.

Your aim should be to maintain a regular and consistent pace of messaging within your internal communications strategy. Use the range of tools and reports at your disposal to ascertain when the best time of the day is for your employees.

author-rachel-stidworthy

Rachel Stidworthy

Marketing Manager

With over 15 years’ experience in communications I have seen first-hand the difference strong internal communications can make. I am passionate about helping organisations reap the rewards of an engaged workforce and feel privileged to work for an organisation that has this same passion. We can achieve so much more when we work together towards the same goals. 

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Blog Employee Engagement

Employee Empowerment?

empowering employees
empowering employees

What is Employee Empowerment?

We’ve all heard the phrase when asking a question that is ever so slightly outside the script. “Let me talk to my manager and I’ll see what I can do”. It’s often the death of a potential sale, you’re left unhappy and the employee feels helpless. These situations can be avoided by ensuring employee empowerment is engrained enough for each employee to feel confident making the right decision on the spot.

Employee Empowerment doesn’t mean you simply hand over the wheel and see what happens! It is built up over time through better understanding of your business needs. In this blog we’ll look at 5 types of employee empowerment your business and its employees can benefit from.

Training

You cannot expect your employees to take control if they are not well trained or under prepared. When empowering employees to make their own decisions, companies are responsible for equipping them with the tools and information they need to approach certain events or scenarios’.

When employees try out new ideas and test new skills, then they grow and develop. They improve themselves and become more proficient. In turn, this makes them happier, more engaged and better prepared to face obstacles and challenges.

Employee empowerment is encouraging employees to develop new skills through trainings courses and other educational methods.

Time Management

Some businesses feel the need to see employees seated at their desks to get a full day’s work from them. But as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, time management has truly come into its own with many workforces now working from home.

A more flexible time management approach gives employees the autonomy to use their time as they see fit, working non-traditional hours or dividing time between home and your work location. Employees are still expected to complete their work on schedule and to be available during times when a physical presence is required.

Employee empowerment comes when employees are given the freedom to make their own calls when it comes to scheduling work hours and location.

Shared Information

Employees who are empowered with an honest look at what’s going on behind the scenes at work are less likely to believe gossip and hearsay. When employees are left in the dark about key business decisions or lack an understanding of why a particular business approach is being implemented, they may feel shut out.

When open and honest communication is promoted, employees will feel like valued and important members of the small business team. They will be more likely to feel empowered to help with problem solving and new program implementation.

Financial Power

Employees who are entrusted with their own budgets or funds for certain situations are financially empowered.

Giving employees financial empowerment allows them to decide the best use of budget and achieving company goals. When employees have this type of financial empowerment, they are more likely to review their spending carefully, looking for the most appropriate use of funds and use their budgets wisely.

They will have a more personal connection and sense of ownership with the money they are using.

Decision Making

The big one! Making a decision without fear and or “Teflon” it up the chain of command!

Most businesses have a hierarchy employees are expected to follow when it comes to different levels of decision making. For example, employees may be empowered to make decisions about simple workplace issues, such as what type of office supplies to order, but be required to consult a manager for larger decisions, such as whether to extend credit to a particular customer.

Start small with decision making boundaries and then widen that boundary as employee empowerment grows based on successful implementation and feedback.

Empowering employees to make more important decisions gives them a vested interested in the overall success of the business.

daniel wright

Daniel Wright

Marketing Assistant

With a desire to grow personally and a wish to improve working lives through employee engagement, I am thrilled to be part of building an internal comms system that connects everyone.

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Blog Employee Surveys

Employee Survey Questions

employee surveys
employee surveys

5 great staff survey questions

Happy employees are more productive and engaged at work. Employee surveys are a great way to gauge the current mood and highlight issues you may have in the workplace but they will only work if you ask the right staff survey questions.

Employee surveys must be short, easy to understand and not an exercise in fishing for compliments. If you are looking to refresh your employee engagement survey the following 5 questions can help you evaluate employee connection to your company.

Do you find your work worthwhile?

Employees need to feel their work has meaning. When asked in a recent global survey why employees stay with their current company, 32% said they felt the work they did was meaningful.

They chose this option over others like money, company culture and colleagues. In an ideal world you would only hire employees who see the benefit in what your company provides, but that is easier said than done! Using these kinds of staff survey questions in your employee surveys helps measure how many employees find meaning in their work and in turn much more likely they are to remain at the company.

Do you enjoy our company culture?

Creating an enjoyable company culture is necessary for retaining hard working employees. It’s critical your people enjoy your work culture, which includes workplace environment, company goals and expectations, and company values.

A good workplace environment can build better working relationships between colleagues and reduce absenteeism which in turn creates greater collaboration and efficiency.

How likely are you to recommend our company to a friend as a place to work?

This classic Employee Net Promoter Score (eNPS) question seeks to measure not just employee satisfaction or connection to your company, but whether employees like your company enough to tell their friends about it.

Many companies offer referral schemes when an employee recommends a strong candidate for a position. This helps reduce recruitment costs and your current employees are likely to be good judges of someone who would fit in well with your company’s culture.

Do you feel valued at work?

A really critical point to cover in your staff survey questions because feeling valued and appreciated at work is a very necessary component for low staff turnover rates and high employee satisfaction. 79% of employees who leave their jobs cite a lack of appreciation as a key reason for leaving.

If your employees feel valued they will often go the extra mile. Staying late, volunteering to help other teams and putting maximum effort into their work without constant need for praise. On the flipside, if they don’t feel respected and valued by the company, they won’t feel as inclined to deliver results.

Fun Question

As part of forming a good company culture one of your staff survey questions should be more relaxed. Break up the targeted questions with fun ones like “rate the coffee in the breakroom from 1 (hot mud) to 10 (Java gold)”.

Don’t make them personal – keep the focus on inanimate objects. These fun questions can uncover hidden gems too, maybe the coffee is terrible and by changing brand you see an increase in overall happiness!

If you are ready to send employee surveys and need an easy way to create the survey and analyse the results, have a look at our employee survey feature. 

author-rachel-stidworthy

Rachel Stidworthy

Marketing Manager

With over 15 years’ experience in communications I have seen first-hand the difference strong internal communications can make. I am passionate about helping organisations reap the rewards of an engaged workforce and feel privileged to work for an organisation that has this same passion. We can achieve so much more when we work together towards the same goals. 

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Blog Internal Communication

Types of Internal Comms

internal communication
internal communication

The Best Types of Internal Communications

Internal communications is an important activity that covers many areas of a company. As a result there are key internal communication types that need to happen if your business is to thrive.

The traditional methods of internal comms such as company mandates pinned to noticeboards and one-way email newsletters do not allow for vital feedback from departments, teams and employees. In this blog we will look at 3 of the best types of internal communications.

Leadership Communication

The original flow of “top to bottom” of information.

This method of downward communication still plays a vital role in internal communication. Keeping employees informed about the state of the company via formal announcements, company updates and progress reports.

Email is widely used by businesses to deliver this form of communication however this may not be the most effective method of reaching every employee consistently. Email inboxes are becoming overloaded and non-desk employees are often missed out.

You can solve these issues by using an internal comms app. Which give leaders the power to reach every employee with effective messages in modern formats like video, article feeds, employee surveys and polls.

Employee Communication

Vital feedback from employees back to managers.

Employees are on the frontline of your organisation. They will have opinions, thoughts and feelings gathered from their work that could really benefit your organisation. This crucial feedback must be listened to and acted on. This flow of “bottom to top” information can be achieved via workplace surveys, Employee Net Promoter Scores and staff polls.

The aim is not just to talk at your employees, give them a voice and engage with them through employee communication. This two-way street ensures every employee plays an active role in contributing to company success.

Crisis Communication

Never has this been more relevant than in 2020.

The Coronavirus has changed the way we look at internal communications forever. When a company faces the major disruptions and unexpected changes brought about by COVID-19, crisis communication becomes crucial to a business’s survival.

Having a crisis communication strategy helps mitigate risk, keeps employees safe and reduces the impact on your company income. The key here is reaching every employee during a crisis effectively and quickly.

A flexible internal communications app gives an organisation the ability to deliver crisis communications. It connects with employees wherever they are; at home, at work or on the road with feedback channels that allow you measure the reach of your communications. Its speed and flexibility gives you the power to quickly adjust your plans to suit the ever-changing situation.

author-rachel-stidworthy

Rachel Stidworthy

Marketing Manager

With over 15 years’ experience in communications I have seen first-hand the difference strong internal communications can make. I am passionate about helping organisations reap the rewards of an engaged workforce and feel privileged to work for an organisation that has this same passion. We can achieve so much more when we work together towards the same goals. 

Relevant resources

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Blog Internal Communication

Video in Internal Comms

internal communications
internal communications

Using video to communicate with employees

Using video to communicate with employees is a very valuable part of any internal communication strategy. It isn’t a new idea but love it or hate it, video conferencing became much more common during lockdown and now we are all more familiar with being on screen.

It is not an easy thing to do. I’ve been a public speaker for many years, giving talks and seminars in front of hundreds of people but I turn into a bumbling idiot when looking into a camera. So what are the secrets to producing interesting good quality content?

Practice

Sounds obvious but it really does work! If you are using video to communicate with employees you must first feel relaxed and confident. Or as relaxed and confident as you can be at least!

Just grab your phone and start recording yourself talking about anything. These videos will never leave the safety of your phone storage, their purpose is to get you used to looking at the camera rather than yourself in the screen and feeling more comfortable with the result.

Let your eye line roam a little, staring at the camera intently whilst you recite content can come across a little… well, creepy!

Start alone at first, get used to the feeling of recording yourself. Then, when you’re feeling more confident, move to a public space and repeat the process. Hold the phone boldly – don’t try to secretly record yourself!

Equipment

3 items that will make your internal communication video look and feel more professional.

Lighting. A must on every filmset in the world is good lighting, even when filming outdoors and it will make a real difference to your videos. You can buy selfie ring lights that clip onto your mobile phone for as little as £15. Alternately you can get mini stands with halo lighting built in. Good lighting makes you look good, which in turn will improve confidence!

Tripod. Set your phone or camera into a stand so there is no distracting wobbles, no moving out of shot and no arm ache! Using a tripod with a phone or monitor mounted webcam frees up your hands for gesturing. Hand movement is an unconscious thing you would do if speaking face to face so freeing up your hands will relax you.

Microphone. Either invest in a good microphone or utilise the one in your earphones. A microphone eliminates external noises like wind and means you won’t find yourself talking loudly or unnaturally.

Do your preparation

Have a storyboard in mind before you start.

Film makers don’t just turn up on day one with the actors and start filming. They have scripts, storyboards, rehearsals and plans which they produce before filming begins.

Speak to colleagues or maybe run a quick survey to conclude the best way to go about using video to communicate with employees. What information would make their workday more enjoyable or productive? Find out who they want to hear from; is it the Managing Director, direct line managers or industry leaders?

I know this may seem a bit much for your weekly internal communication round up but your video content will be produced far quicker if you have a basic storyboard and agenda to follow rather than the classic “winging it” approach. Once you’ve got a storyboard have a pre-recording run through without the camera rolling. When you’re happy with the flow you can produce the content with no interruptions.

Don't fly solo

Release your inner chat show host.

Getting colleagues involved with your video content via employee or senior management interviews is a great way to relive any filming tension you may experience and increase overall employee engagement.

Without the emphasis on the camera your internal comms content will look and feel more natural in an informal chat setting. Making it more watchable and less staged.

Paralysis by analysis

Using video to communicate with employees is a really valuable tool in your internal comms strategy but remember you’re not remaking The Shawshank Redemption.

Unlike written or image based internal communication content, video seems to fall under a whole new level of post-production scrutiny. Resulting in very long lead times and worse, not releasing the content at all!

You are not Steven Spielberg, unless you are, and by some miracle you’ve stumbled on this blog. In which case, I’m a huge fan sir! The rest of us have to expect our internal communication videos to be slightly rough sometimes, for them to have places you’d love to redo. The key here is to let them go and publish.

Don’t get stuck overthinking. A video that is 95% perfect and released will improve employee engagement and company moral. A video that is 5% wrong (in your eyes) and not released will do neither.

 

author-darren-hepburn

Darren Hepburn

Director

Bon Jovi loving, social media junkie and F1 fan. I spend most of my time thinking about the impact technology is having on our society and the world of internal communications. And my pug Winston…

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Internal Comms During COVID

internal communication
internal communication

Internal Crisis Communication During the COVID-19 Pandemic

The value of Internal Communication during a crisis

Coronavirus (COVID-19) is spreading globally at an incredible rate. New cases are being recorded daily by doctors via regular updates from our government. The virus is also an issue for our economy as a whole. Businesses are beginning to feel the impacts on turnover, with many having to close down and furlough their employees.

But where does that leave the employees now working from home and the employees working on the frontline?

How does a business manage to instantly share the information its employees need to do their jobs when they are now scattered or working different shift patterns? How do you keep the workplace productivity high and team collaboration strong when your teams have been disrupted? And how do you engage with your employees when their world has turned upside down? 

Internal crisis communication has never been more important.

Lisa Ross, COO of Edelman in the U.S has said:

“Employees are turning to business as a source of truth on the daily issues they’re facing. So we’re counselling our clients to keep up a continual cadence of credible information.”

A cadence of credible info… Now that’s some smashing fancy talk for a Friday! Essentially your internal crisis communication needs to be a regular, probably more than normal, feed of information on what is going on and how important each employee’s role is in the businesses survival.

Your internal crisis communication needs to offer guidance

COVID-19 is changing internal communication and employee engagement. Your workforce could be feeling isolated and alone. They will have questions. “What’s going on?”, “will I still have a job at the end of all this?”, “will I lose my job if this lockdown carries on too long?”. Internal communication will play a vital role in handling these questions and keeping your employees focussed and on track.

74% of employees feel they are missing out on important information - Gallup poll.

Whilst your employees are working remotely or different the opportunity for “fake news” to feed into the business is high. Private WhatsApp chats and Microsoft Teams messaging will be spreading stories and gossip. You need a solid platform and strategy in place to stub out the negativity with updates and news on positivity and truth.

So what should you do?

These are my 3 top tips on how to manage your internal crisis communication:

Right Place - Right time

Hanging notices in the staff room doesn’t cut it anymore, neither do intranet updates that are locked away behind company firewalls. You need to send out timely messages on a regular basis on a platform every one of your employees has access too at home. 13% of employees use their company intranet and 2 in 3 employees ignore email newsletters through email fatigue.

Gauge Opinion

Your employees will have questions and if you do not answer them – fake news will! Use regular surveys and polls to gauge feeling and allow your employees a mechanism to ask questions and air their concerns.

Analyse Metrics

How do you know if your internal communication is effective if you don’t track it? You need to be able see if your employees are reading your updates and which content generates the most reads and questions. These important metrics form the building blocks of future campaigns and updates and will help you evolve your internal crisis communication to maximise its effectiveness.

author-darren-hepburn

Darren Hepburn

Director

Bon Jovi loving, social media junkie and F1 fan. I spend most of my time thinking about the impact technology is having on our society and the world of internal communications. And my pug Winston…

Relevant resources

VRAMP achieves ISO 27001

ISO 27001

July 14, 2021. VRAMP achieves ISO 27001 VRAMP is thrilled to have been awarded the highest international information security standard. The ISO 27001:2017

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Blog Internal Communication

Internal Comms Problems

internal communication
internal communication

How to overcome poor communication in the workplace

The role of an internal communication professional has changed. Communicating with employees for the purpose of releasing big news or changes is not enough. This closed approach to internal communication is likely to disengage employees and cause your internal communication strategy to subside. In this blog we outline the 5 most common problems and provide guidance on how to overcome poor communication. 

Non-Desk Employees

Not everyone works at a desk with access to company email or intranet. This creates a big logistical challenge but it’s vital you find a way around it if you are to overcome poor communication within your organisation.

Not having an internal comms app that every employee, contractor and stakeholder can access can hurt your relationships with your non-desk / remote workforce. Remote working is growing rapidly and internal communication professionals need to have a plan on how to keep them informed and engaged.

Time and effort goes into producing content for your workforce only for it to be inaccessible to Non-Desk Employees. 84% of Non-Desk Employees feel they do not receive enough support and communication to do their job.

Time Consuming

Updating multiple platforms & lack of collaboration is another hurdle many businesses need to overcome.

Creating engaging content is difficult enough, then you have to replicate it across email, intranet , staff noticeboards and social media.

In today’s fluid business world, internal communication professionals need to ensure much better cross department communication takes place. This ensures an even spread of content workload, fresh and interesting articles for your workforce and ultimately – far more engaged employees.

Customer facing teams like, marketing, sales, development and account management cannot work separately. In order to be successful, they need to communicate effectively on a regular basis.

The most effective way to do this will be with an internal comms app that all authors can access. With a single platform central to everything all your communicators do, you will ensure everyone sings from the same hymn sheet.

Low Engagement

Little or no feedback on company news.

29% of employees say their organisation’s current method of internal communication isn’t working. They feel disengaged and out of the loop.

Good employee engagement is a top contributing factor to high-performance growth culture business and an undeniable producer of productivity and payback.

Getting a better engagement rate requires three key values:

  • Employees want to be known and recognised as important individuals to the business.
  • They want to be valued. Employees want to know the company cares about them.
  • Empowerment. Some employees want increased responsibility, while others may want things like training and development.

Embracing a two-way engagement strategy to achieve a higher engagement rate and employee productivity with definitely help you overcome poor communication practices.

Email Fatigue

Overloaded employee inboxes are a common problem.

Email fatigue is a state that occurs when employees get tired of receiving email. They start to ignore messages, delete them, unsubscribe, or even worse – they send your emails to their spam folder.

Email fatigue is mostly the result of a company sending employees irrelevant emails or sending emails too frequently. Seeing gradual decrease in email engagement numbers like opens and clicks is a clear indicator of a tired and disengaged workforce.

An employee engagement app like VRAMP is designed so that the flow of information is faster, error free and more targeted with the use of feeds and teams. A solution such as this will not only help your overcome poor communication challenges, it will also help you attract a younger generation to work with you. 

Useable Analytics

Looking for more than just open and click rates.

Feedback and analytics are key to any internal communication strategy. You need it to measure engagement and gauge opinion whilst your employees appreciate the fact their voice is heard.

The focus should really be on measuring the impact of your internal communications on employee engagement, motivation and productivity. You need to be on top of your employee advocacy. Engagement metrics go a long way to help build a suitable program for this and will help you both identify and overcome poor communication issues.

author-darren-hepburn

Darren Hepburn

Director

Bon Jovi loving, social media junkie and F1 fan. I spend most of my time thinking about the impact technology is having on our society and the world of internal communications. And my pug Winston…

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Internal Comms Best Practice

internal communication
internal communication

Internal Communications Best Practices

Internal communication used to mean sending out bulk email newsletters, hoping that they would get past highly strung message filters to people across the business who would eventually read them. And who can forget the time our NHS managed to kill their mail server with 1 million reply-all emails!

Internal communication and employee engagement driven strategies have changed. Embracing new technology, employee schedules and circumstances. Here are our top 5 internal communications best practices.

Internal communications best practices #1

Use all the tools in the toolbox

Sounds obvious, but internal communication is no different to external marketing with regards to channels. Don’t just stick to intranets, staff notice boards and email newsletters, embrace mobile apps, chat services and video streaming.

You are looking to replace the “them and us” culture with one of unity and togetherness. An engaged, valued and informed team will stay committed behind your goals so find out which medium they prefer to receive information from you.

Internal communications best practices #2

Develop an internal communication strategy

Now you’ve got the gear – it’s time for the idea!

Have a plan with 3 months of content, targets and goals. Be flexible to change and ready to receive vital feedback from your audience. Set up feeds and segments to ensure the right message goes to the right places.

Internal communications best practices #3

Celebrate success

Virtual high fives all round.

If employees at all levels are given a means to give virtual props to their colleagues, internal communication can become the shared responsibility of each member of the business instead of a single communication. Celebrate success – involve as many people as you can in the process to ensure you grow your champions and ambassadors.

Internal communications best practices #4

Identify key metrics

Metrics on your internal communications show success and drives future strategy. Best intranet metrics measure business outcomes.

Analysing these metrics will give you a first-hand report of areas which need more attention. Metrics which give organisations a basic idea of their current position can be open & click rates, time spent on stories and video view counts.

Internal communications best practices #5

Listen to feedback

Good internal communication listens to feedback and opinion from employees.

You need it to measure and improve engagement whilst your employees appreciate the fact their voice is heard.

author-darren-hepburn

Darren Hepburn

Director

Bon Jovi loving, social media junkie and F1 fan. I spend most of my time thinking about the impact technology is having on our society and the world of internal communications. And my pug Winston…

Relevant resources

VRAMP achieves ISO 27001

ISO 27001

July 14, 2021. VRAMP achieves ISO 27001 VRAMP is thrilled to have been awarded the highest international information security standard. The ISO 27001:2017

Read More »
Categories
Blog Employee Engagement

Employee Engagement?

what is employee engagement
what is employee engagement
what is employee engagement

What is Employee Engagement?

To answer the question “What is employee engagement?” let’s turn to the famous visit President John F Kennedy made to NASA in 1962. During his time there he noticed a janitor carrying a broom. He interrupted his tour, walked over to the man and said:

"Hi, I’m Jack Kennedy. What are you doing?"

The Jainitor replied:

"I'm helping put a man on the moon"

The answer to “What is employee engagement” is this janitor. They are an engaged employee who understands their role in the organisational goals. 

 Employee engagement flows from the top to the bottom of an organisation, goals are achieved if everyone involved is aware and invested in them.

Employee engagement goes beyond social activities and events. Engaged employees understand their role and how important they are to achieving a company’s goals. They want to come to work, they know what is expected of them and how vital their role is in the overall picture.

it is about your employees feeling pride and loyalty working for your organisation, being a great advocate of the organisation to its clients and going the extra mile to finish a piece of work.

The Facts & Figures

70% of employees do not consider themselves very engaged.

The UK has an employee engagement deficit. Surveys indicates we rank ninth for engagement levels amongst the world’s twelfth largest economies as ranked by GDP. The UK also has a productivity deficit stretching back to 2011. Our output per worker was 20% lower than the rest of the G7 nations. Employee disengagement is therefore clearly contributing to our disappointing productivity figures and should be driving many more organisations to ask themselves “what is employee engagement?”

Employees can be categorised into 3 groups in terms of their overall engagement:

Ambassador

The target state! They are very enthusiastic about their work and their employer. They give their best and make significant efforts to improve the business. Often going above and beyond without seeking praise or reward

Passive

They are at the club, but hang around the edge blending in. They do contribute to the company, but in at a minimum level. More than happy to stay with the business without fuss.

Detractor

They are not at all invested in their work at all and are totally disengaged. Sometimes, they even actively work against their company. This set shows a much higher rate of absenteeism and very low work output.

Employee Net Promoter Score (eNPS)

An Employee Net Promoter Score (or eNPS) is a metric that is used to measure employee engagement and loyalty towards an organisation. The eNPS is directly correlated to the short-medium term intentions of an employee. It is a score that is often measured as part of a wider study looking at employee satisfaction. It is a calculation that shows which of the categories above your employees fit in.

There is a direct link between performance of a company and the engagement of their workforce. Working towards a good eNPS can help reduce your staff turnover, meaning less money needs to be spent on recruitment and training.

VRAMP has built-in eNPS tools that allow you to gauge your employee engagement, turn passive employees into ambassadors and help guide detractors into a mindset that benefits company and employee.

author-darren-hepburn

Darren Hepburn

Director

Bon Jovi loving, social media junkie and F1 fan. I spend most of my time thinking about the impact technology is having on our society and the world of internal communications. And my pug Winston…

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