Blink and Livewall launch new gamification partnership

Meet our event marketing expert, Amelia!

Amelia has spent the last two years bringing energy, creativity, and a spark of marketing magic to Blink’s Boston office. As a Senior Marketing Associate, she’s helped shape our presence at events across the US, from high-profile conferences to intimate dinners — and even found time to turn our beloved mascot, Blinkie, into plush toys and Legos.

We sat down with Amelia to talk about what brought her to Blink, the milestones she’s proud of, and what makes the culture in Boston so special.

1. What is your role at Blink?

I am the Senior Marketing Associate at Blink and am based out of the Boston office. I have been here a little over two years.

2. What initially attracted you to join Blink?

I’ve always been drawn to the fast-paced, creative energy of tech startups, and when my former colleague Courtney Hayes joined Blink, she couldn’t stop talking about the mission, the buzz around the product, and how great the team was. That instantly piqued my interest.

At the time, I was still early in my career and looking for a place where I could grow — and Blink offered that in a really exciting way. It felt like a no-brainer. Once I learned more about the technology and how it was solving real problems for frontline teams, I knew I wanted to be part of it.

3. What's a project you are proud of during your time at Blink?

Because I run our events in the US, no two days ever look the same. Every event — whether it’s a major conference, a global webinar, or an intimate dinner — comes with its own unique set of challenges and rewards, so it’s hard to pick just one project. But I’m incredibly proud of how we’ve grown our event presence over the last couple of years. People now expect to see Blink at major industry shows, and they expect us to bring a level of excitement and creativity — and we’ve been delivering on that. From how we look to the quality of conversations we’re having, it’s been a huge leap forward.

On another note, I also somehow became a toy manufacturer on the side! Over the past year, I’ve worked with third-party partners to bring our mascot Blinkie to life as both plush toys and Legos. It’s been a long but fun process, from design to production, and now that they’re in our hands, it’s incredibly rewarding. They’re playful and memorable, and they bring so much joy to our customers, prospects, and the whole Blink team.

4. How would you describe the company culture at Blink in three words?

Supportive, upbeat, and collaborative.

The Boston office has such a special vibe. Everyone genuinely supports one another, no matter their title or role. We help each other grow, hold one another to high standards, and always find ways to bring energy and fun into the day. That kind of culture makes it easy to stay motivated and feel confident in the work you’re doing.

5. What's one thing you're excited about for the future of Blink?

Definitely our global growth. It’s exciting to see new customers coming on board — whether they’re small teams or massive enterprises. Even in just the few years we’ve been in the US market, we’ve seen incredible momentum. Every new logo is a reminder that there’s a real need for what we’re building.

I’m especially excited to see where we go in industries like EMS and retail. We’ve already made an impact, and I think there’s still so much opportunity. Some of the brands we’ve signed recently weren’t even on my radar when I first joined — and now they’re some of our biggest wins. It makes the next few years feel full of possibility.

6. Can you tell us about a recent initiative or program launched at Blink that you found particularly exciting?

I’m really excited about the new voice and video feature we launched. I’m someone who sends voice notes all the time and prefers face-to-face conversations, so this update felt like it was made for people like me. It’s not just convenient, it adds a whole new dimension to how people communicate on Blink. Sometimes a message just doesn’t capture tone or emotion the right way, and this makes interactions feel more human and real. I think it’s going to be a game-changer for our customers.

7. Why do you work for Blink?

The product, the mission, and the people. Blink is solving a real need connecting frontline workers who have been left out of digital transformation. That in itself is meaningful work. But what makes it special is the people behind it. Everyone here is passionate about the mission and genuinely wants to make a difference. 

There was actually a moment early on in my first year, during an all-hands meeting. Sean gave a really inspiring update about our progress, and I remember looking around the Boston office and seeing how proud people were. That was when it really hit me that I was part of something important.

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Stress, strained relationships, and missed deadlines. According to Grammarly’s 2024 State of Business Communication report, poor internal communication causes all three of these things.

In contrast, good workplace communication leads to increased productivity and work satisfaction. Employees who get enough information to do their job well are also 2.8 times more likely to be engaged in their work.

There’s a strong link between internal communication and employee engagement.

Effective communication helps employees feel more connected to the organization, their work, and each other. These highly engaged employees then contribute to positive workplace communication.

It’s a virtuous circle that — according to Gallup research — leads to improvements in employee retention and wellbeing, as well as your business profits.

In this article, we look at how you can boost employee engagement through your internal communication strategy.

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The basics of a good internal communication plan

If you want to improve employee engagement, improving employee communication is a great place to start. To do that, you need a plan.

An internal communication plan helps you approach employee communications with strategy. You understand where you are now, where you want to get to, and which combination of activities is most likely to get you there.

We can boil an employee communication plan down into four key stages. You can create a successful internal communications strategy by:

1. Assessing your current situation

What are the strengths and weaknesses of your current communication strategy? Are your comms successfully engaging employees? Are messages resonating in the way you want them to? Are some communication channels more effective than others? Listen to opinions and ideas from across the company to evaluate your current comms performance.

2. Choosing communication channels

Communication channels should be accessible to all employees, including those working remotely and on the frontlines of your organization. You need appropriate channels for company-wide updates, 1:1 meetings, and group chat. You also need channels that facilitate top-down, bottom-up, and peer-to-peer communication.

3. Deciding on communication content

If one of your priorities is employee engagement, crafting engaging company messages is the next item on your list. Create an internal communication calendar, starting with the essential messages that help your organization function safely and efficiently. Next, decide on the types of content you’ll use to share company culture and foster a sense of belonging.

4. Assessing engagement

A good internal communication plan is fluid. It’s a constant work in progress. So once you’ve put your new strategy into action, it’s time to assess what works and what doesn’t. Using communication and engagement key performance indicators (KPIs), see how far you’ve come and make targeted improvements.

Read more: 13 ways to quickly improve your internal communications

11 engaging ideas for your internal communication plan

Approach your internal communication plan tactically and it will better support your employee engagement efforts. Here, we’ve put together a list of internal communication best practices to incorporate into your plan.  

Choose the right channels

Employee communications should reach every member of every team. In a world of remote working, this means using digital communication channels.

These digital communication channels need to be accessible on mobile devices because 80% of the world’s workforce doesn’t sit behind a desk — and because paper memos on a noticeboard are far too easy to miss.

If email is your first thought, bear in mind that it’s rarely the best solution. Many frontline workers don’t have a company email address and lots of desk-based workers are suffering from email overload. There’s a temptation to overlook company comms in your inbox when it’s already overflowing.   

Your internal communications engage employees more effectively if you create dedicated, digital channels with the help of a social intranet or employee app.

These platforms allow your teams to communicate over a news feed, group chats, and 1:1 messages. The best tools come with lots of engaging, social-media-style features and are available on every employee smartphone.

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Be clear and concise

Clear and concise internal communications are essential to engagement because:

• You get fewer misunderstandings — and when employees fully understand your message they’re more likely to respond to it quickly
• It makes messages easier to absorb and remember
• You show respect for your employees’ time, which means they’re more likely to read future messages

So when creating employee communications, try to use simple language, avoid industry jargon, and keep sentences short.

Before you put anything down on paper or into words, think about what you want your audience to do after reading or watching your content. Also, identify the most important information and put this at the start of your message.

Once you’ve written your content, edit it ruthlessly cutting unnecessary words and repetition. You can also use AI tools, like Hemingway. Hemingway highlights sentences that are difficult to read. You can then simplify these sentences to make your internal communications clearer and more concise. 

Foster two-way communication

Imagine you’re watching a presentation.

The speaker — let’s call him Steve — clicks through his well-designed slides. He talks through the content competently. But he doesn’t pause for input or questions.

Now, another speaker takes to the floor.

This speaker — let’s call her Maria — starts her presentation with an interactive poll. After speaking for a few minutes, she involves the whole room in a discussion so everyone gets to share their thoughts and ideas. She speaks some more, then invites you to ask questions.  

Which presentation is the most engaging?

It’s likely that if you had to sit through Steve’s presentation, your mind would wander. You’d start thinking about the workload waiting for you back at your desk — or what you fancied eating for lunch.

But by incorporating two-way communication, Maria grabbed everyone’s attention from the beginning. She sustained that attention by regularly involving everyone in the conversation.

When you involve people in a presentation — or in your internal communications — you make the experience more engaging.

There are lots of ways to create interactive, two-way employee communications. You can launch polls and surveys. You can run an online Q&A session with your CEO. You can also post content to the company news feed, where employees can interact by commenting, liking, and sharing.

Create open dialogue like this — where thoughts, opinions, and questions flow in all directions — and you’ll find it much easier to interest employees in your internal communications.

Collect feedback

As we’ve just mentioned, polls and surveys boost employee engagement. Employees like to feel that they have a voice — and that leadership takes their thoughts on board.

So collect feedback regularly. Ask employees about the employee experience, the latest company changes, or the next company social event. You can also ask them what they think about your internal communications.

According to Axios research, 36% of employees want to share feedback with leaders about the essential communications they’re receiving but they don’t feel they get the opportunity.

So ask your employees about their communication preferences and any pain points they experience with your current employee communication plan. Give workers the option to share feedback anonymously if they prefer.

Then, analyze your feedback results. Also, be sure to share the results of polls and surveys with your employees. Thank them for their input and tell them what you plan to do.

This type of feedback loop shows employees that feedback requests aren’t just empty attempts at engagement. You really care about their opinions and ideas — and are willing to take action on them. This helps to engage employees with these types of communications going forward.

Tailor your communications

If all employees get all internal communications, they start to switch off. When your audience knows that only a small proportion of employee communications apply to them, they stop taking the time to read them.

That’s why another internal communication best practice is personalization. Using digital internal communication tools you can segment your audience based on their role, department, location, and tenure. You can then tailor content to each segment of your audience so everything they receive is relevant.

Your warehouse team sees different messages to the staff in HQ. Managers receive different comms to new hires. Employees in each of the regions you cover only see content relevant to their location.

With an intranet or app, you can also personalize employee dashboards, making them applicable to different roles and departments, putting the most important content front and center.

Celebrate achievements and milestones

Recognition is an integral part of any good employee communication plan. That’s because praise makes employees feel valued — and because other employees love to get behind a co-worker who’s done a great job.

Whether you’re celebrating the completion of a project, a birthday, or a work anniversary, you’re engaging your workforce. You’re creating a sense of accomplishment, belonging, and motivation. This can make a huge difference to your business.

A recent Gallup and Workhuman recognition report revealed that, by making recognition an important part of company culture, a 10,000-person organization can save up to $16.1 million a year in reduced employee turnover costs.

The easiest way to give company-wide recognition is via a dedicated recognition program across your digital communication channels. This type of program helps you build recognition into the fabric of your organization.

It makes manager-employee and peer-to-peer recognition incredibly easy, so it becomes a regular occurrence. A digital solution also ensures that frontline employees — who don’t get a lot of face-to-face time with managers or co-workers — get the same level of appreciation as their office-based peers.

Be consistent

The best employee communications are consistent. They stick to a reliable schedule and they demonstrate a similar tone and style.

This consistency ensures that employees come to trust and rely on your internal communications. They know when and where to expect key messages and feel kept in the loop. So they’re more likely to engage with what you have to say.

Here’s how you can make your comms more consistent:

• Use an internal communications calendar. Plan your comms for each month, including a mix of formal and informal company content.
• Provide clear guidelines and templates. That way all members of staff can deliver communications with the same style and tone.
• Use automation tools. A feature like Blink’s Employee Journeys allows you to create automated content paths. This ensures that all employees receive essential comms at key milestones — for example, during onboarding or after a year of service. 

Create engaging content

We all know from browsing social media that multimedia content catches the eye. An original photograph, an infographic, or a video is much more likely to grab our attention than plain, old text. So make these multimedia elements part of your internal communication plan.

Also, include a variety of content on your communication channels. That means need-to-know company updates along with snaps from your latest social event. Informal content helps to amplify company culture and create a sense of belonging.

Stories are also engaging. So post a real-life story about a customer your company has helped — or about one of the causes your organization supports.

When planning internal communications, think about what matters to your employees, too. They might like a reminder of the training and development opportunities, wellbeing resources, or benefits you offer. FAQs come in handy for new hires. 

You could also take inspiration from the Tesco supermarket chain, by creating personalized videos to support employees with financial planning. 

Encourage leadership involvement

When leaders communicate transparently with their workforce, it creates trust and builds engagement. It also sets a great example. Employees are more likely to be active on communication channels if their leaders are showing up there, too.

Employees also care what their leaders have to say. 36% say that they’d like to hear from their leaders more often.

So encourage leaders to get involved on the company news feed. Schedule a bi-weekly post from the CEO. Or plan an online Q&A session, where employees can ask leaders their burning questions.

Create connection

Employees who feel that they belong within an organization are 5.3 times more likely to feel empowered to do their best work.

So use your communication channels to reinforce a positive and inclusive company culture — and make peer-to-peer connection part of your employee communication plan.

Frontline employees — and those who work remotely — have much less opportunity to collaborate and build workplace friendships. So ensure that employees have company communication channels suited to informal conversation.

Salesforce has made peer-to-peer connection and inclusivity a priority. They’ve created equality groups where employees with a shared interest, background, or identity can come together to champion their needs in the workplace.

However you choose to do it, be sure to make connection part of your internal communication plan. By giving co-workers the tools they need to support one another, share useful insights, and build workplace friendships, you create a more engaging workplace.

Leverage technology                 

Internal communication tools make comms and employee engagement much easier. With the right all-in-one platform, you create a company hub, which becomes the go-to place for the latest company news.

Using this platform, you can post communications that are easy for employees to find and search. You can create multi-media content to engage employees. You can recognize hard work, launch polls, and automate content so it reaches the right people at the right time.

Through integrations, you support employee engagement beyond comms. Employees are only ever a click or tap away from learning and development programs, wellbeing resources, and self-serve HR tools — like vacation booking and shift scheduling.

Technology helps you measure the success of your internal communication plan, too. A communication tool with in-built analytics can tell you how employees are interacting with your comms.

Metrics like message open rates, post likes, response time, profile completion, and communication tool adoption build a picture of what is and isn’t working when it comes to your internal communication strategy.

You can then use your findings to make data-backed improvements, finding new and more effective ways to engage employees with your internal communications going forward.

Using an employee app for internal communication plan success

Creating and executing a successful internal communication plan is easier when you use the right technology. A great tech tool is essential if you have hard-to-reach employees working on the frontlines of your company.

Frontline employees don’t spend a lot of time in the office nor do they have easy access to a computer or company email account. That’s why — if even a small proportion of your employees work away from a desk — you need mobile-first internal communication tools, accessible via smartphone.

An employee app fits this description. It brings communication channels to the palm of every employee.

Workers can catch up with company news during a break or check their shift schedule from home. They get to chat with co-workers and feel part of company culture in a way that simply isn’t possible if your organization still relies on emails or a desktop-based intranet.

Here at Blink, our employee app comes with a company news feed, 1:1, and group chat. It has tools for surveys and employee recognition.

Your employees also get access to a content library and a digital hub — where it’s easy to access other workplace software. Your comms team gets automation and analytics features that help them hone your internal communication plan.

If you’d like to see what Blink can do for your employee communications, schedule a personalized demo today.  

56% of US companies have been increasing their level of remote work, according to a 2021 survey.

But as more and more workers operate from different locations, managers around the globe are facing the uncharted territory of managing remote teams. And that’s as if managing a team wasn’t hard enough already in person.

Regardless, the hardship of managing remote teams is a small price to pay for the benefits they offer. Plus, how you handle this new reality of work will shape your true potential as a leader. 

So consider this post as your go-to guide for managing remote teams. We’ll begin with some common challenges that plague virtual managers, followed by our best strategies to lead your remote team with confidence.

Challenges of managing remote teams

Working from home seems normal these days, but many organizations didn’t have remote work on their radar until the global pandemic forced them to.

Before we get to the remote management strategies, let’s see some key challenges faced by leaders and their team members when adapting to this new way of working.

Shifting to a new structure

Human beings are creatures of habit. From that morning commute to the evening snack, our daily work routines have probably been pretty consistent.

When you and your team members start working remotely, everything can get upside down. You are forced to establish a new routine, along with juggling your personal and professional duties outside the office, factory, or wherever you used to work before.

Plus, it doesn’t help that you are now supposed to deal with a lot of new virtual tools, communication methods, and remote work policies. No wonder managing remote teams seems overwhelming.

Adopting tech-based communication

Facing an issue, or need a second opinion on something? Just go to your nearest team member and sort it all out in a second.

This is possible in an office, but may feel like a distant dream in today’s remote working environment, too good to be true!

In fact, 45% of employees worry over not seeing their team members in person because of remote work, and 34% have doubts about their ability to collaborate virtually. Ensuring you're providing a good digital employe experience is key.

As communication moves to technologies such as email and instant messaging, managers and their team members are finding it hard to get the answers they need in time.

Juggling productive and personal time

Personal time at home. Work on site. It has been a simple rule to follow. When you work from an office, there’s a clear line between your professional and personal life, at least more straightforward than the boundaries set by remote work.

With remote work, the lines are blurred. It’s easy for the personal responsibilities to distract you from your work, or for your work to eat up your family time. So both managers and their employees are faced with the issue of striking a balance between the two.

Building trust and rapport

When managing remote teams, you want to keep your team members assured that you are available to lead and support them. And that you’re in touch with their concerns, needs, and suggestions.

But when everyone is struggling to communicate efficiently, it gets increasingly difficult to do that. And with no visible body language and non-verbal cues, you may not get an accurate sense of their level of engagement, feelings, and emotional well-being.

We don’t mean to scare you with a laundry list of challenges of leading remote teams. But rather to drill down the fact that you’ll need to really pull up your sleeves for the job. To truly manage and engage remote teams, you should be ready to work harder than ever, which brings us to the next section.

Best practices for managing remote teams

Ready to learn the tips and tricks to manage remote teams the right way? Here’s how to get the best results from your remote employees.

1. Establish clear expectations

34% of remote workers worldwide say that transparency from leadership triggers a deep sense of connectedness at work. And a big part of transparency is setting clear rules and regulations for your team members.

When managing remote teams, it’s important to set boundaries and expectations that your team members are supposed to work with. For example, random video meetings may get awkward for some employees if they weren’t expecting them.

So you need to let your team members know exactly how you plan to manage them from a distance. This includes communicating the following:

• Values and behaviors that shape the company culture
• Remote work procedures
• Guidelines specific to their project
• Communication style guides
• Expectations regarding workload and availability

The best way to start implementing work expectations when managing virtual teams is to have a kick-off meeting to introduce all the policies and procedures. Then keep reinforcing them in regular weekly and monthly meetings.

2. Implement the right communication channels

Email has its place. But there are many different types of communication, not all of which are best-suited for emails. These include:

• Status updates
• Frequently used resources for team members
• Project schedule and deadlines
• Troubleshooting guide for common problems

Because of this, picking the right communication channels is crucial for managing remote teams.

For example, depending on the nature of communication, you may also want to use channels like instant messaging, virtual meetings, or cloud sharing from time to time. And if you want to limit the use of random video calls, you can establish email and online chat as the main communication channels for your team.

Avoid having too many different tools and channels as they can overwhelm your team and allow important messages to slip through the cracks. It’s better to use a single communication platform or employee engagement tool that consists of multiple communication streams.

Blink, for example, is a mobile app that allows team members to communicate via a social-media-style feed, instant messaging, and cloud-based document sharing — all from one place.

3. Set regular check-in times

When your team is working from an office, it’s easy to check in regularly with the whole group as well as individual team members. But don’t think you can’t do the same with remote teams.

In fact, if your team has just started working remotely, you might need to schedule extra check-ins until the team members have adapted successfully to the new routine. Then scale back based on what works for your team and the given workload.  

For example, start with a daily meeting of 15-20 minutes. Go around in a circle and give each worker a chance to talk about their plan for the day, any issues they have, and what they need from other team members.

4. Invest in mental health and well-being

According to World Health Organization (WHO), anxiety and depression lead to productivity losses that cost the world $1 trillion annually.

Not just that. For every $1 that goes into workers’ mental health, there’s a return of $4 in terms of employee health and productivity.

When your team members are working remotely, their mental health should be an even higher priority for you than what it was in the office. Because with remote team management, you don’t have as many opportunities to identify what emotional challenges your workers are struggling with. 

For example, some employees may find it easier to adapt to remote working and maintain sound health than others. And for the ones that don’t, you’ll need to identify and support them as per their needs. Some ways to do that include:

• Offering employee benefits related to mental health
• Encouraging open communication among team members
• Appointing a psychotherapist the employees can talk to
• Sharing guidelines and resources for self-care
• Encouraging workers to take frequent breaks

5. Celebrate both small and big wins

Achieving milestones together is what makes your team, a team. So when managing virtual teams, don’t let the physical distance come in the way of celebrating and rewarding accomplishments.

Celebrating successes will encourage your remote employees and motivate them to keep doing their best work. For example, you can host virtual parties, get a gift delivered to a team member’s doorstep, or give a bonus day off. 

Also, don’t postpone a celebration in your wait for achieving something big. Even short-term successes count, especially when managing remote teams. Otherwise, your team members can easily feel discouraged.

6. Document everything

Managing remote teams can get real complicated, real fast. As you take your project activities from the physical world to a virtual environment, many key steps and tasks can slip through the cracks.

So for effective remote team management, it’s not enough to have the workflows, roles, and processes just in your head. The best way to retain and enhance team productivity is to document as much as possible and make the documentation easily accessible for all remote employees.

Create detailed documents that provide step-by-step breakdowns of all the things the team needs to get done, when to do them, and who is responsible for the work items. For example:

• Checklists and templates for routine tasks
• Playbooks that go deep into project protocols and procedures
• Flow charts showing what actions to take in dynamic circumstances
• Forms to record key information and instructions to fill them properly

To make sure your team can refer to these documents as needed, put them on a shared storage platform and set permissions for team members to access at any time. This will reduce bottlenecks and get the team members to complete their tasks efficiently.

7. Provide socializing opportunities

According to a Buffer survey, 20% of remote workers go through a heightened sense of loneliness, and another 20% find it difficult to collaborate and communicate.

So it’s vital to encourage social interactions among remote teams. You need to proactively create time and opportunities for employees to connect and socialize with one another.

Some of the best ways to do that include virtual hangouts, joint brainstorming sessions, morning coffee standups, online lunch and learns, and team-building games.  

Conclusion: managing remote teams like a pro

As you can see, managing remote teams is not a piece of cake. It requires you to keep a close eye on not just the progress of tasks and project goals, but also team members’ emotional well-being and their relationships with one another.

No doubt, you’ll need to step up as a leader in some big ways. Some of the remote team management strategies we have covered may already be familiar to you, while others will need you to go out of your comfort zone.

Regardless, if you’re serious enough to be reading this article, we’re confident that you can handle managing remote teams with flying colors. So start following these best practices today, and see the difference they make in your remote team’s performance.

Plus, as we said earlier, consider using an all-in-one communication app that can make collaboration easy and bring team members together despite the physical distance that comes with remote work. Book a free blink demo.

A good, modern intranet is a water cooler, town hall meeting, and workplace manual rolled into one. It’s a place where employees can find everything they need to thrive in their roles. 

But the very best intranets go beyond first-class internal communications. They also drive employee engagement, connecting workers to their roles and the wider organization. 

The content you put on your intranet has a big part to play in making this happen. Incorporate the intranet content that staff love and engagement across the board becomes much easier.

Here, we list the content that belongs on an effective and engaging employee intranet.

The link between intranet content and employee engagement

Employee engagement is the degree to which employees feel invested in their work and their workplace. Engaged employees are happier, more productive, and less likely to leave your organization.

Engagement relies on good internal communication. And, in today’s digital age, good internal communication relies on a modern intranet.

The modern intranet is a central hub for workplace communication, collaboration, and connection. It supports an organization to:  

• Connect and align teams even when they’re apart
• Provide clear, reliable information
• Offer opportunity for two-way communication
• Streamline employee communications by putting everything in one place

This type of communication tool is lightyears from that neglected company noticeboard. Or an email inbox flooded with memos. 

But the software alone isn’t enough. You can only make a success of your intranet and your employee engagement efforts if you incorporate the right content.

Intranet content needs to be reliable and relevant. It should help to foster a sense of belonging and community. And it should spark employee interest.  

Get it right and you’ll engage employees with your internal communications and your intranet platform. This engagement then spreads further, positively impacting how teams feel about their jobs and your company.

11 engagement-boosting content ideas for your company intranet

Let’s take a closer look at the intranet content types that stand to improve internal communications and boost employee engagement. The most engaging intranet content ideas include:

• Surveys and polls
• Employee recognition
• Company policies
• Company news and updates
• Company strategy and goals
• Employee-generated content
• New hire welcome info
• Training and development resources
• HR resources
• Employee wellness initiatives
• Company values

Intranet content idea #1: Surveys and polls

When we’re actively involved in a conversation, we’re more engaged. So every effective intranet features content that employees can respond to.

Surveys and polls are an obvious choice. They’re interactive. Easy for employees to use. And really useful for leaders looking to improve the employee experience.

It’s definitely worth moving beyond the standard, annual employee survey. Regular polls and pulse surveys keep employees involved in the conversation all year round.

They also give you real-time insight into employee engagement and — if you ask the right questions — intranet content preferences.

Polling your employees makes them feel heard and valued. But your content will be less effective and engaging if you fail to follow up.

This presents another great intranet idea. On the back of a single poll, you can share feedback findings, your plan of action, and any results. All useful, engaging comms, sure to spark employee interest.

Intranet content idea #2: Employee recognition

We know that employees feel more engaged at work when they get recognition from their leaders, managers, and peers. According to recognition research:  

• 65% of employees said they would work harder if they felt management noticed their contributions
• Engagement, productivity, and performance are 14% higher in organizations with an effective employee recognition program 
• Workers in organizations that make appreciation a priority are 56% less likely to look for a new job

Praise is clearly valuable. It can make a big difference to employee morale and their sense of belonging. So another great intranet idea to add to your list is employee recognition.

You can use your intranet to showcase the successes and contributions of employees and teams. You can also celebrate milestones, like work anniversaries and employee birthdays.

Shout out the behaviors you want to see more of. And if a customer name checks an employee in a glowing review, share it on the company intranet so everyone gets to see it. 

Content tip: For an extra engagement boost, link recognition content to company values. Turn values into hashtags. Then use these hashtags in recognition posts to highlight the core company ethics employees have demonstrated.  

Intranet content idea #3: Company policies

In a modern workplace, company policies really shouldn’t live in a paper manual. Nor should they sit on a shared file only accessible to those with an office-based desktop computer.

Instead, make it easy for employees to access company policy documents by putting them on your intranet.

Now, we know employees are unlikely to be clamoring to read policy docs. But by placing them on your intranet, you make this content more engaging and effective. That’s because:

• There are fewer barriers between employees and the information they seek
• Content is searchable and findable
• Employees can trust that the information they’re getting is well-maintained and up-to-date
• You can turn written policy docs into engaging videos or interactive tutorials

Whether it’s safety protocols, a code of conduct, or brand guidelines, employees have all the resources they need at their fingertips.

With this essential info to hand, employees can feel more confident in their roles. And your organization enjoys better compliance with company policy.  

Intranet content idea #4: Company news and updates

Employees who are kept in the loop are better at their jobs. They also feel more connected to their company and co-workers.

But company updates tend to be pretty dry. So how do you deliver company news and updates that employees actually want to read?

Get leaders involved. Content from leadership tends to get a lot of traffic. So encourage your senior team to post a weekly or monthly update on the company intranet.

Use multimedia content. Present company news in a visually engaging way by using images, videos, and infographics. 

Incorporate a human angle. The employee intranet is a great place to post photos from the latest team-building event. Or a signup form for your next corporate volunteer day. Or a customer story that highlights the direct impact your employees are making.

Target your content. A well-designed intranet lets you segment your audience and filter content. This keeps your news and updates relevant to each team or department. 

Content tip: Ensure employees engage with time-sensitive updates by picking an intranet solution that allows you to send notifications, pin essential content, and request an acknowledgment receipt from employees.

Intranet content idea #5: Company strategy and goals

Company strategy and goals shouldn’t be kept behind boardroom doors.

There are lots of benefits to sharing this information with employees. When you involve employees in your strategy and goals, you help to align your organization. You also make work more engaging for employees. That’s because they:

• Understand how their work fits into the bigger picture
• Feel more involved, empowered, and motivated
• Make better decisions and solve problems more effectively

So devote some content on your company intranet to strategy and goals.

Clearly communicate your company mission. Consider giving employees updates on competitor intelligence. And help employees visualize progress toward goals with the help of eye-catching charts.

Intranet content idea #6: Employee-generated content

As we mentioned earlier, it’s easy to switch off from a one-way conversation. So the most engaging employee intranet content goes two ways.

Polls and surveys are a useful way to involve employees in your internal communication. But you can go further by giving employees the option to create their own intranet content.

They can write blogs and upload videos to the team thread. They can share employee resource group (ERG) content. And — if your corporate intranet has a newsfeed feature — you can allow them to post, comment, and like.

Intranet content idea #7: New hire welcome info

Create a dedicated intranet section for new hires and you kick-start employee engagement from a worker’s very first day.

You can provide content like your organizational structure, policy docs, checklists, and FAQ pages. You can also use your intranet to introduce new hires to the company and support them to start building connections with co-workers.  

This approach means new hires get a great introduction to your organization. They also know exactly where to look for essential info during those first weeks and months.  

Content tip: You want new hires to engage with your intranet from the very start of their onboarding journey. So offer guidance on how to use it — and how they can contribute to intranet content, too — as part of your onboarding materials.

Intranet content idea #8: Training and development resources

An employee’s learning journey goes way beyond onboarding. And we know that learning and development (L&D) contributes to employee engagement. 

According to LinkedIn’s 2024 Workplace Learning Report: 

• 7 in 10 employees say learning improves their sense of connection to an organization
• 8 in 10 employees says learning adds purpose to their work

You can use your company intranet to highlight training opportunities. Things like workshops, webinars, conferences, and courses.

Also, integrate your intranet with any L&D software you use. That way, it’s just a quick click and a hop from your intranet homepage to the learning materials your employees want to access.

Intranet content idea #9: HR resources

Traditionally, employees had to contact the HR team for an update on their vacation allowance. Or to access their pay stubs. Or to perform any other number of HR-related tasks. 

This was time-consuming — for both employees and the people team. And it added unnecessary friction to the employee experience. 

Now, you can put this essential content on your intranet. 

Employees can self-serve. They can book time off. They can view their shifts. They can also view and access the employee benefits your company offers.

What’s more, employees can access all HR software from one central hub. That means one sign on, one password. And fewer support requests from employees who’ve forgotten the platform or password they need to use.

Intranet content idea #10: Employee wellness initiatives

In a Gallup survey, 63% of workers said that having a better work-life balance and personal wellbeing is important when considering which company to work for.

And in organizations that focus on employee wellbeing, employees are:

• 3x more likely to be engaged at work
• 69% less likely to actively search for a new job
• 71% less likely to experience burnout
• 5x more likely to agree strongly that they trust the leadership of their organization

To promote wellbeing and work-life balance you need to embed this ethos in your company culture and company policies. Then, highlight this ethos using your intranet content. 

Create posts that highlight wellness challenges, wellbeing tips, and mental health resources. And act as cheerleader for employees as they work toward health and wellness goals.

Content tip: Create a dedicated wellness hub on your intranet. Here, you can give employees access to all your wellness resources. Things like your gym membership benefit, phone numbers for confidential helplines, and your company’s timetable of wellness events.  

Intranet content idea #11: Company values

Only 23% of employees strongly agree that they can apply their organization’s values to their work. And only 27% strongly believe in their company’s values.

But strong values help employees build an emotional connection to your organization and find greater purpose in their work. Connection and purpose sit at the foundation of employee engagement.

That’s why using your intranet content to clarify and repeat your company values is a wise idea.

Depending on your particular set of values, you could highlight your work to support the planet or local communities. Or showcase your commitment to building a positive, inclusive workplace.  

You could also get ERGs to contribute content on topics like diversity, equity, and inclusion.

In doing so, you’ll weave your values into everyday intranet interactions, making your intranet content and your organization more engaging for employees.

A few last intranet content tips

We’ve covered the 11 different types of intranet content that help to engage employees. Now, a few points that apply to all the content ideas included above.

Keep it relevant

If your intranet solution allows it, segment your audience according to their role, department, or stage in the employee life cycle. Then target your content. That way, employees are less likely to experience information overload and less likely to switch off from your comms.  

Involve employees

Many of the intranet content ideas above rely on two-way communication. This ethos is central to employee engagement. So encourage interaction and content contribution as much as possible.

Make it easy to access

Even the most engaging intranet content will fall flat if employees can’t navigate your software. So pick an intranet solution that is easy and intuitive to use. Make employee communications hard to miss, not hard to find.

Go mobile

To make a success of intranet content and employee engagement, your intranet needs to reach every member of the workforce. For frontline organizations — and those with a dispersed workforce — that means taking your intranet mobile. A modern intranet, like Blink, works as well on a smartphone as on a desktop. 

In summary

The company intranet is an invaluable tool for engaging employees and building a positive workplace culture.

The best intranet content is useful and relevant. It offers opportunities for employee interaction. And it delivers internal communications in a streamlined, user-friendly way.

Stick this kind of content on your company intranet and you’ll create a hub that fosters engagement across the whole of your organization.

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Old intranets all sound the same.

Out of date, out of sync, out of tune. A corporate soundtrack of forgotten logins, stale pages, and “Is anyone actually using this?”

This year, Blink is changing the track. We’ve been recognized in the 2025 Gartner® Magic Quadrant™ for Intranet Packaged Solutions — not just anywhere in the grid, but as a Challenger.

For us, this isn’t just a placement. It’s a remix. For the industry. For the intranet. For every employee who’s ever thought, “Why is this so hard to use?”

Why the Gartner Magic Quadrant matters

If you’re in HR, comms, IT, or procurement, you already know the Gartner Magic Quadrant™ - to us, it’s one of the most influential industry reports in technology.

Every year, Gartner independently evaluates vendors on Ability to Execute and Completeness of Vision - then categorizes them as Leaders, Challengers, Visionaries, or Niche Players.

This Quadrant has become the go-to reference for organizations choosing their next digital workplace partner.

We’re proud to debut as a Challenger. But more than that, we see it as a validation that the world is ready for a more human way to work.

Why Blink? Why now?

We built Blink on a simple belief: Work should feel connected.

In a world overflowing with tools but starved of real connection, we’re creating an intranet that people actually want to use. One that unites the CEO’s town hall with the shop floor shift briefing. One that gets frontline and office workers on the same wavelength.

Why we believe Blink was recognized

🎧 Sales and customer alignment: We deeply understand buyer pain points, backed by strategic partnerships with industry leaders like Workday.

🎧 Financial and product strength: Robust growth, an agile roadmap with continuous innovation, and a reliable product strategy built for the future keep Blink ahead of the curve.

🎧 We go beyond software: With specialized onboarding teams, strategic rollout support, and a dedication to long-term success, we’re not just a platform — we’re a true partner.

🎧 From mobile to total experience: Our platform empowers every kind of worker with personalized microapps, powerful social features, and communications that actually cut through.

Challenger energy: More than a position - a mindset

For us, being a Challenger isn’t just about where we land on the grid. It’s about how we move through the world.

We don’t believe “good enough” intranets should do the trick. We don’t do stale or static. We remix the intranet into something dynamic, modern, and centered on people.

Because what good is an intranet that no one uses?

We’re obsessed with adoption: ensuring employees actually engage, communicate, and thrive on the platform. That’s why Blink is designed with every kind of worker at heart, driven by a people-first approach to innovation.

That’s what it means to challenge the status quo. That’s what it means to Blink.

What’s the rest of the market saying?

The intranet packaged solutions (IPS) market is evolving rapidly, moving from static, web-only sites to dynamic, multichannel platforms that are central to the digital workplace.

What used to be dusty web-only portals are now vibrant, multi-channel hubs that power communication, engagement, knowledge, and culture. Today’s IPS offerings go far beyond document repositories - they’re incorporating AI assistants and supporting integrations with Workday, ServiceNow, Microsoft 365, and other leading business systems.

As Gartner puts it, intranets are once again a priority investment as organizations transform their digital workplace, reduce IT complexity, and seek consistent, people-first employee experiences.

Intranets are no longer just “nice to have” - they’re necessary parts of a modern business infrastructure. They’re becoming critical hubs for productivity, connection, and culture across both office-based and deskless workforces.

This isn’t evolution - it’s inflection. And Blink is leading the remix.

Spinning the future of work

For us, being named a Challenger is a milestone. But it’s also just the intro track.

We’re already dropping new hits:

• Broadcast-quality live streaming that gives every employee a front row seat

• Blink Assist, our AI-powered copilot for content creation and communication

• Analytics that actually matter, surfacing predictive insights into how people engage
• “Save for later” offline access, so work doesn’t have to stop when the WiFi does
• Modern social features like Stories that drive adoption and give Instagram a run for its money

Our vision is simple: The future of work should feel intuitive, inspiring, and essential - not invisible. Blink exists to unlock that.

This isn’t just recognition - it’s our statement

We’re not here to play quietly. We’re here to remix the intranet.

Named top Challenger by Gartner, chosen every day by the world’s most ambitious organizations, and powered by a people-first mission - this is only the beginning.

{{gartner-magic-quadrant-for-intranet-packaged-solutions="/callouts"}}

The last few years brought a storm of change to the HR industry. Artificial Intelligence. The gig economy. And more recently, a global pandemic has altered our reality and redefined workflows. 

While Covid-19 has forced us to make many temporary adjustments to the way we live and work, not every new development is short-lived. There has been an influx of new trends that are here to stay.

These innovations have pushed us to view different areas of the HR function from a new perspective. And they have made us wonder: What’s in store for the future? What are the developments that will transform HR for good? Which trends will shape the new reality of work?

Read on for answers. In this post, we take a look at the top HR trends in 2021 for frontline business and HR leaders to take into account as they prepare for what’s to come. 

Top HR trends for 2022

Designing work for frontline employees’ well-being 

The line between work and home life has been blurring for some time, but the pandemic has all but erased it for many employees. In response, HR leaders have shifted from promoting work-life balance to pushing well-being into the work itself.

As per the 2020 Hartford’s Future of Benefits Study, workers are now demanding benefits like hospital indemnity insurance, additional paid time off, and employee assistance programs.

Companies, on their part, are focusing on online experiences that improve employees’ health. These include virtual team-building events, yoga and fitness sessions, and mindfulness classes, and so on. 

So organizations that thrive beyond 2021 are going to be those that integrate health-related initiatives into the design of work. This will be done at the individual, team, and organizational levels to create an environment in which employees are at peak health. 

Reskilling to unlock frontline worker potential 

During Covid, many organizations struggled to retain employees because of financial problems, sick leave, or losing workers to the virus. So managers called on remaining employees to expand their roles and fill the gaps left by their coworkers. And like the Spartans, employees rose to the challenge. 

Workers’ resourcefulness and agency in these hard times have shown that they can learn and contribute in unexpected ways. And in doing so, they have positioned their organizations to thrive in the long term.

So employee reskilling is another important trend to watch out for. According to a recent Udemy survey, the demand for building employee skills grew by 38% in 2020. The consulting company PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) illustrates this trend. It invested $3 billion in the learning and development of employees who have stayed with the business for at least 3 years. This suggests that reskilling is a lean and sustainable way to strengthen your workforce. 

Building 'Superteams' 

Organizations have been using ‘teaming’ (setting up a temporary team of people who aren’t familiar with each other) as a survival strategy to counter the impact of Covid-19. Many leaders have now begun to realize teaming as an opportunity to form “superteams.” 

Coined by Thomas Malone, the term ‘superteam’ refers to the pairing of people with technology such as artificial intelligence (AI) and robotics, to rethink workflows and get faster outcomes. 

The strategy of turning teams into superteams is still in its infancy, as many companies still see technology from a limited viewpoint — more as a tool than a team member. 

According to Deloitte’s 2021 Global Human Capital Trends report, only 16% of executive-level leaders said that they plan to transform work by combining humans and machines.

But the trend is expected to accelerate, with organizations shifting to this new mindset and strategy in a strong position to realize the untapped potential it offers to drive growth and handle uncertainty. Making sure you have the right employee experience software, and the right tech stack is vital.

Rethinking governance of workforce strategies 

Covid-19 has opened our eyes to the fact that using data on your workforce’s current state to determine employee strategies is not enough. Relying solely on the metrics showing the workforce’s present situation is risky because it limits a company’s potential to survive drastic changes. This applies to all strategies, from staffing levels to employee retention. 

Some organizations are shifting their approach from strategizing for likely, minor events to planning for the unexpected. 17% of HR executives say that their companies plan to focus on the occurrence of unlikely, high-impact events, as opposed to 6% before the pandemic. 

Companies that want to handle change with confidence must address questions that force them to look into the future. It’s forward-looking insights that will help businesses accomplish new milestones. 

Shifting from managing employees to re-architecting work 

Covid-19 has positioned HR as a prominent part of surviving a crisis. And the good news is that HR has lived up to this new standard, gaining more credibility as a result. 

A survey by Deloitte has shown that both HR and business leaders are now more certain of HR’s ability to tackle future challenges. 

This creates an opportunity for HR departments to leverage their new position and transform their role from that of managing employees to re-architecting work. 

HR leaders can make the most of this by taking charge of reimagining both the workforce and the workplace to ensure future success.

The survey also found that 61% of business and HR executives are planning to reimagine work in the next one to three years. This would mean:

• Prioritizing outcomes over outputs 
• Focusing on building superteams that combine human and technological capabilities
• Managing the cultural and leadership changes that arise from the new approach to work

As a result, HR trends and goals will align better with business objectives. And HR will need to work closely with other departments to shape the new architecture of work. 

Conclusion

These HR trends show the future holds both big opportunities and tough challenges for HR and business leaders. All this is pushing HR professionals to search for and leverage innovative technologies to improve employee productivity and engagement.  

In the near future, AI-based predictive and automation technologies are likely to improve all the areas under the HR function, including talent acquisition, workforce analytics, and reskilling of employees. All these ultimately help HRs role in employee engagement.

So use these trends to anticipate new developments in the human resource field, and to inform your business processes moving forward. It will give you a solid foundation to not just survive but thrive in the face of upcoming changes.