Every organization with more than two employees needs an internal communication tool to effectively communicate with their staff. Most organizations these days have a tool they use to communicate with their staff.
There are so many workplace tools that tag themselves as internal communication tools, but only a few effectively serve the purpose.
In this article, I’ll explain internal communication tools, in case you don’t have one for your business yet, and guide you on features to look out for in selecting the best internal communication tool.
What is Internal Communication?
Internal communication is the flow of information between employers and employees and their peers. It is a two-way dialogue system that characterizes most successful businesses. More than this, internal communication is the engagement of workers that are hard to reach as well as the regulation of the behavior and attitude of the staff of the organization.
To ensure that internal communication is achieved, companies utilize various tools for communication.
The Traditional Internal Communication Tools
Traditionally, companies communicate with their staff through the following medium:
- Email: It is a common thing to be assigned an official email when you resume a new job. The company utilizes emails to pass across news on the latest development in the organization, delegate tasks to staff, report the progress of projects or even call a staff to order. This form of communication within an organization is usually formal and does not provide the opportunity for the workers to socialize with themselves or with the management.
- Videos: Some companies use videos to deliver meetings or pass across a complicated message. Videos help their viewers to capture the speaker in a more intimate way than audios or even emails. However, not all kinds of information or workplace instruction can be passed through videos.
- Social Media: Most companies are utilizing social media these days as it boosts their brand identity. However, it’s a more effective tool for communicating to the public than to the employees. Besides, your workers can easily get carried away by the external activities on their feed when you communicate to them using social media channels.
Things to Consider When Selecting an Effective Communication Tool
The traditional means of internal communication aren’t bad, but to communicate effectively using these means, you’ll need a combination of these tools.
Now, internal communication software that helps you achieves all of your internal communication goals without combining different distinct apps.
Here are features to look out for when selecting the best internal communication tool:
#1.Compatibility across a Range of Devices
When selecting internal communication software, ensure that it is compatible across different devices and operating systems. The reason is that the nature of the task your employees are working on may warrant them to use different devices. Their role may also require them to always be on the road, so you want to make sure that they can be reached with the right information anywhere and on any device they’re working with.
#2. Ability to Personalize Communication
Companies are moving away from the one-size-fits-all approach. It’s no longer effective as you may need different messages targeted at different departments. In selecting the best internal communication software; ensure that it offers you the chance to personalize news and information to your workers. This will enable you to send relevant information to each worker, which will in turn increase engagement.
#3. Ability to Connect Staff across Different Departments
Successful organizations are transparent organizations. Transparent organizations don’t restrict communication or share information to only selected departments. They share information across departments, offices, and countries, and allow staff in different departments or countries to connect and achieve tasks together. When selecting the best internal communication tool, ensure that it aids collaboration between workers and encourages them to other areas of the business for assistance and inspiration.
#4. Option of Sharing Rich Content
The nature of a particular content determines the kind of engagement it gets. When selecting internal communication software for your company, ensure that it supports videos, infographics, podcasts, PowerPoint presentations, PDF, etc. This way, the users can share richer content that is more informative, digestible, entertaining, and engaging.
#5. Ability to Encourage Employee Interaction
Effective communication is two-way traffic. While you pass our information to the staff, you should be able to get feedback from them. An effective internal communication tool should allow the users to drop their comments, ask questions, tag other people in the organization, and have rich interactions with their peers and senior-level staff.
The Best Internal Communication Tool
Groupe.io’s internal communication tool comes packed with all these features and more. It has a super sleek design and does not require a corporate email to connect your workers. The best part is that it can translate your broadcast and messages to your worker’s preferred language, making it an effective tool for trans-border businesses.
