5 Must-Have Tools to Improve Internal Communication
In today’s work climate, where everyone is trying to adjust to the new normal and continue working in remote settings, workplace communication is becoming more important than ever. Fortunately, there are many tools that can help you improve internal communication even if you can’t meet with your teams in person.
Communication is the foundation of every successful work environment. Without it, there’s no collaboration and no productivity. However, as much as 60% of companies don’t have a long-term internal communication strategy.
In today’s work climate, where everyone is trying to adjust to the new normal and continue working in remote settings, workplace communication is becoming more important than ever.
Fortunately, there are many tools that can help you improve internal communication even if you can’t meet with your teams in person.
Instant Messaging
Oftentimes, you just want to get a message across quickly, without having to think about email opening and closing. Besides, emails might end up getting opened only the next day or even later.
Instant messaging platforms allow for a more laid back approach, mimicking tools employees use in their personal lives, like Facebook Messenger and Whatsapp. It’s faster, more convenient, and more suitable for the modern style of communication.
Instant messaging channels are also perfect for group discussions. You can dedicate a channel to each department and allow everyone to quickly share daily information, without flooding their email inboxes.
One of the most popular instant messaging platforms for businesses, Slack, took over internal business communication over the past few years. It has become an essential tool for not only improving communication and productivity, but also boosting employee satisfaction.
According to the Slack Future of Work Survey conducted by Kelton Global, 87% of Slack users state that the platform makes them more productive, 88% say Slack keeps them in the loop with coworkers, and 87% claim it has a positive impact on their work relationships.
Email Archiving
Although instant messaging might be more convenient for day to day usage, email is still an inescapable part of business communication. If you thought that the email usage is dropping with the rising popularity of new tools, you’re wrong. According to the Project.co business communication report, 39% of businesses primarily use email for communication between co-workers, compared to online tools (28%) face-to-face (23%) and phone calls (2%).
Sharing large files and documents is simply more practical via email. However, these files can quickly take up a lot of space. You can’t simply delete them because they contain important information that may come useful further down the line. Some businesses resort to restricting the size and the number of emails sent each day, but email quotas can be quite limiting and seriously hinder communication efficiency.
Keep in mind that you’re also legally obliged to keep your business correspondence for a certain amount of time. Enterprise-grade archiving solutions will help you ensure email compliance and save valuable storage space, without jeopardizing productivity.
Collaboration Tools
Getting things done can be especially challenging in the age of remote work and long-distance collaboration. Luckily, collaboration tools can help your teams overcome these challenges. In fact, online collaboration tools and digital workplaces increase productivity by 20-30%.
These tools allow employees to work on the same project at the same time, and also help your project managers monitor workflow and provide feedback.
Collaborative document editing is one of the top-ranking tools used to connect with day-to-day workgroups, preferred by 57% of employees using message-based platforms.
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Sharing and managing files is much easier with collaboration tools. They make all the important information transparent and accessible to everyone. These tools can also help you streamline task management and easily delegate responsibilities.
Videos
In the past few years, remote work has become more popular. Especially now with a global pandemic forcing us to stay home, more and more businesses are switching to this model of working. With these changes, video chat became an integral part of communication.
As everyone rushed to adjust to remote work, a now globally known video communication platform started to soar, seeing 291.17% growth on the stock market since the beginning of the year.
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It’s no surprise that video communication platforms are so popular. While written communication is good enough for the most part, sometimes it’s important to see the face and hear the voice behind the message. Facial expressions, body language, and the tone of voice can completely change the meaning of the message — and when you’re not able to meet someone face-to-face, video calls can help minimize misunderstandings.
But video communication goes beyond Zoom meetings. You can also use videos for employee onboarding, company-wide training, and more important announcements and updates. Having your complete onboarding and employee training program on video will help you ensure consistency and save resources you would otherwise spend on it.
Surveys and Polls
Listening to your employees is an essential part of successful collaboration. According to Salesforce, employees who feel their voice is heard are 4.6 times more likely to feel empowered to deliver their best work.
However, it can be difficult to conduct one-on-one interviews with every single employee, especially for larger companies. That’s where surveys and polls come into play.
Conduct regular surveys to see if there’s anything your employees are unsatisfied with and how they would change it. You can even create polls and give your employees an option to participate in decision making. Polls are a great way to increase employee engagement and show them that you care about their opinions.
Keeping up with new trends and adopting new technologies is unavoidable in today’s digitally connected world. With a clear communication strategy and the right tools, you’ll be able to improve workplace communication, collaboration, and productivity.