3 Steps to Help Improve Internal Employee Comms

In Gartner’s recently published Market Guide for Employee Communications Applications (ECA), the firm laid out a thorough analysis of the ECA market and presented best practices to help organizations select and deploy internal communications solutions.

One of the report’s key recommendations is for companies to adopt communication apps that “reduce technology overlaps and conflicts.”

According to Gartner, this can be accomplished “by collaborating with the digital workplace, HR and workforce management application peers, IT infrastructure leaders, and facilities groups to prioritize integration needs and support structures.”

The Problem with Technology Overlaps

Gartner’s advice is completely on point. As workforce management technologies continue to mature, solution providers are increasingly adding communication-related features into their systems. This often leads to functional overlaps between distinct applications.

While having feature-rich solutions may seem like a good thing at first glance, functional overlap between different systems can muddle up internal communication and cause confusion among users—thus exacerbating the very problems that an ECA is supposed to solve. This can be prevented with the following steps:

1. Do an Inventory of Your Internal Communication Needs

To effectively select and deploy the appropriate internal comms platform, you need to map out the different use cases of your ECA. Identify the various scenarios that require you to communicate with your team members and ask yourself: What does successful communication look like in your organization? What functionalities do you need to achieve it?

2. Collaborate with Different Stakeholders

Communication doesn’t happen in a vacuum, and neither should your process for selecting and deploying an ECA. Be sure to involve all the necessary departments and stakeholders in the process. These individuals include (but are not limited to):

• Human Resources (HR)
• Operations
• Executive Leadership
• Marketing and Internal Comms

Determine their specific needs, their target audiences, and the nature of the messages they need to send, and then factor those into your decision.

3. Look for a Versatile Solution That Satisfies All Your Needs

The information you gather above will help you figure out which ECA to adopt. While every company’s needs vary, most large and complex organizations benefit from a flexible, unified digital workplace such as WorkJam.

WorkJam’s platform comes with powerful communication tools to help you relay information to the right people at the right time. WorkJam enables you to:

• Bring all employees together into one digital communications platform.
• Benefit from robust instant messaging features such as chat rooms and direct messages.
• Target your communication and send messages based on filters like location, position, department, and shift status (e.g., on-shift right now).
• Utilize mandatory messages, read receipts, audit reports, and “on-shift only” messaging to decrease liability and ensure labor compliance.

WorkJam is a versatile solution that satisfies all your stakeholders’ needs. As such, your teams can rely on a single communications platform that doesn’t overlap or conflict with other tools.

Plus, WorkJam’s various modules—including Task Management and Employee Learning—seamlessly integrate with our Employee Communications module, further streamlining workforce management and operational collaboration.