A proper internal communications strategy can play an essential role in the success of virtually any company. This is true regardless of your industry. With the right approach to internal communications, you’ll both ensure that your team members understand what’s expected of them on a day-to-day basis, and you’ll have a better chance of cultivating engagement. The more engaged your workers are, the more productive, healthy, and happy they’ll be.
Keep in mind that your current internal communications strategy might have room for improvement. Additionally, internal communications solutions that were once effective can grow weaker as the way we work changes.
For example, research indicates it’s becoming increasingly common (even post-pandemic) for companies to adopt permanent remote work policies. Surveyed job-seekers have also indicated that they will look for roles that allow them to work from home whenever possible. If your company doesn’t already have remote work policies in place, it may need to implement them soon in order to continue attracting job applicants.
Remote work policies offer many benefits. However, they can also present challenges that may need to be addressed. When your team members are spread out, your current internal communications strategy might fail to serve your needs.
Luckily, there are a number of ways you can theoretically make necessary improvements. Tips to keep in mind include the following:
Use SMS
There is no shortage of programs and tools available to those looking to modernize their approaches to internal communications. That said, these tools aren’t always as useful as their creators advertise them to be.
This is partially because learning how to take advantage of all their features and naturally integrate them into a team’s overall processes can be somewhat difficult. On top of that, many of these tools are somewhat costly when compared to alternatives.
You may be better off leveraging simple and affordable options that don’t require your workers to learn how to use new programs. For instance, many of your team members likely send and receive numerous SMS-based text messages every day. As such, using SMS-based internal communications solutions could help you allow for efficient messaging among team members without spending more than you need to.
Determine When Video Conferences Are Necessary
SMS-based internal communications solutions may be ideal when your team members only need to share brief messages with one another. However, they might not serve all your internal communications needs.
There will be times when it might make more sense to organize video meetings and conferences. This can occur when you need to have lengthier discussions and when you need to demonstrate ideas or topics in a more visual manner than SMS may allow.
However, it’s been shown that excessively lengthy video conferences can actually be quite mentally taxing for workers. You certainly shouldn’t reject the idea of organizing video meetings entirely. Instead, you should develop an overall approach to internal communications that involves more thoroughly considering when certain discussions require video meetings and when other communications solutions might be more appropriate.
Consider an Internal Online Forum
Again, in theory, an internal communications strategy can help employees who don’t share the same office nevertheless connect in a manner that fosters engagement. That said, employees might not feel comfortable having informal “water cooler” discussions using the same communications tools they use to stay up-to-date on work-related tasks and topics.
Some employers have found that remote workers are more inclined to get to know one another and chat about topics unrelated to work via their own internal online forums. Consider setting one up to encourage a greater sense of camaraderie among your workers.
Just remember, making adjustments to your internal communications strategy may be necessary again in the future. This is not an exhaustive list of all the ways you can improve your approach to this essential element of leading a team.
However, in general, these tips can help you adapt to changing times.