communications
“ANY SUCCESSFUL MODERN BUSINESS
NEEDS TO EMBRACE SOCIAL…EMPOWER
YOUR EMPLOYEES TO BE THOUGHT
LEADERS IN THEIR SPACE BY GIVING
THEM ACCESS TO INFORMATION AND
there’s a way for them to participate, engage and share, it feels more
meaningful.”
The Bambu survey found that four out of five employees want to
be engaged and invested in their company. Seventy-seven per cent
said internal communications helps them at their jobs and 66 per
cent said it would help them build better relationships with their
colleagues. Sixty-three per cent said it helps them become better
advocates for the business and tell others about their company.
“It’s important to keep employees in the know because it’s ulti-mately
what leads to engagement. If people don’t feel connected to
what they’re doing, they’re not going to go above and beyond and
be advocates for that business,” said Kazibut. “We believe every
employee should love where they work and they should be ambas-sadors
for the brand.”
The survey found that existing channels employers use for inter-nal
communications include:
• Regular, in-person meetings (52.8 per cent)
• Email (48.1 per cent)
• Internal online hub for all company news (32.6 per cent)
• Printed newsletters (29.8 per cent)
• Chat or instant messenger platform (18.9 per cent)
“We’ve noticed with our clients that they may struggle with feel-ing
that people might not get a critical piece of information about a
huge initiative that the business is working on. Everyone is busy so
the more you can streamline and centralize information in a way
that makes it easy to consume, the more your employees will be
informed and feel more connected to the company,” said Kazibut.
MODERN WAYS TO CONNECT
Brie Weiler Reynolds is a senior career specialist at FlexJobs, a
job search website that specializes in connecting potential em-ployees
with telecommuting and other flexible jobs. A virtual
company with nearly 100 employees located across the U.S.,
they’ve found creative and efficient ways to ensure everyone
feels well informed.
“At FlexJobs, we have a number of communications tools and
use them for different purposes,” she said. “Yammer is used as a
replacement for a water cooler – it’s where we can take a break
and talk about casual things like vacation and hobbies. We use
Slack for quick work-related questions or to chat with your team
throughout the day.
“When it comes to email, we have a rule that if an email chain
goes beyond three or four exchanges, we pick up the phone,” said
Weiler Reynolds.
With so many tools available, Kazibut says it’s important for or-ganizations
to set clear parameters around how employees can get
information and engage with each other.
“People will find unique and clever ways to try to communicate
and they may not be the best places,” he said. “We hear all the time
that information gets lost because it’s not being communicated in
the right way.”
He recommends having one department – whether it’s commu-nications,
marketing or HR – own the strategy and be clear about
which channels are meant to do what. All-in-one solutions can
make it easy to set up a system.
“Users will log in and see a number of stories listed in chron-ological
order from a mix of social feeds, similar to Apple News or
a newsreading app but framed in the context of the organization.
All of them can be consumed inside the product and then shared
to the social media app of their choice straight from there,” said
Kazibut. “When people can share information about their compa-ny,
they can be ambassadors for the brand and position themselves
as thought leaders in their space.”
TIPS TO IMPROVE YOUR INTERNAL
COMMUNICATIONS RIGHT NOW
The simplest way to improve your internal communications? Ask
employees through a simple survey to share what they like and
don’t like, says Weiler Reynolds.
FlexJobs settled on their communications tools by testing a
number of them, including social networking platforms and web
and video conferencing software to see what worked best for the
company.
Kazibut agrees that an audit of your current internal commu-nications
is critical. When it’s time to settle on a new strategy, he
strongly advises incorporating social networking.
“Any successful modern business needs to embrace social. Some
companies struggle with allowing people to access social networks,
but if you embrace it and make people part of the conversation,
you’ll be more successful,” said Kazibut. “Empower your employ-ees
to be thought leaders in their space by giving them access to
information and allowing them to share it.” n
ALLOWING THEM TO SHARE IT.”
– KRIS KAZIBUT
optimarc / Shutterstock.com
28 ❚ NOVEMBER 2017 ❚ HR PROFESSIONAL
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