Poor internal communications between staff and leadership can cause losses in productivity, revenue, and company size via disengaged employees. As data from Gallup shows, businesses with highly engaged staff experience a 41% reduction in absenteeism, a 20% increase in sales, and 21% more profit than companies with disengaged employees.
Companies can improve internal communications by encouraging more frequent and meaningful interactions between employees and leadership.
1. Allow your team to communicate through multiple channels and formats
Limiting the channels your team can use to communicate may drive them to backchannel conversations, potentially leading to divisiveness between employees and damaging team alignment.
Employees don't receive joy in using communication channels they find inefficient or incomplete. Based on our recent study on the workplace environment before and after the pandemic, most employees are tired of text-based communications. 54% of employees consider email to be a channel prompt to unintentional offense or miscommunication, while 53% of employees believe it's challenging to explain complex information through text.
57% of employees find video communications from their CEO more engaging than text-based messages.
So, instead of using a communication channel they don't like, say email, they move to more engaging solutions, like video. Video is a multimedia format that employees are craving to see more of inside their companies. We found that 57% of employees find video communications from their CEO more engaging than text-based messages.
Another benefit of video is its asynchronous and replayable nature, making it an excellent substitute for holding meetings. 56% of employees would rather watch a vital communication or announcement from their company when they choose, instead of attending a live session where their participation isn't necessary.
By providing every employee with the tools necessary to get their message across in the media formats they like, companies can maintain a healthy communication culture. Tools like Vyond—a platform for creating animated videos—can give employees the freedom to watch communications, whether it’s a monthly report or a company announcement, at a time that’s best for them.
2. Increase employee engagement
Increase employee engagement to build trust with your employees. Based on Gallup's State of the American Workplace report, engaged employees are more confident that leaders will care for their input without risks of retaliation compared to disengaged staff. And when there's less fear of sharing one's opinion, employees are more likely to start conversations with leadership.
For most companies, low employee engagement doesn't happen overnight. Its decline results from continuous moments of stress, anxiety, and demotivation that employees go through during interactions with leadership. You can slowly recover the trust of your staff and experience more frequent interactions with them by developing a strategy to improve employee engagement.
Employees are 3.5 times more likely to be engaged when they can identify the purpose behind their actions.
As a starting point to increase engagement, clarify the role each member plays in the company's success. Employees are 3.5 times more likely to be engaged when they can identify the purpose behind their actions. You can use private conversations, Slack appraisals, office hours, or even make a flyer highlighting recent achievements to show employees the company accomplishments that resulted from their efforts.
3. Create training material around communications with your team
No one knows your employees' needs better than them. Instead of speculating about their interests and concerns around communications, create training material for communications with your staff. Because it is a collaborative project, the problems you solve in your material will be specific to your company.
The first step to developing training material with your team is to gather feedback from your staff. Ask employees the downsides of your internal communication process. You may hear concerns about infrequent communications with management or an overwhelming number of internal messages.
Ask employees the downsides of your internal communication process.
The next step is to identify staff members with expertise to solve these problems. These experts will help you define the tone, angle, and structure necessary to produce practical training. Their job, essentially, is to ensure that your material has all the components required to improve your employees' work experience.
Ideating, validating, and producing the learning material doesn't mean you can set it and forget. Once the material is available for employees, assist staff when necessary, encourage them to finish the material, and improve the material based on staff feedback; their learning experience is directly correlated to your commitment to helping them.
Related: The Ultimate Guide to Starting a Successful Employee Training Program
4. Encourage employees to submit feedback
Encourage employees to submit feedback so that they have a place to express their opinions and suggestions about their job and their workplace. Employees need a place to feel heard, and when companies provide it, employees feel more confident sparking conversations with their leaders because it's common for them to talk frequently.
Email and Slack are good ways of collecting feedback but can also be distant. For deskless workers you can try collecting feedback using a scannable QR code for a Google form. If your employees and leadership are comfortable, collect feedback through frequent 1-1 meetings. Management should be the most proactive during these meetings, evaluating if employees need more help, are feeling micromanaged, or present issues beyond work where leadership can offer support.
Employees need a place to feel heard.
The relationship between leadership and employees is non-existent in some companies. Employees mostly hear from leadership on reports or sporadic encounters, making a 1-1 live meeting initiative uncomfortable. In these instances, a tool that allows anonymous feedback is a valid alternative for gathering observations around workload, deadlines, communications, or anything that is causing distress to employees. Besides being less invasive, anonymous feedback avoids public conflict between leadership and employees who may barely know each other.
6. Companies can reduce disengaged and stressed employees by involving them in business decisions
Feedback mechanisms and co-created learning materials let companies spot issues early and continuously collect feedback from their staff, avoiding any problem or disagreement to remain unaddressed and eventually scale.
Through beginner-friendly video animation tools like Vyond, leadership teams and employees can communicate in a practical, more compelling way. Whether it’s a company-wide announcement from your CEO, an annual report, or internal training, Vyond's software helps you communicate more efficiently.
For tips on how to use a synchronous and asynchronous approach to internal communication and corporate training, check out Vyond and 360Learning’s latest webinar replay on Blended Learning. Or, to see how you can build videos and courses using Vyond and 360Learning, check out our integrations page.
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