Technology has revolutionized business with a variety of new ways for communicating critical information to employees in the office and remotely. However, companies often fail to make full use of the employee communication software they’ve purchased, overlooking many features and capabilities that remain underutilized or even unknown.
In this blog, we’ll shine a spotlight on some of these underappreciated features before discussing ideas for getting the most out of your employee communication software licenses.
What’s Included in Employee Communication Software and Platforms?
Companies use employee communication software to disseminate information from management to the rest of the workforce. Most commonly, these communications come in the form of email newsletters or intranet announcements. However, many employee communication platforms provide a host of additional features that can empower organizations to think outside the box and improve employee engagement. Some examples include:
- Instant Messaging. Enable two-way communication and group chats to help employees stay connected.
- Custom Intranet. Easily create a branded intranet site to act as a centralized communication hub.
- Calendars. Help employees stay informed about upcoming events, important deadlines, holiday closures, and more.
- Surveys & Polls. Give employees a voice so they feel engaged in the decision-making process.
- Employee Directory. Make it easier for staff to find and communicate with each other to encourage collaboration.
- Interactive Quizzes. Improve knowledge retention after an important training session by including a short quiz.
- Workflow Automation. Create and schedule important communications in advance to ensure efficiency and timeliness.
- Video Sharing. Record training sessions, important meetings, and other communications for easy sharing.
- Metrics & Analytics. Measure the success and engagement rate of employee communications and identify ways to improve.
Every software platform is different, so the exact features included in your employee communication software will vary. If you need additional help figuring out your platform’s capabilities, you may want to consult a technology adoption expert for a more personalized list of features.
Getting the Most Out of Your Employee Communication Software
Many organizations pay for an expensive and feature-rich communication platform, but then fail to use it to its full potential—which is like leaving money on the table. Beyond email blasts and intranet posts, here are some ideas to fully leverage your employee communication software.
Social Intranet
Many employee communication platforms include an intranet portal for authorized users to make news posts and share important company information. This creates the potential for an internal social media site where employees can share good news, inspirational messages, and pictures from company events. Opening up the intranet in this way will drive employee engagement and foster a more social and collaborative culture.
Internal Wiki
Every organization has its own unique quirks, clients, culture, and communication style, which can make it difficult for new employees to get up to speed. Employee communication software often includes a Wiki or knowledge base where existing staff can collect all the institutional knowledge that must be transferred to new employees. This makes the onboarding process much smoother, while also giving existing staff easy access to any information they may have forgotten over time.
Interactive Training
Employee communication software is an excellent training resource. In addition to hosting training videos and collecting training documentation in a Wiki, many platforms allow you to create interactive quizzes to test employees on the information they’ve just learned. These quizzes give you valuable insight into the effectiveness of your training and help you identify employees who may require additional help.
Integration Support
Many employee communication platforms include a library of third-party integrations with other software. That means you can combine many of your existing communications tools into a single solution, giving staff a single platform from which to manage all of their communications workflows. You can also purchase third-party tools to get all the specific features and capabilities you need, rather than trying to find a single off-the-shelf communications software that includes everything by default.
Leveraging Employee Communication Software and Platforms with MMITC
Knowing your employee communication platform’s capabilities is only half the battle. Installing and customizing that software, and training staff to use it effectively, can often be much more challenging. The technology adoption experts at Meet Me In The Cloud can help you leverage your employee communication software to its full potential.
Meet Me In The Cloud can turn your digital collaboration tools into productivity engines. At any point in your collaboration journey, we partner with you to fully adopt your preferred technology tools. To get started, contact our experts today. [tel:1-866-221-3221]
