Nearly all corporate internal communications professionals favor email as their top communications channel, even though employees see email overload as a major problem. Many corporate communicators envision new channels such as mobile apps and text/SMS as a solution to employee communications issues.
That’s one of the main takeaways from a new survey from Ragan Communications and RMG, a provider of visual enterprise solutions.
After email, used by 98 percent of respondents, most popular internal communications methods include company or team meetings (88 percent) and an intranet (80 percent). Only 13 percent of respondents use mobile applications or text/SMS messaging. While 41 percent of corporate communicators hope to launch new internal communication channels, obtaining funding and IT support pose challenges, the survey indicates.
Mobile apps can overcome the challenge of communicating with remote workers. Construction company Graniterock launched a mobile app to reach its remote workers, who represent almost half of the company’s 1,000 employees. They receive the same information in the same format at the same time as their desk-bound colleagues, explained survey respondent Shanna Crigger at Graniterock.
Corporate communications experts urge their peers to embrace technologies that employees prefer. Communicate with employees through multiple channels depending on their inclinations, such as SMS/Text messaging, voicemail, Slack or Workplace by Facebook.
The Importance of Measuring Internal Communications
Measurement of employee engagement and the effectiveness of internal communications can be more accurate on mobile apps than for other older communications methods. Until launching its mobile app recently, Graniterock had no way to measure communications for its remote workers. Lacking company email, the employees received the print version of its “Rocktop” newsletter by snail mail.
Most respondents say it’s important or extremely important to measure the effectiveness of internal communications across all channels, yet only 27 percent say they can do so. More than a third now seek new ways to measure performance of internal communications.
Internal communications and measuring the effectiveness of employee communications has become essential due to the rise of social media, experts say. Employees can easily obtain corporate news from other sources. Employees are more likely to obtain news about the organization from blogs, text messaging, Twitter, message boards and other sources than from the internal newsletter. Internal communications is especially valuable because employees can become valuable brand ambassadors who promote the company’s key PR and marketing messages.
Advanced communications dashboards can integrate internal communications with news and social media monitoring for a complete picture of the company’s PR, marketing and internal communications.
Bottom Line: Relatively few internal communications professionals have introduced messaging apps or social collaboration tools in their organizations. The new tools may be a more effective way to reach remote workers and better measure internal communications.
William J. Comcowich founded and served as CEO of CyberAlert LLC, the predecessor of Glean.info. He is currently serving as Interim CEO and member of the Board of Directors. Glean.info provides customized media monitoring, media measurement and analytics solutions across all types of traditional and social media.
