Involve Employees - Invite Their Input
5. Involve Employees
Not everyone is comfortable expressing their opinions in front of others. Use the desktop Staff Quiz tool to involve people. Invite them to name new ways of working (e.g. new systems, projects) or suggest improvements. Offer prizes for the best ideas (and recognize them using targeted corporate screensavers and articles in your newsletter or intranet).
6. Small Groups
Smaller, face-to-face executive communications offer a personalized and engaging forum for leadership communication. Multiple time slots and venues can also help maximize the chances that employees can attend executive briefing sessions. But the challenge is ensuring staff register and subsequently attend these sessions. SnapComms RSVP Desktop Alert is an staff invitation tool that makes it easy to target appointments and manage multiple variables such as venues, times slots and personalized requirements such a transport or catering. The RSVP tool integrates with Outlook.
7. Celebrate Best Practice
Lead by example is a proven technique to model organizational values. Endorse those employees who have demonstrated great attitudes, ethics and alignment with the vision. Short videos, newsletter articles, screensaver messages are all ideal channels for showcasing this behavior.
8. Reinforce Understanding, Develop Local Context
Use the pop-up Staff Quiz to ask scenario questions to reinforce understanding and local context. For example, “When I see a colleague working in an unsafe way, I would: A, B, C, or D or all of the above?” or "In XXX situation, how would you apply our company values?" Offer prizes to encourage staff to take part. Include humorous or trick questions and answers that make the quiz fun.
9. Employee Helpdesks
Implement confidential feedback channels that empower staff to ask questions about any aspect of the business and their role within it. This tactic often uncovers some hidden engagement issues, that an organization had no idea existed.
10. Influencers to Spread the Word
These influential individuals can play a major role in persuading the cynics of the company. Raise the profile and reach of these individuals further through the use of blogs, regular updates, and newsletter interviews 'from their perspective'.
Deliver important updates via the Desktop Ticker
Deliver important updates via the Desktop Ticker
11. Story-telling by Staff
Encourage and incentivise staff to contribute their own content to the staff newsletter. Stories about what they are doing to support company strategies or embody organizational values are better understood through real-life examples. Compile these into a regular digital newsletter - even better, incorporate a video to add reality.
13. Feedback the Feedback
Articles in staff magazines, updates on desktop tickers and even interactive corporate screensavers can be a great way to demonstrate to staff how their feedback is being used. SnapComms engagement communications tools make these updates quick, easy, targetable and measurable.
14. Customize Communications
Work with managers to ensure messages have relevance to different groups of staff. Be mindful of the communication preferences your employees may have. For example, younger staff may prefer bite-size content, delivered in short, regular bursts. Some functions or team may require extra comms efforts, particularly if they've been through a lot of change.
15. Promote Employee Development Programs
The best development programs in the world can be overlooked if staff do not know about them. Ensure all employees are aware of the development programs available to them by promoting these courses using corporate screensavers, staff e-magazines and more. Desktop alerts and RSVP invites can help ensure maximum value is derived from events.
Deploy Screensavers to Deliver Messages
16. Expand Awareness
Make sure employees understand how their unit contributes to the overall success of the organization. Expand their awareness beyond their own performance and extend it out into their team.
17. Actively promote organizational effectiveness, reputation and ethics
Use interactive corporate screensavers, scrolling desktop tickers and staff magazine to raise employee awareness. Employees want to feel good about their leaders, where they work, the products they sell and the reputation of their company. Hence these types of engagement communications can be valuable.
Corporate Screensaver Messaging
18. Promote Value
Corporate Screensavers can be a very fast and engaging method to promote ‘free goodies’ to staff. Anything from staff parties, discounted gym memberships to health checks, fun runs and fresh fruit can be promoted easily and effectively on corporate screensavers. Raising awareness of additional staff benefits can help employees feel valued and engaged.
Employee Articles in the Newsletter
19. Department Highlights
Often people don’t see where they fit into the bigger picture or why a specific department is working so hard on a particular initiative. Sessions such as Lunch -and-Learns are great ways to update colleagues about key projects, in informal settings. Promote these sessions and provide updates via screensaver messages and scrolling tickers.
20. Let Managers Walk The Talk
Direct line managers hold the greatest influence over how their team engages. Hold managers and supervisors accountable for their engagement, survey results and communications effectiveness. Measure their effectiveness and provide tools to support them.
21. Tell Managers First
SnapComms targeting and scheduling features let you update managers before their teams receive information. This can be invaluable if an unexpected event occurs that may affect engagement, and managers need to be forewarned. Advance notice allows managers to plan how and when their team hears the news, and gives time for managers to prepare answers for any questions unique to their team.
22. Measurement
Use a Desktop Staff Survey to measure information cascade across the organization. Help managers see the importance of effective communication in order to increase engagement.
Upping Engagement Levels
23. Avoid Slow or No Communication
Hearing about an important update from media, colleagues or family and friends can have a negative impact on employee engagement. Ensure employees hear these messages from the business as soon as possible. SnapComms Desktop Alert format bypasses email and achieves fast, effective message cut through. Reporting options let you check which recipients have opened the message, and acknowledged (if required).
24. Local Ownership For Localized Content
Give administrator rights to managers and/or their assistants within SnapComms Content Manager so they communicate important information via a range of different formats. This is a great way to ensure sure staff get information relevant to them - as soon as it is available.
Check for Message Comprehension
25. Message Understanding
Too often, leadership comms messages fail to connect with employees, as the language may be overly complex. Test content first with a small focus group and measure their understanding. Then, once published to the wider audience, use SnapComms Survey tool to gauge their feedback. Built-in reminders encourage staff to take part.
Celebrate Achievements
26. Celebrate Financial and Non-Financial Achievements
Voluntary work, donations to charities, philanthropic initiatives - these have all become increasingly important to staff, as they expect their employer to have a social conscience. Corporate acts of kindness go a long way to build engagement among employees - just remember to promote these good deeds to staff. Great ways to celebrate these, as well as financial successes, are via visual formats. Transform passive desktop screens into lively, informative billboards using corporate screensavers from SnapComms.
27. Highlight Success Visibly
Go one step further with interactive corporate screensavers by sequencing content. This is a great way to build engagement with visual communications to highlight and celebrate successes. SnapComms targeting features enable you to use corporate screensavers to communicate good news and successes to specific groups in your organization.
28. Document Local Success
A digital newsletter is an ideal way to bundle non-urgent content into a single asset - and save spamming staff with multiple emails. Like every good publisher, combine a range of content that inspires, informs and delights. Ensure there's a good balance of content - from important and serious, to light-hearted and humorous. Embed media-rich content, such as video, and target editorial sections to suit different audiences, roles and locations.
Communicate to Retain Good Staff
29. Catch Dissatisfaction Early
Two way internal communications channels such as SnapComms pop-up Staff Survey tool makes it easy to regularly gather feedback from staff and to catch dissatisfaction early - to understand what’s really going on. It's much better to confront the elephant in the room if you suspect there's dissatisfaction in the workplace. But choose the communication medium carefully - the Enterprise Social Network is NOT the place for an open discussion on what's wrong.
30. Promote Opportunities for Staff
Dedicate a section in the SnapComms digital newsletter for personal development and current vacancies. Workshops, training opportunities and staff support schemes can all be featured in the newsletter, and on interactive screensavers.
Employee Engagement Example
