Online Communication to Effectively Improve Employee Engagement

Employee engagement is taking the central stage in today’s business landscape. According to the recent survey by Gallup, engaging your teams may help you reduce absenteeism and employee turnover, as well as maximize your profits by 21%.

Unsurprisingly, one of the greatest problems leading to a lack of engagement in the workplace is poor communication.

Today’s employees are tech-savvy. They spend more than 8.8 hours per day working. Logically, they expect to receive regular feedback from employers, collaborate with their team effortlessly, and operate across multiple time zones, continents, and languages in real-time.

This is exactly where businesses need to consider investing in online communication tools.

So, what are their major benefits and what to keep in mind when investing in them? Let’s find out.

The Importance of Employee Performance Reports

According to Gallup, a modern employee wants to know what we expect of them at work. They want their managers to be interested in them as individuals, track their performance, and talk about their progress regularly. Statistics back me up on that. Namely, 43% of engaged employees receive performance reports from their employers at least once weekly.

This is where tools like Engagedly, Officevibe, and ReviewSnap, or Reflektive may be helpful, as they let you track your employees’ performance, create individual or comparative employee reports, and send them in real-time.

Employee engagement
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Listening to Employees Is not Optional Anymore

To provide valuable employee performance feedback, you first need to get to know your employees. By listening to your employees, you will see how interested and motivated they are, as well as whether they are satisfied with working for you.

Now, one of the most effective ways to collect employee feedback is to invest in employee engagement software. There are numerous tools that may help you here. For example, 15Five is a platform employers can use to create custom surveys for their employees, set different reviewers for each employee, and send these answers to other teams responsible for engaging and retaining employees. With the abovementioned Officevibe, you can create personalized polls for your teams to gather their opinions on various projects, as well as track employee engagement in real-time. TinyPulse, on the other hand, sends only one Yes/No question per week. It also encourages an employee to recognize a colleague that helped them and send suggestions for the improvement of the organization.

Collecting employee feedback is the blueprint for boosting your company culture and maximizing employee engagement and retention. Honest and transparent relationships remind them that their work has a purpose and show how they’re contributing to your organization’s success in the long run.

Improving Workplace Collaboration and Flexibility

With the rise of online communication tools, managing projects and teams has never been simpler. Many businesses are today using at least one real-time communication tool, such as Basecamp, Asana, Trello, or Podio. One of the greatest benefits of these tools is improved collaboration between team members, a faster flow of information, and improved project management.

Worplace Collaboration
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With such tools, project managers can create multiple projects, lists, and tasks. They can set deadlines, delegate tasks, and monitor their employees’ progress in real-time. Project management solutions increase employee engagement in multiple ways. First, workers can share ideas and send files in real time. Second, they don’t need to waste time checking numerous apps to keep track of their tasks, as they will receive regular notifications and reminders. Finally, Basecamp makes all to-dos, files, and timelines visible to all members within a project, meaning that it is easier to monitor tasks and measure teams’ efficiency. 

Maximizing the Power of Mobile Devices and Social Networks

Week In China has recently reported that the popular brand Hisense is planning to launch 5G phones by the end of 2019. This only reminds us that we’re living in the mobile-first era, where multi-channel user experiences are more important than ever. In such an ecosystem, the boundaries between internal and external communications are fading.

Your goal as a company is to provide a consistent, recognizable, and memorable brand image that will appeal both to your customers and potential employees. And, this is exactly where your employees and social networks can help.

Encourage your employees to create behind-the-scenes stories, photos, and videos with your company’s tag and sharing them on social. Motivate them to review your company online, share honest feedback, write testimonials, repost your content, etc. This is an amazing way to engage your employees and show that their opinions are valued and, at the same time, build trust with the prospective candidates and customer in your niche.

Video Conferencing Enables Remote Working

One of the greatest benefits of online communication tools is the fact that today’s companies are not restricted to their location in hiring new employees. They can now recruit candidates, irrespective of their language, country, or time zone.

Remote workers can benefit your business in multiple ways. For starters, digital communication tools open up a global talent pool, letting you hire the right candidates. This may increase your workplace performance, as well as reduce your overall operational cost. According to some recent statistics, work-from-home programs help companies save on roughly $11,000 per year.

Apart from the abovementioned cloud technologies, social networks, and project management tools that facilitate the management of remote employees, you will also need to invest in a solid video conferencing tool. The idea is to connect with your remote employees on a personal level and keep them informed about everything that is going on within your organization. No matter if you’re organizing a team-building event or an eye-to-eye meeting, tools like Skype For Business, RingCentral Meetings, or Join.me will help your remote team members feel accepted.

Internal Newsletters Keep Everyone Informed

When the work starts piling up, it’s difficult for your team members to stay on top of what’s happening within your organization. This is exactly where internal newsletters may help. Namely, this is an amazing way to share important company news, both good and bad ones, and ask your employees for their opinions. For example, you could send weekly internal newsletters for your staff members. Still, avoid stuffing their inboxes with a bunch of irrelevant emails, as this may overwhelm them and distract them from completing their tasks on time.

Over to You

Online technologies will let you improve your employees’ collaboration, get to know them, reduce employee turnover and, finally, make each employee feel heard and appreciated. This is why you should start weaving them into the very fabric of your employee management from the very beginning.

Are you using online communication channels to boost employee engagement? What tactics do you use? We’d like to hear from you!

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