words Al Woods
Internal communication is key to the health and growth of any business. Without effective internal communications, most organizations would grind to a halt pretty quickly. Here are some of the latest and most important trends to do with internal communications.
Mobile Communications
Modern internal communications apps like Simpplr are very heavily weighted toward mobile User Experience. This is for a good reason: most employees are far more likely to keep an eye on their mobile devices than they are on their desktop computers. Mobile devices also allow applications to push notifications: meaning that internal communications are more likely to be read quickly. The rise of mobile communications apps has led to a quandary: when should employees be allowed to turn them off or ignore them? People are rightly furious if they are forced to take their work home in their pockets all the time.
The Importance Of Frontline Managers
If there is poor communication among a company’s senior ranks, then that will ripple down the lines and become prevalent throughout every level of management. If a manager is aloof or lacks the necessary communication skills to appear approachable, this will affect the workers on the ground. If they cannot discuss changes in the company coming down from the owner, it will have a detrimental effect on the business as a whole. Frontline workers should be able to talk to their frontline managers when they want to make changes instead of relying on a stagnant chain of command. Businesses increasingly trust their frontline managers to make executive decisions based on communications with their subordinates.
Mental Health And Wellbeing Technology
Mental health issues are a massive problem in society. Companies are only now beginning to wise up to the fact that a large portion of the workforce is struggling with depression, personality disorders, eating disorders, and work-related stress. Some companies have purchased company-wide subscriptions to casual counseling applications such as BetterHelp. Although businesses have almost certainly done this with the best of intentions, it is worth noting that counseling applications are no replacement for in-person medical help and that companies could help their employees’ mental health more by simply paying them enough to afford therapy.
Visual Media
Business leaders have finally cottoned on to the fact that employees – and for that matter, everybody – resents learning about strategy and policy in the form of long and boring text documents. Images can say much more than words in all digital spaces and convey subtle and complex things. Consider the rise of the meme as a mode of complex social communication. Visuality does not always indicate a lack of capacity. Instead, an image can be used to convey complicated things through social insinuation and shared cultural understandings. Visual media is one of the most important methods of internal communication within a business. Employees can also use it to bypass the observations of their seniors. Amazon workers shared memes encouraging unionization despite pro-union organizations having been cracked down on by Amazon executives.
