10 Internal Communications Challenges and How to Solve Them: Part 2

In our latest blog about common internal communications challenges, we discussed how an employee communications platform could help you overcome email overload and a lack of communication, reach frontline employees and a dispersed workforce, and generate more intranet traffic. However, those are not the only common challenges. These are five additional internal communications challenges you can overcome with an employee communications platform.

• Lack of Leadership Communication
• Overload of Irrelevance
• Device Preferences
• No Measurement Methods
• Engaging Your Workforce

6. Lack of Leadership Communication

Organizations with healthy internal communication strategies involve all levels of their organizations, including leadership. Additionally, healthy internal communication involves constant communication. Consistency is important: if your leaders only communicate with employees when change is afoot, or problems arise, your staff will start to fear leadership communication. Instead, it should be standard for employees to hear what’s going on. A genuine connection and sense of loyalty and trust arise only when your employees regularly hear from those at the top.

With an employee communications platform, you will connect every employee directly to your executive leaders and align your workforce with your vision, strategy, and goals. You turn your leaders into a focal point by equipping them with a platform that provides a transparent source of truth, and you reduce the emotional distance between your workforce and your leaders. A platform like Netpresenter that has various communications channels such as digital signage, a corporate screensaver, and a mobile app will enable your leaders to reach every employee, from front-office to factory workers, wherever they are. Social features or an integration with Microsoft Teams allow your leaders to make small and personable efforts in a ‘public’ digital space.

7. Overload of Irrelevance

The ease of sending messages and the proliferation of communication channels have created an environment of irrelevance and information overload. Each day, employees are flooded with communication of little relevance and low value. This overload of irrelevance will only lead to your employees ignoring your communication and getting irritated with any messages, as they will not have any added value.

You can easily make your messages relevant with our targeting feature. Research your audience, segment them by needs and employee group, and communicate relevant messages to employees. Send personalized content to specific groups like departments, teams, or (office) buildings. If your messages are relevant to your employees, not only will they genuinely read them, they will be happy to receive them as they help them do their job better.

8. Device Preferences

Nowadays, there are many employee communications tools and channels. However, your colleagues will probably avoid the tools they do not feel comfortable using for whatever reason. If this happens, your message will not reach employees, and your efforts will be in vain. To make sure your messages reach employees, give them the chance to use a device that they are comfortable using. Individual preferences may vary. Some will want to use their computer; some will prefer getting the information on their mobile device; some will prefer short messages on digital signage screens.

Whatever device employees prefer, allow them to consume their communication from channels they are already using. This means you will probably need all the channels mentioned above as not all employees will want to use the same device. An omnichannel approach to communication is vital. The Netpresenter platform supports this omnichannel approach and provides you with all these channels without adding an extra workload for content creators and internal communicators. It enables content creators to create one message in their content management system, and it will push this message out to all your available channels. Zero extra effort but so much more effective, as our customer Catholic Health, can attest.

Juliana McCabe, Internal Communications Manager at Catholic Health, describes: “We wanted the ability to target entity-level messaging, which Netpresenter allows us to do. We now have a mix of entity-level and system-wide messaging, all highly coordinated, with a standard, branded look. Netpresenter helped us expand the reach of our communications and better manage and streamline them. The ability to simultaneously publish a message on three platforms—TV, PC, and app—gives us greater impact”

9. No Measurement Methods

Measuring internal communications efforts is a challenge many communication professionals face these days. However, just communicating with your workforce is not enough. If you can’t measure whether you’re reaching your communication goals and how your messages are performing, how will you know if your efforts are effective? Measurement matters: it is important for the improvement of your communications strategy.

With our statistics feature, you can collect relevant data to gain insight into the performance of your corporate content. Your statistics dashboard won’t only show you the reach and impact of your messages; it also gives you accurate information about the number of devices, the type of devices your message was shown on, and the Click Through Ratio. It also tells you the exact number of devices that are, or were, connected, how many of your messages are active, and the number of published messages. This way, you can create a content strategy that works for your organization or optimize what you’re already doing!

10. Engaging Your Workforce

Engaging employees is a top priority for organizations across the world. We think culture and engagement start with connection. Reaching, including, and seamlessly connecting with your employees will add to a smooth employee experience and help engage your employees. Creating a culture of transparency and recognition can empower your employees and make them feel like a valuable part of your organization. Engagement is driven by a sense of belonging within an organization. It’s about putting people first, which is an important factor in the culture of our customer Barenbrug.

Mirella van de Sant, Global Marketing Director at Barenbrug, explains how they use Netpresenter to drive their engagement levels: “Our company culture very much revolves around people. Taking care of each other is essential to us. We think people are very important; they make a difference in our company. To put people first in our company, we share all kinds of employees’ achievements through Netpresenter. We give attention to all kinds of projects: from sustainability projects to changes in packaging, people who have been in the news, extra training courses, good marketing campaigns. And I notice our colleagues are enthusiastic about that. They talk about the achievements we share. It gives them a sense of pride in their organization.”

Do any of these challenges sound familiar? And do you want to start solving them today? Schedule a free demo or get in touch with our consultants; they are more than happy to review your situation and help you start solving your biggest internal communications challenges immediately!