Note: this blog was last updated on 19th March 2024
Effective internal communications hinges on how you get your messages to employees. After all, it’s well documented that engaged workers make a business more productive, collaborative and profitable.
Yet, if your internal communications strategy is lacking. You will find your workforce confused and frustrated as information they need is lost, missed or ignored.
This is why internal communications are just as important as customer, partner or recruitment communications.
Why is effective internal communications important for employee engagement?
Internal communications are vital to business success. This is due to the fact that, done well, internal comms leads to increased engagement and retention. And this can have staggering impacts to both your business and the economy in general.
For example, according to Gallup’s State of the Global Workplace 2023, unengaged workers cost the world $8.8 trillion dollars. That’s 9% of global GDP.
If that’s not bad enough, 60% of all employees fall into that category.
In recent years, disengagement has a new name – quiet quitting. This is where employees do the bare minimum. They don’t leave your business, but only do enough to not get fired.
If you want to promote future business growth, you need to re-engage your workforce.
In fact, a lot of them actually want this. According to the same Gallup research, 41% of quiet quitters say that improving engagement or culture would make their employer a great place to work.
So, you see how important communicating and engaging with your employees is. But, where to start?
Here are 7 employee communications best practices to help you improve engagement across your business
7 employee communication best practices for more effective internal communications
Follow these best practices to improve employee engagement, and to ensure that your workforce feels informed, valued and connected.
1. Assess your existing internal communications strategy
The first step to improving employee engagement is to analyse your existing corporate communications. After all, if you don’t find your baseline you won’t know how well your strategies work in the future.
If you have software, like an intranet, track things like post interactions, likes and follows, announcement acknowledgements and other engagement metrics. If you don’t, track key metrics like email opening rates.
Assess your current suite of communication tools. Could you reduce the number of disparate channels and software you use?
Finally, solicit feedback from internal stakeholders to see what your users think of your internal communications toolset. Find out what they like, what they don’t like and what they want from your internal comms team.
Regardless of what software you have, look for changes to behaviours. If your messages lead to action then you are engaging your workforce.
This initial assessment will help you understand what works and what doesn’t. Helping you lay the foundation for a more effective strategy moving forward.
2. Develop your internal communications plans for 2024
Once you understand where you are with your internal communications, you need to either create or tweak your internal communications plans for 2024 and beyond.
Consider your business objectives, define your goals and gain an understanding of your audience. This helps you ensure that you only serve the most relevant, interesting and valuable content to your workforce. All on internal communication channels they are willing to follow and engage with.
(PS – we actually have a guide that can help you develop a world beating internal comms strategy. Click here to get access.)
3. Create an internal communications committee
A dedicated internal communications committee ensures you can find the balance between employee needs and business objectives. It also enables further engagement with internal comms as people know who to reach out to if they have any questions or issues.
What’s more, this committee should consist of both leadership and employees. Allowing for diverse perspectives and increasing employee investment in your business. Plus, it will help enable an effective feedback loop between c-suite and your workforce.
4. Provide two-way channels for feedback
As Jimi Hendrix once said, “Knowledge speaks, but wisdom listens”.
Effective internal communications is not just about getting your message to the masses. If you want to better engage employees, listen to what they have to say. Not only will this create a culture of openness and collaboration, you might learn something valuable that has a real impact on your bottom line.
With the right software, you can create this feedback loop through surveys, polls and discussion forums. Depending on the subject, these can be anonymous so that everyone feels comfortable sharing their thoughts.
5. Ensure your communications reach the right people
If you are communicating effectively, nobody at your business should feel out of the loop. This may not seem like a big issue, but the confusion and frustration can cause your people a lot of stress.
Use tools like push notifications, announcements and alerts to ensure that nothing important slips through the cracks.
6. Avoid communication overload
Did you know that sixty percent of workers feel increased burnout due to digital communication?
Find the balance between consistent communication and too much information. Don’t bombard people with announcements, internal messages and updates.
Whenever you are communicating, consider your audience. Is what you have to say relevant, interesting and related to their role? If the answer is no, then chances are you don’t need to say it.
7. Choose the right internal comms platform to help you
Selecting the right platform to implement your employee communication best practices is almost as important as your strategy.
Find an intranet provider that has the resources and expertise to help make your strategic vision a reality. One that can adapt to your specific business needs and goals.
The software itself should be easy to use, with an integrated suite of apps and features to meet all your requirements. With an intuitive user experience, the intranet onboarding process will be a breeze, too, which can further enhance employee communication and collaboration.
(For more information on how to carry out a requirements analysis click here.)
For example, our intranet solution can help you implement all of the best practices we’ve talked about and so much more. If you’d like to see how it works, book a demo today.
Internal Communications Never Sleeps, Keep up to Date with Our Free Guide
When considering your internal communications strategy, you need to be adaptable. After all, employee expectations change and best practices change.
That’s why it’s important to keep up to date with the latest trends and recommendations.
Our latest free guide, “Internal Communication Strategy: Best Practices and Trends to Help You Succeed” can help you create a world beating strategy for 2024 and beyond.
It’s full of actionable recommendations on how to enhance employee engagement and collaboration, increase productivity and cultivate a company culture you can be proud of. All in an environment where internal comms teams have too little resources, time and budget.
