You need to prioritize retaining your best employees through your HR. Learn about 4 lesser-known benefits of employee retention to find out why.
Jess DeVore
Published:
September 6, 2023
Last updated:
September 17, 2023
What we'll cover
Searching high and low for the perfect employee to fill a complicated role can be difficult. It stresses you out if you’re already short-staffed and in a rush to get more hands as quickly as possible.
Of course, it would be preferable not to worry about hiring at all. Retaining employees you already have can be a lot simpler than constantly hiring. And it can benefit your business too.
While you’re probably familiar with some of the benefits of employee retention, there are several hidden advantages of employee retention that you may not have considered.
If you’re ready to get motivated to kick your retention efforts into high gear and retain your top talent, keep reading and learn some of the lesser-known benefits of staff retention.
Why employee retention is important
Employee retention is important because it can improve the productivity of an organization.
Organizations with high employee retention profit from increased employee engagement, higher employee morale, more experienced employees, and lower employee turnover costs.
That’s why 91% of Human Resources leaders are concerned about employee turnover in the near future.
Besides the revenue, companies with a lower turnover rate can spend time on their employees, build a cohesive company culture, and achieve innovations that outperform their high-churn counterparts.
Employee retention’s effect extends beyond your annual revenue or quarterly performance reports — it improves each day for your workers, managers, and customers.
In short, it’s hard to overstate the importance of effective employee retention strategies as they can impact just about every aspect of your business, including revenue, service, and company culture.
1. More quality hires
Hiring typically increases when employees leave your company. So it should decrease as your retention goes up.
The hidden benefit of high retention is that you can allocate more resources to the time-consuming job of sourcing new hires. You can be more selective in finding candidates with relevant experience and perfect cultural fit instead of rushing to fill a vacancy.
The candidates you hire this way are more likely to stick around and better fit your organization, which further improves your retention rate.
Ultimately, more employees staying means more business growth and more new positions. You can focus your hiring efforts on adding to the team rather than replacing previous talent.
2. Better employee training
Hiring new employees takes up a significant portion of your company’s HR budget and time. It’s estimated that replacing an employee costs anywhere from 50% to 200% of their annual salary.
Retaining just one extra employee means thousands of dollars saved you can use in other areas.
One often-neglected management area is training, with 78% of workers saying they want more training. By saving on hiring, you can spend on training.
With more time for training, your employees will be happier, more skilled, and even more likely to stay with your organization.
3. Improved customer relationships
Most of your return customers and clients don’t think of your business as a logo or physical store. They think of the person with whom they interacted. Your employees are the face of your business, from frontline workers up to account managers.
Your customers rely on your employee’s knowledge of their needs and history with the company to deliver the highest level of service. So when an employee leaves, the relationships they built with your customer base leave with them.
A PWC report found that 80% of Americans think a knowledgeable staff is the most important element to customer satisfaction, along with speed and convenience. They also pay more for things when they experience a positive customer experience.
The benefits of employee retention reach beyond your current staff and bottom line and impact the customer experience. A high employee retention rate ultimately improves your clients’ and customers’ perception of your business.
4. Faster progress
While onboarding and formal training programs are essential for satisfied, efficient employees, these resources are hardly the only way employees learn on the job.
One of the most valuable sources of guidance and information is your current employees. Studies show that 91% of employees with a workplace mentor are happy with their jobs.
By retaining most of your employees, you get:
Strong relationships between your employees that impact their performance
Employees who possess in-depth knowledge in their fields
Great mentors who have the technical skills and know little-known tricks in the field to help the newcomers
You benefit from the perks of high employee retention: Employees have a wealth of team members to turn to when they have a question or need advice. This turns your newest employees into your best employees.
Also, when turnover is low, you keep the work environment of cultural cohesion and the know-how of experienced employees. This results in less stress and high productivity.
Final thoughts: 4 hidden benefits of employee retention you should know
Why retain employees? The answer is clear.
The benefits of employee retention are wide-reaching for your entire organization. Employees, management, and customers all reap the benefits of employee retention.
Employees benefit from greater satisfaction, higher productivity, and better support on the job. Employers can enjoy greater profit and less uncertainty. And your customers can rely on consistently high-quality and personalized customer service.
These benefits are well worth the expense of managing incentives like healthcare, training, and work-life balance.
If you’re ready to improve your employee retention, an all-in-one employee communication tool like Blink can maximize your organization’s initiatives.
Searching high and low for the perfect employee to fill a complicated role can be difficult. It stresses you out if you’re already short-staffed and in a rush to get more hands as quickly as possible.
Of course, it would be preferable not to worry about hiring at all. Retaining employees you already have can be a lot simpler than constantly hiring. And it can benefit your business too.
While you’re probably familiar with some of the benefits of employee retention, there are several hidden advantages of employee retention that you may not have considered.
If you’re ready to get motivated to kick your retention efforts into high gear and retain your top talent, keep reading and learn some of the lesser-known benefits of staff retention.
Why employee retention is important
Employee retention is important because it can improve the productivity of an organization.
Organizations with high employee retention profit from increased employee engagement, higher employee morale, more experienced employees, and lower employee turnover costs.
That’s why 91% of Human Resources leaders are concerned about employee turnover in the near future.
Besides the revenue, companies with a lower turnover rate can spend time on their employees, build a cohesive company culture, and achieve innovations that outperform their high-churn counterparts.
Employee retention’s effect extends beyond your annual revenue or quarterly performance reports — it improves each day for your workers, managers, and customers.
In short, it’s hard to overstate the importance of effective employee retention strategies as they can impact just about every aspect of your business, including revenue, service, and company culture.
1. More quality hires
Hiring typically increases when employees leave your company. So it should decrease as your retention goes up.
The hidden benefit of high retention is that you can allocate more resources to the time-consuming job of sourcing new hires. You can be more selective in finding candidates with relevant experience and perfect cultural fit instead of rushing to fill a vacancy.
The candidates you hire this way are more likely to stick around and better fit your organization, which further improves your retention rate.
Ultimately, more employees staying means more business growth and more new positions. You can focus your hiring efforts on adding to the team rather than replacing previous talent.
2. Better employee training
Hiring new employees takes up a significant portion of your company’s HR budget and time. It’s estimated that replacing an employee costs anywhere from 50% to 200% of their annual salary.
Retaining just one extra employee means thousands of dollars saved you can use in other areas.
One often-neglected management area is training, with 78% of workers saying they want more training. By saving on hiring, you can spend on training.
With more time for training, your employees will be happier, more skilled, and even more likely to stay with your organization.
3. Improved customer relationships
Most of your return customers and clients don’t think of your business as a logo or physical store. They think of the person with whom they interacted. Your employees are the face of your business, from frontline workers up to account managers.
Your customers rely on your employee’s knowledge of their needs and history with the company to deliver the highest level of service. So when an employee leaves, the relationships they built with your customer base leave with them.
A PWC report found that 80% of Americans think a knowledgeable staff is the most important element to customer satisfaction, along with speed and convenience. They also pay more for things when they experience a positive customer experience.
The benefits of employee retention reach beyond your current staff and bottom line and impact the customer experience. A high employee retention rate ultimately improves your clients’ and customers’ perception of your business.
4. Faster progress
While onboarding and formal training programs are essential for satisfied, efficient employees, these resources are hardly the only way employees learn on the job.
One of the most valuable sources of guidance and information is your current employees. Studies show that 91% of employees with a workplace mentor are happy with their jobs.
By retaining most of your employees, you get:
Strong relationships between your employees that impact their performance
Employees who possess in-depth knowledge in their fields
Great mentors who have the technical skills and know little-known tricks in the field to help the newcomers
You benefit from the perks of high employee retention: Employees have a wealth of team members to turn to when they have a question or need advice. This turns your newest employees into your best employees.
Also, when turnover is low, you keep the work environment of cultural cohesion and the know-how of experienced employees. This results in less stress and high productivity.
Final thoughts: 4 hidden benefits of employee retention you should know
Why retain employees? The answer is clear.
The benefits of employee retention are wide-reaching for your entire organization. Employees, management, and customers all reap the benefits of employee retention.
Employees benefit from greater satisfaction, higher productivity, and better support on the job. Employers can enjoy greater profit and less uncertainty. And your customers can rely on consistently high-quality and personalized customer service.
These benefits are well worth the expense of managing incentives like healthcare, training, and work-life balance.
If you’re ready to improve your employee retention, an all-in-one employee communication tool like Blink can maximize your organization’s initiatives.
What we'll cover
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Tom has been with Realise Training, a leading provider in the apprenticeship, adult learning and vocational training market, since October 2018. Realise supports people to fulfill their potential and help businesses upskill their workforce, and this year around 16,000 learners benefit from apprenticeship and adult education programs through Realise. Most of their training is done onsite, so their tutors are often traveling and working remotely.
Tom is part of the operational support team. There is not a job he doesn’t do — and if there is, he still gives it a go to try and help someone else out. What makes him awesome? EVERYTHING! He literally keeps the business moving from events to transport to decorating, his talents are endless. He even took up modeling some new Realise-branded clothing at one point… We need more Toms in this world!
How has Blink helped in his role?
Blink really aids in communication, from those quick instant messages when you need some last-minute train tickets to Tom being able to notify the business of operational notifications.
What does he want to do next?
I think building our own driving school sounds like something he would like to participate in! All those vehicle insurance documents and building regulations… he'd love it!
But for most employees — especially frontline teams — that’s exactly what it’s become.
Need a policy? One app. Book time off? Another. Ask a quick question? Different tool. Different login. Different tab.
Three simple tasks. Three systems. And somehow, still no clear answer.
This is what happens when workplace communication platforms are built to do one thing well — and nothing else. Chat lives in one place. Information lives somewhere else. Culture gets bolted on as an afterthought.
The result? More noise. More switching. Less clarity.
The modern workplace doesn’t work in neat little boxes — so your communication platform shouldn’t either. The best ones support how people actually work: by bringing information, action, and connection together.
That’s where multi-dimensional communication comes in.
Here, we look at the three dimensions of effective workplace communication. And how a 360-degree platform creates a calmer, clearer, more connected work day.
From chaos to clarity: Why communication needs three dimensions
Most workplace communication platforms are built around a single idea.
Chat tools focus on conversations. Intranets store information. Engagement tools cover surveys and employee recognition.
But this setup doesn’t reflect how work actually gets done. Real work is messy and interconnected. And when these three strands of communication are kept separate, work is less effective.
With so many tools, there’s more noise and less clarity. Your people waste hours hopping between software. Important information gets lost, ignored, or diluted because it’s not available in the right place at the right time.
Blink takes a different approach. We don’t treat communication as a single stream or function. We recognize that workplace communication is about doing work, finding information, and feeling connected — all at the same time.
We bring the three dimensions of employee communication together, so they can work in sync. We break it down like this:
Head — where information lives
Hands — where work happens
Heart — where culture shows up
Individually, these strands are useful to your business. But together? They’re game-changing. They bring comms, information, and culture to life — without adding complexity and without forcing employees to learn yet another tool.
So what does multi-dimensional communication actually look like? Let’s take a closer look.
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The three dimensions of an effective workplace communication platform (and how Blink helps you master all three)
Head: Keep everyone informed
Give employees instant access to the company knowledge, policies, and resources they need to stay aligned and make smarter decisions.
One of the biggest challenges in any organization? Keeping everyone on the same page.
Information is often scattered. Policies are buried in PDFs. Guides live in folders that haven’t been updated since 2019. Content systems are powerful, but underutilized, because access is clunky or confusing.
The result? Employees waste time searching for answers. And when they can’t find them, they either ask around or make assumptions — slowing work down and increasing the risk of mistakes.
How Blink shows up
Blink acts as a modern employee intranet. A living wiki — not a dusty document repository. With a searchable content hub and news feed, employees have the latest company information right at their fingertips.
Policies, procedures, and guides live in one searchable source of truth. And for admins, a drag and drop interface makes adding and customizing content simple — no IT degree required.
Digital forms streamline information sharing, too. Whether submitting a safety report or requesting a pay stub, employees can complete tasks quickly and easily.
The impact
When information flows freely, and your intranet platform connects with other communication tools, you get the following benefits:
Fewer information gaps. Employees are always clear on expectations, objectives, and policies.
No duplication. With one centralized location for information, you only create content once.
Better decision-making. Everyone has the info they need to act confidently and efficiently.
Faster onboarding. With automated journeys on the feed and onboarding resources on your content hub, the new hire experience is consistent and streamlined.
Less friction. Powerful search and self-service features let employees find what they’re looking for in seconds — no asking around.
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Hands: Work smarter, together
Connect people to tools and coworkers so they can execute tasks efficiently.
Information is only the start of the story. To get work done, employees need the right tools and easy ways to collaborate.
But in many organizations, conversations and tasks are scattered across channels — personal messaging apps (like WhatsApp), emails, project tools, and shared drives.
Employees spend more time piecing things together than actually getting work done. Decisions slow down. Projects stall. And for the team in charge of compliance and governance, managing so many siloed channels becomes a real headache.
How Blink shows up
Blink combines all internal communication and teamwork into one safe and organized place.
Employees can send 1-to-1 or group messages, create channels for ongoing conversations, share documents, and launch voice and video calls — all without leaving the app. Crucially, it’s easy to organize, prioritize, and search chat threads. So vital information is always within easy reach.
What’s more, coworker communication doesn’t exist in a vacuum because Blink acts as a digital hub for your organization.
It offers deep integrations with HR, CRM, and project management systems. It gives your employees one-click access to every tool they need and syncs software seamlessly. So moving from talk to task gets a whole lot easier.
The impact
When employees have everything they need to collaborate and complete tasks, the difference is clear:
Easier collaboration. Employees can live chat in real-time, sharing information and solving problems no matter where they work.
Streamlined workflow. Because your systems talk to each other and because you can switch between tools with ease, everyone is more productive and efficient.
Auditable, searchable comms. With everything in one place, it’s easy to locate conversations and continue a project from where you left off.
Better adoption of tools. With one set of login details and easy access from a centralized dashboard, employees use your full range of workplace software, improving adoption and ROI.
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Heart: Shine a light on company culture
Bring company culture to life — recognize achievements, share stories, and create a sense of belonging.
The third dimension of a good employee communication platform is Heart — the human side of work. It’s recognition, connection, and shared experiences.
If your communication tools only focus on information sharing and operations, you’re missing a huge opportunity. Because when achievements are noticed, when employees have an easy way to connect with coworkers, and when culture feels concrete, employee experience improves.
How Blink shows up
Blink shines a light on company culture with a dynamic and engaging social feed that employees just love to scroll.
The news feed features video stories, recognition posts, quick-fire polls, and lots of interactive multimedia content. It’s a place to put the video from your latest team building session. A CEO selfie. A behind-the-scenes look at a new product.
This is where people go to experience those authentic moments that make your organization what it is. And with opportunities for interaction and two-way conversations, everyone gets to take part — even if they work from home or in a frontline role.
Within this ecosystem, employees can also join coworker communities. Here, they can chat with like-minded teammates about passions, hobbies, and shared interests, developing stronger working relationships and a real sense of community.
The impact
An internal communications platform that amplifies company culture delivers real results:
Authentic comms. With access to video conferencing, polls, and multi-media content, you make your culture-building comms more human and engaging.
A stronger sense of belonging. Employees feel connected to their teams and part of something bigger.
Improved retention. A positive company culture fosters loyalty. Blink customers have reduced employee turnover by up to 26%.
Improved engagement. Employees who feel invested in your culture and organization work harder and collaborate more effectively.
Culture without the noise. Personalization and segmentation features ensure content feels relevant and interesting to every employee.
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Bringing it all together (this is where the magic happens)
Maybe you have a tool that works well for one element of workplace communication. Or a collection of tools that seem to cover all the bases we’ve covered above.
Either way, for today’s modern workplace, those one-dimensional tools just aren’t enough.
You need a multi-dimensional workplace communication tool. One that brings every element of comms — information, collaboration, and connection — into a centralized, auditable, searchable location.
When you get this right, an employee can see a recognition post in their feed (Heart), click through to the updated policy it references (Head), then jump into a team chat to discuss its implementation (Hands) — all without leaving the app.
Your software works more elegantly and effectively, and work flows more easily. So you get:
Clarity. A place for everything and everything in its place. It’s easy for employees to find the right information when and where they need it.
Streamlined workflows. Bring chat tools, content hub, and a news feed together and you simplify work. Employees stop jumping between tabs, and operational efficiency improves.
Cost efficiency. With just one platform subscription and just one tool to manage, your IT budget goes further.
An enhanced employee experience. Your system reflects how people really work and communicate. Software fits seamlessly into the workday, so digital employee experience improves.
This is what Blink does so well. It’s a platform that unifies every strand of workplace communication. And it does this over a user-friendly, mobile-first app.
So whether you have employees working at home, in the office, or on the frontlines of your organization, everyone has access to the same information, communication channels, and culture-building content.
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Blink — and you’ve got a workplace communication platform built for the way people really work
Blink isn’t just another tool. It’s not another feed. And it’s certainly not another platform employees do their best to avoid. It’s a connected experience designed to match employee behavior — not fight it.
By bringing together Hands, Head, and Heart, Blink makes communication simpler, clearer, and more human.
So your employees spend less time searching and switching tools. And more time connecting with colleagues, contributing to company culture, and doing productive, meaningful work.
On 14th May 2024, Workplace from Meta announced that it would be closing, leaving its rumored 10 million users looking for a new digital home for communication and engagement.
Blink and Workplace share many features, but ultimately Workplace by Meta is a communication tool, and Blink’s platform is designed to be used as an all-in-one communications app and intranet replacement.
How they’re similar
Employee newsfeed
Workplace is explicitly designed to feel like a natural extension to Facebook, so the user experience is streamlined and simple to use. But the emphasis on socialization may not be suitable for every work culture, and some reviewers mention, “The easy access to the Facebook newsfeed keep distracting me from my works for hours.”
Blink’s real-time Feed is easy to understand and engage with because of streamlined, familiar options like reactions and comments. But Blink blends the social engagement features users naturally gravitate towards with business-minded additions. The newsfeed is also personalized based on each employee’s team, interests and role, and content categories are segmented, reducing social ‘noise’ in the feed. Employees can also filter their newsfeed, so they never miss what they need to see.
Finally, Blink Assist uses AI to aid and empower employees at all levels of a business to create and share content.
This makes Blink a strong Workplace alternative for companies that want to encourage engagement without distraction.
Chats
Both platforms have similar chat features useful for teamwork and project management, supporting file sharing, GIFs, images and videos.
Both platforms enable users to create custom chatrooms based on teams, workgroups, or topics. When work is done, users can turn off notifications or set their status as away.
When the task requires extensive communication over video, both platforms enable remote teams to start a video call right from the chat group. The only difference is that Workplace does this through its proprietary video app, while Blink integrates with Zoom, Google Meet, and Teams to fulfill the same role with more flexibility.
Employee engagement
Both platforms facilitate employee engagement by providing tools for feedback collection such as surveys and polls, colleague recognition posts, milestone celebrations, and new starter introduction videos.
Blink provides richer survey functionality, including milestone surveys for example during the onboarding process, and sentiment analysis to understand where and why employees are disengaged.
How they’re different
Knowledge Library / Digital Hub
Workplace’s intranet replacement is its knowledge library, organized by an unlimited number of group pages. The library is static, and some reviewers say, “It is not always the easiest to locate what you are looking for.”
Blink improves upon the outdated intranet concept with its Hub. It aggregates essential documents, pulls relevant documents from third parties like Sharepoint provides seamless access to HRIS, roster system, benefits, learning tools etc. through single sign-on.
Blinks forms and custom microapps can fully digitize manual processes and workflows, offering significant operational improvements.
If you’re looking for a powerful all-in-one communications app and intranet replacement, Blink is a good Workplace alternative.
Analytics
Workplace’s insights panel can tell you how active your members are, the top contributors, sentiment analysis etc.
Blinks enhanced workforce analytics go far beyond usage data. Our analytics collate and correlate multiple data points to provide a breadth of insight on your workforce. These can be drilled down to department, manager, location level to provide deeper, actionable insight. Your dedicated CSM can help you to turn actionable insights into action plans which can be distributed via automated notifications through the feed to ensure that action happens and track the impact of actions
Dedicated customer support manager
With Blink, your organization receives a personal implementation manager and the support of our broader team of experts to design a solution to meet your objectives and see you through onboarding to ensure successful implementation with 90%+ activation.
Then, a customer success manager helps you optimize the app for your needs and to improve key metrics like reach, engagement, retention and efficiency.
You get regular check-ins and personalized support 24/7, forever, no matter your subscription tier.
Support from Workplace by Meta is much less personalized. When you need something, you have to fill out a form and wait for a customer service agent to get to your ticket with a turnaround time of 24 hours.
For advanced support (with turnaround time below four hours), Workplace charges $2 more per month, per user.
That’s why Blink is a great Workplace alternative for organizations that place a high priority on customer service.
One app vs. two
Workplace by Meta requires each employee to download two apps on their phone: one standard app for groups and the newsfeed and a second app dedicated to the chat function.
Blink’s features are less intrusive and come streamlined with everything ready to use from a single app, making it an excellent Workplace alternative.
Security
Blink holds itself to banking-grade security standards, which means that it uses GDPR security measures like encryption, ISO 27001 compliant data centers, and HTTPS encryption during transmission.
Given Meta’s reputation with data, users are less confident about Workplace’s security, saying, “Security, especially of recent, is always a big question mark and concern.”
Integrations
Blink’s extensive in-app integrations enable the platform to work as a digital front-door for every technology your workspace needs to operate.
It seamlessly integrates with most apps in your workflow, from big-name apps like Google Docs and Microsoft 365 to all major HRIS to niche industry tools.
In contrast, most Workplace integrations involve automation bots or shortcuts that take the user out of the app. This can foster a disjointed employee experience.
So for organizations that already know they will be using several internal communication tools together, Blink is a better Workplace alternative.
Blink vs. Workplace by Meta — final thoughts
The right employee communication app for you depends on whether you’re looking for a familiar one-size-fits-all solution to increase communication or a highly customizable platform to boost employee engagement.
Organizations that appreciate personalization, deeper integrations, actionable insights, quality customer support, and security will find Blink an excellent Workplace alternative.
If you’re in doubt, book your free demo with Blink today and see for yourself.
Optimizing an intranet for marketing departments might not be on your mind, but your marketers can benefit from stronger connections with the rest of your corporation.
“Until recently, we communicated through email. This was to share patient information and… not much else. There was little in the way of engaging employees, celebrating achievements, or keeping in touch,”
The health organization shares personal anecdotes and success stories and communicates with different branches and departments easily.
Best of all, with a smart intranet, your marketing team members can use these interactions and stories as marketing collateral.
The intranet for marketing means taking advantage of features other departments will be excited about — like your company social networking feed — and using them to ease your marketers’ workload.
Must-have features for your marketing intranet
Intranets have been associated with HR or IT for a long time. But these departments aren’t the only ones who benefit from a way to connect to the rest of your organization.
With the right features, your marketing department can both source materials and share upcoming campaigns with ease.
You need to be able to share different media content on your intranet. And you want to be able to share the latest marketing strategies with frontline staff and receive pictures, videos, and feedback from them. It should be simple for everyone to publish their own content too.
An intranet with different permission settings will help make sure only certain teams or people have approval to see specific documents or market research. That makes it easier to share information confidently in the digital workplace.
The best intranet platforms for marketers should integrate with other apps like Slack or Microsoft 365, so your team can continue to use the tools they feel comfortable with.
Surveys will help marketing gain feedback from different departments without hassle. They can then check the built-in analytics to see how engaged employees are with the content they’re posting.
5 ways to use your intranet for marketing
Now you know what features to look for in a marketing intranet, it’s time to go over how you can use those tools productively.
1. Share marketing initiatives
Sometimes employees don’t know about new deals or offers unless they get notifications from management. An intranet keeps everyone on the same page.
2. Create a sharable photo album
Make an album where staff can upload pictures or video clips that marketing can use. Having one place where a photo of a staff celebration can be quickly uploaded to the company intranet reduces the strain on all of your workers.
When it’s easier for people to share their content, they’re more likely to.
3. Collect social media content
Not only pictures but quotes, examples of good work by frontline workers, and even share job vacancies at specific locations. Social media is becoming less curated, and more authentic content is resonating with users.
Sharing digital marketing materials with actual workers instead of models can help you achieve that genuine feel.
4. Promote your company blog
Share posts that staff are likely to be interested in and learn from. 89% of marketers use blogs in their content strategies, but do your workers know about it? Don't just send them to your homepage — share case studies, white papers, and press releases they might care about.
5. Share marketing materials that others need
Have a folder or feed for current sales strategy and brand assets, so if an employee needs to reference them, they’ll always have easy access to the promotions.
Get your marketing team on board
A social intranet is only as good as the contributions from its users.
You need to get your marketing department engaged with a new platform, or they won’t see the benefits from the workspace.
Multiple experts at the Content Marketing Institute expect video content to grow in 2022, but your department might not have the resources to create all of this content themselves.
By leaning into your company’s intranet software, your team can source photos, videos, success stories, milestones, and other materials from frontline workers and other departments as they create them.
Marketing will be able to access this information quickly — and in most cases, directly. 23% of marketers surveyed by HubSpot said just finding the ideas for new content was their biggest challenge for 2022.
If your marketing team is able to improve internal communications with other branches, they can access new information and learn what’s trending in stores now.
They can also use employee-generated content as a springboard or incorporate it directly into new marketing efforts.
The best way to have marketing get on board with an intranet is to have them try it out for free and see how they like it.
Final thoughts: marketing intranet — using an intranet to transform marketing
An intranet for marketing can streamline the entire department and lessen their workload.
Having your entire company help generate content yields a more authentic message that improves employee engagement and means less time spent hunting for a good photo or story.
Communicating and defining the roles helps keep everyone on the same page.
But make sure the intranet solution you choose has the features your organization needs for each department.
Your employees need to be able to access the intranet easily, and a mobile solution will help more workers connect and engage.
Help cut down on the work your marketing department is facing with a fast, company-wide intranet like Blink today.
“Dear Employee, your GTK forms are now Available in the YTG portal, Please fill them by Thu so they can be processed by MONDAY. Thank you!!!!”
Internal messages like these are liable to confuse your audience.
Grammar mistakes, inconsistent capitalization, and workplace jargon make internal communications confusing. A lack of personalization and an ill-defined tone of voice make it unengaging.
The result? Your audience doesn’t understand your message — or chooses to ignore it because it holds no interest.
We know that ineffective communication costs businesses up to $15,000 per employee per year. So consistent, effective, and engaging communication has to be the standard.
An internal communication style guide helps your communicators post content that ticks all these boxes. Let’s look at what a style guide is — and how to create one — so you can ensure clear employee communication and a positive employer brand image.
What is a business communication style guide?
A business communication style guide is a document that details the content and writing standards you want internal communicators to stick to.
It includes rules on things like grammar, formatting, writing style, word choice, and tone of voice. It offers guidance on how to make content more interesting, relevant, and easy to digest. It may also provide information on how to create and format multimedia content.
Your internal communicators can refer to these standards whenever they create content, ensuring that everything is kept consistent, no matter who is writing or posting.
This makes your internal messages easier for employees to understand. It also supports your internal communication strategy. Because when employees are used to receiving clear and relevant messages, they’re much less likely to switch off from employee communications.
A style guide keeps everyone on the same page at all times. And it embeds a shared understanding of internal content creation throughout your company.
How to write your internal communication style guide: a template
Internal messages should be as concise as possible. The same goes for your internal communication style guide.
Nobody in your company wants to spend hours reading through a list of rules before they publish an internal communication message. So don’t be tempted to write reams.
It may help to look at style guide examples and templates — like the one we’ve included here — as inspiration. There’s broad consensus on what good internal messaging looks like. So most style guides contain a lot of the same information.
However, you will need to add company-specific guidance relating to your brand personality, tone of voice, and any particular language you want to use or avoid.
With all that in mind, here are the basic components you’ll need to include in your workplace communication style guide, along with some tips.
Introduction
The first section of a style guide is the introduction. It explains the basics of the guide, like how to use it, why it’s important, and what it includes.
The VA.gov style guide hits on all these points. It provides a straightforward experience for everyone, regardless of whether they’re viewing the guide for the first or tenth time.
To ensure people can use your guide as a reference, create a list of contents and use linked subheadings. That way, users can jump straight to the information they need.
A few internal communication principles
A good business communication style guide doesn’t just cover specific rules for workers to follow. It also shares the underlying internal communication principles behind those rules.
With knowledge of these principles, content creators can make the right editorial call, even in situations the guidelines don’t cover.
Here are some of the golden rules to include for content creators in your internal communication style guide.
Stick to the four Cs: Internal communication should be correct, clear, concise, and conversational. So fact check each piece of content. Ensure your primary message shines through. Say what you want to say in as few words as possible. And write in a way that reflects how real people talk to one another — using everyday words and phrases.
Understand your audience: Plan your content before you start writing. As you form an outline, ask yourself:
What are the key things you want to convey?
Who is this message for?
What will the target audience want to know?
What is their likely state of mind when consuming the content?
This will help you write cohesive content that gets to the point and answers employee questions.
Be clear and helpful: Break down complex messages into simple, bite-size chunks. Put the most important piece of information at the start of your content. Also, break up paragraphs and sentences to make them more digestible for readers.
Make it human: It’s much easier to connect with individual people than with an inanimate organization. So use words like “we” instead of your company name. And use the word “you” to talk to employees directly.
X Blink is looking for employees who want to volunteer with a local charity.
✓ We’re looking for employees who want to volunteer with a local charity.
X Employees can get involved by clicking this link.
✓ You can get involved by clicking this link.
Write inclusively: Only refer to a person’s disability, age, race, religion, gender, or sexual orientation if it’s relevant to the context of your content.
Grammar and punctuation
The third part of your internal communication style guide is all about the mechanics of writing.
Of course, you can’t cover every single grammar rule here. But you can give guidance regarding the most common grammatical errors and inconsistencies. Here are some ideas.
Ampersands: Don’t use ampersands (&), whether in titles, subtitles or the body of a message. Use the full word “and”.
Commas: Don’t forget to add the serial comma (also known as the Oxford comma), in lists of three or more items.
X In his award speech, Tom Cruise mentioned his parents, Steven Spielberg, and Martin Scorsese.
✓ In his award speech, Tom Cruise mentioned his parents, Steven Spielberg and Martin Scorsese.
Contractions: Contractions make your writing feel less formal. So use them in all your internal communications.
X We will have more news for you soon.
✓ We’ll have more news for you soon.
Be careful with common contraction errors. Writers often confuse “its” with “it’s”.
“Its” is used to show possession:
The HR team has its away day on Monday.
“It’s” represents the phrase “it is”:
It’s the HR team away day on Monday.
Also, avoid non-standard contractions like “should’ve” and “would’ve”.
Exclamation marks: Some writers are prone to using lots of exclamation marks. This can come across as overly informal or a little aggressive. However, the occasional exclamation mark can make a message seem more friendly. Be clear on whether and where you want communicators to use them.
Accuracy and spelling: Ensure that your content is free from errors. Use a spell-checker to catch mistakes you might have overlooked. And proofread everything before submitting it for publication or distribution.
Style and formatting
Style and formatting are all about how you want communicators to use language — and how you want them to present their message on the page.
Acronyms and abbreviations: These can cause confusion, particularly for new employees. So try to avoid them. When absolutely necessary, write the full version of the acronym or abbreviation the first time it appears in a piece of text.
For example:
The customer experience (CX) team achieved their target this quarter.
Then use the acronym or abbreviation throughout the rest of the text.
In some cases, when an acronym or abbreviation is commonly used in the English language, you don’t need to spell the full word out.
Some examples: Mr, Ms, Ph.D
Capitalization: Use sentence case capitalization for page titles, subheadings, text links, and buttons.
X The Ultimate Internal Communication Style Guide
✓ The ultimate internal communication style guide
Remember that proper nouns (names of specific people, places, or organizations) are always capitalized, wherever they appear. And ALL CAPS should be avoided at all costs. They make a reader feel like you’re shouting at them.
Dates and times: Dates are displayed differently in different countries. To avoid any confusion, write dates in their full format.
X 11/12/2026
✓ November 12, 2026
Don’t abbreviate days of the week or months of the year. For example, write “Monday” not “Mon” and “January” not “Jan”. Also, write noon and midnight, rather than 12:00 p.m. and 12:00 a.m.
Bullet lists: Bullet lists make content easier to scan and understand. If there are three or more concepts in a sentence, try putting them in a bullet list instead.
When writing bullet lists:
Capitalize the first letter of each bullet point
Keep each list item short (no more than one or two lines)
Use a parallel structure (start each point in the same way —for example, with a verb or a noun)
Links: The links you include in your content should feel natural and intuitive. They should show readers where to click and where the link will take them.
When creating links:
Use descriptive language
Hyperlink the most relevant text
Avoid making the hyperlinked text too long
Headings and subheadings: Use headers and subheads to organize your content. This breaks text up and makes it easier to read.
Paragraphs and sentences: Keep the majority of your sentences and paragraphs short. Long blocks of text can be overwhelming for a reader, particularly if they’re reading content on a small mobile device screen.
Here’s a quick rule of thumb:
No more than 25 words in a sentence
No more than three sentences in a paragraph
Numbers, weights, and measures: Write numbers one to nine as words. Write numbers 10, 11, 12, and so on as numerals. Write out fractions as words, using hyphens. For example, two-thirds or three-quarters.
Decide whether to write out or abbreviate weights, measures, and currencies. For example, decide between:
% and percent
kg and kilograms
€ and euros
Vocabulary: Highlight the correct form of commonly misspelled or incorrectly formatted words — particularly those your organization uses regularly. Ensure that your company name, company locations, and hyphenated words are written the same way across all content.
Context-specific formatting: Perhaps news feed posts shouldn’t exceed a specified word count. Or you don’t want communicators to use emojis in emails. Explain any style and formatting rules related to the internal communication channels you use.
Writing voice and tone
This is where your business communication style guide is likely to feature lots of unique content. It’s all about the brand personality you convey — and how you make employees feel.
Start by thinking about your brand personality and values. Then, imagine your brand as a person.
Ask yourself how that person would speak and the kind of words they’d use. Perhaps their speech is polished and motivational. Or maybe they prefer to talk informally, throwing in the odd joke.
In this part of your internal communication style guide, describe what your brand personality is and isn’t. Also, give written examples that show communicators how to convey this personality across internal communications.
But remember that — while brand voice is a fixed thing — your tone can vary.
You may like to adapt your tone according to each communication channel and message format — or for different audience segments. If this is the case, give examples of how to adjust the tone for different scenarios.
Beyond the specifics of your brand voice and tone, there are a few foundations of good internal communication to keep in mind.
Use active voice: Using active voice instead of passive voice makes your employee communication more engaging and energetic.
X The training day was delivered by Amy.
✓ Amy delivered the training day.
Be open and transparent: Transparent communication builds trust. This contributes to a positive company culture. So when creating internal communications, use a tone that is approachable and honest. Be as open as possible, particularly where mistakes have been made.
Also, invite employee feedback to respond to your communications. In doing so, you establish two-way communication, giving employees a voice and discovering useful perspectives.
Be respectful: As we mentioned earlier, inclusive language is essential for internal comms. Ensure you speak to all employees as equals. Don’t patronize and don’t highlight company hierarchy unnecessarily.
Be direct and to the point: Your employees want to learn the most important details of your message as quickly as possible. Keep your copy short without missing key information. Also, include a clear call to action so employees know what to do next.
Keep it positive: We’re not saying you should gloss over bad news. But where possible, use a positive tone when writing internal messages. Avoid cynicism and sarcasm.
Write with a conversational tone: Make text easy to understand by writing in Plain English. Pick short, simple words over long, complicated ones.
It can help to read your writing out loud. If you wouldn’t use particular words or sentence structures when talking to someone face-to-face, try editing your copy to make it more conversational.
For example:
X Blink is a software solution for frontline-centric organizations.
✓ Blink is an employee app for companies with a big frontline workforce.
Multimedia content
Text may be the foundation of internal communications. But multimedia content is incredibly engaging for employees.
If you regularly create content like videos, images, infographics, or audio, tell your team how this media should be presented. Here are some of the things you might like to cover.
Branding: If graphics and videos need to feature the company logo, company colors, or specific fonts, tell creators how you want them to incorporate your branding. Also, give guidance on whether stock photography is acceptable.
Quality and formats: Detail the minimum resolution of images, the maximum file size of multimedia content, the required quality of audio, and preferred file formats.
Accessibility: Give instructions on alt tags, contrasting color palettes, and any video caption requirements to ensure your multimedia content is accessible to all employees.
A final note on creating your internal communication style guide
An internal communication style guide acts as a reference. Your communicators can use it to improve your internal communication, making it more consistent, engaging, and effective.
Many of the guidelines in an internal communication style guide cover best practices. These can be applied to almost any organization. But you need to adapt your guide so it reflects your branding, your tone of voice, and the needs of your employees.
It can help to treat your guide as a work in progress. Once you have a guide in place, you can add to it. Any time you see an error or an inconsistency in your internal communications, update your style guide to prevent similar mistakes in the future.
We hope this template speeds up the creation of your internal communication guide. Good luck with your first draft!
Take a wild guess. During a week-long hospital stay, how many different employees is a patient likely to interact with?
When you account for all the doctors, nurses, technicians, consultants, and other people involved, it’s certainly more than a dozen. And depending on the patient’s condition, he may also see more than one type of specialist such as an oncologist, haematologist, radiologist, and so on.
If these many people are responsible for a patient’s care, they better be on the same page regarding the patient’s condition, diagnosis, and treatment. After all, a small mistake can risk his well-being.
Despite that, internal communication is an area where the global healthcare industry hasn’t caught up with the latest tools and best practices available to them. In this post, we’ll walk you through the importance of internal communications in the healthcare industry, its challenges, and what you can do to address them.
Why is communication important in healthcare?
Caring for patients properly takes more than procedures and diagnoses. You also need an effective internal communication system. And not having one in place makes you vulnerable to gaps that can have dire consequences.
In the UK alone, the healthcare communication gap costs over £1 billion in wasted funds and resources per year. Not to mention the risk that it poses to patients’ health.
This shows better internal communication has the potential to benefit both patients and healthcare providers. It helps save costs, protect your patients, and enhance day-to-day efficiency.
Gaps & barriers in healthcare communication
The issues that widen the healthcare gap are multi-faceted. Miscommunication exists between healthcare workers and patients. And it also exists between healthcare workers, technological systems, and more. So let’s take a closer look at the main obstacles getting in the way of effective communication in healthcare.
Outdated communication channels
The global healthcare industry boasts of some of the most advanced technology in the world. From AI to VR-assisted operations, and from 3D printing to robotic surgeries, healthcare has seen some incredible scientific breakthroughs.
Yet, it’s shocking that many medical organizations haven’t adopted the latest communication technologies. Not just that, the whole burden lies with the senior practitioners to plan and send communication materials to patients, mid-level employees, frontline workers, and other caregivers. There is no infrastructure to support streamlined multi-directional communication.
Lack of focus on internal communication
Most organizations focus on improving communication between healthcare professionals and patients, but the gap among the healthcare professionals themselves is usually a blind spot.
Many doctors work alone. Specialist care is often fragmented. And healthcare professionals are not always in contact with each other. This leads to a lower quality of care. This is where a well-thought-out internal communications strategy is vital.
Apathy towards frontline staff
Katie Knight, a pediatric emergency medicine registrar in the NHS, recalls from a roundtable discussion among experienced NHS professionals:
“Those in senior management rarely ask for the opinions or ideas of those in junior positions.”
When decisions are being made that could drastically change the experience of those working on the frontline, it seems strange that those on the frontline are rarely consulted. The result is the formation of unrealistic rules and regulations that can’t be implemented in the real world.
Limited technological aptitude
Gaps in technological ability affect both healthcare workers and patients. A report published by the Good Things Foundation in 2019 found that 55% of over 65s lack at least one essential digital skill.
In fact, over 50% don’t have the basic digital skills they need. This prevents organizations from truly adopting the tools that can streamline internal communication.
High-pressure environment
Healthcare workers tend to be pressed for time. These are professionals with limited resources tasked with an array of responsibilities such as meeting patients, diagnosing conditions, monitoring reports, supervising treatment, and much more. And the ongoing pandemic has added even more to their stress and work pressure.
So unless you make it really easy for them to adopt and use a new communication mechanism or policy, it’s not going to put a dent.
3 ways to improve healthcare communication
Good internal communication practices aren’t easy to adopt, even for experienced healthcare professionals. Here are the steps to foster better internal communication in your healthcare organization.
1. Assess your current situation
Before you zero in on where you need to go and how to get there, you should understand where you are right now. Conduct an internal audit or employee survey to get answers to questions such as:
How do workers communicate most often?
Are there any commonalities or trends in communication mishaps?
How are company news and policies communicated?
This is also your opportunity to solicit feedback and suggestions to address communication problems and enhance internal communication.
Implementing new methods and patterns of communication will require time and effort, but it will pay off in the end.
2. Form an internal communication strategy
Good internal communication involves everyone in the organization, but it starts at the top. It needs support and active participation from senior leadership.
When administrators and managers clearly define and communicate goals, processes, and expectations, along with aligning their own behaviour accordingly, it’s easier for employees to adhere to the same standards.
Now to clearly shape and share guidelines for effective internal communication, you must have a concrete plan. A great internal communication strategy will answer questions such as:
For example, managers can use employee communication software to:
Set up reminders and schedule employee performance reviews and other team meetings.
Share new procedures and policies with everyone in the organization (including frontline staff) with just a few clicks or taps.
Make certain messages mandatory and monitor electronic signatures to check whether employees have read the information.
Store and distribute training materials in multiple formats to make sure workers understand and can refer to the information again as needed.
Most of all, a great communication tool can empower everyone to access and share stories, updates, and suggestions across your organization. This change alone can lead to a significant boost in employee lifecycle and productivity.
Final thoughts
If you’ve ever looked for a job online, we bet you’ve come across the phrase — “candidate must have excellent communication skills.”
Good communication with coworkers is a key ingredient everywhere, but it’s even more important for hospitals and other healthcare facilities. Poor communication can put lives at risk, and cause many day-to-day issues in a hospital, regardless of your profession or department.
So use this guide to analyze the gaps hindering internal communication and start taking steps that take you close to build a company that does right by both its workers and patients.
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