How many years is your internal communication lagging? Here’s a test for you.

How is it that in many organizations internal communication still happens very much in the same way it did some 25 years ago? Both for the strategy and the tactics.

How many years is your internal communication lagging?

According to a report by Gallup about employee engagement, the demands and desires of today’s employees clearly have changed. It says:

“People are looking for more than just a pay check. They want purpose and meaning from their work. They want to be known for what makes them unique. And they want people who can coach them to the next level.”

That is an excellent start for an evaluation of your internal communication strategy. But, the Chinese already knew it a couple of thousand years ago: strategy (even a perfect one) without the right tactics is the slowest route to victory.

What do your employees need to be successful?

Engagement is not one annual survey. Nor frequent pulse surveys to get immediate feedback and then rarely act on the results. It is not something that is exclusively ‘an HR thing’. Employee engagement has to be owned by leaders, expected of managers and understood by frontline employees.

According to Gallup, these are the elements that determine employee engagement when addressing common workplace problems:

Diversity & inclusion

• Recognition and praise for doing good work.
• Someone who cares about them as a person.
• Their opinion to count.

Transitioning to an agile and innovative culture

• Knowing exactly what is expected of them at work.
• Having the right equipment for the job.
• Everyone to commit to doing quality work.

Stopping remote worker turnover

• Doing what they do best every day.
• Understanding the company’s mission and purpose because it makes them feel their job is important.
• A true friend at work.

Retaining young talent among older generations

• Someone who encourages their development.
• A conversation about their progress at least twice a year.
• Opportunities at work to learn and grow.

That should give you ample material to build a good strategy for increasing your employee engagement. Because employee engagement predicts high team performance in critical business outcomes including retention, productivity, safety, sales and revenue.

Making sure your internal communication delivers the information your employees need to be successful. For the success of your company.

Understanding what information your employees exactly want from you is one thing. Figuring out the functionalities your internal communication needs to deliver on what they want another.

So, e.g., employees want to know exactly what is expected of them at work. You’re probably thinking: “Fair enough.”

But when your company is decentralized and has people doing all kinds of work, then how do you that? In the office or on the work floor, how do you tell every single employee what you expect them to do? Day after day?

And better yet. Even when you’re sending out information that is personally relevant: how do you motivate your employees to give it their time and attention? How do you figure out if your message is understood or appreciated?

For that and for almost every other element boosting employee engagement, you need a solution that shines when it comes to tactics. And according to us, these are the elements that determine whether your solution for internal communication is up for the job:

• Being accessible for everyone in the organization, whatever the preferred platform.
• Offering one source of truth.
• Combining personally relevant news and functionality to solve daily work routines.
• Giving insights and feedback from the workforce.
• Giving insights based on data about open rates, engagement, …

Time for the truth about your internal communication

Find out how many years your internal communication is lagging. Do the test.