How to Improve Business Outcomes with High-Quality Internal Communication

Effective internal communication is essential for business operations, helping you to share important news, delegate tasks, highlight upcoming events and draw attention to other useful information. There are a variety of methods available, but choosing the right option for the right moment helps to determine the quality of your internal communication. This, in turn, can have an impact on productivity and overall business outcomes.

Meetings, Emails and Messages

Meetings are one of the main ways to communicate with your workforce and these can take the form of in-person meetings or video conferences. Either way, it is important to use them sparingly because meetings take people away from their work. Every unnecessary meeting hurts your organization's productivity.

A quicker way to share small pieces of information is to use an instant messaging service or internal chat feature. This can allow you to have short, snappy interactions that cause minimal disruption to work.

When you want to communicate more information, while still minimizing disruption, email is generally the best choice. However, it is important to avoid bombarding employees with too many emails.

Reaching Non-Desk Workers

One of the big challenges for businesses when it comes to internal communication is reliably reaching non-desk workers. Examples may include warehouse, manufacturing and fulfilment staff.

Many of these employees do not have regular access to email or company intranets because they do not work with a computer for most of their day. Therefore, alternatives need to be considered.

In-person meetings and public address systems are good options for certain situations, but it can often be less disruptive to make use of screens and a digital signage solution for delivering news and information. Place screens in various locations, including the main entrance and social areas.

Contacting Employees at Home

At times it may be necessary to contact employees when they are at home. For instance, you may need to provide work schedules, ask about availability, or try to arrange shift swaps.

Contacting staff outside of work hours can be controversial because people need downtime, so handle this sensitively. Calls or text messages may sometimes feel like you are intruding on their personal time. Emails are also an option, but some of your employees may not always check their emails regularly away from work.

It may be better to provide workers with access to a dedicated employee app so they have more control over when they engage with work-related information and when they switch off from work concerns.