Employee spotlight: Fabien Depasse

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.  

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.

Boston – June 11, 2024 – Blink, the leading employee engagement super-app, today announced the next generation of its platform. The latest release introduces AI-driven advanced employee intelligence to reshape how organizations understand and enhance employee engagement, retention, productivity, and overall workplace satisfaction for both deskless and desk-based employees.  This new level of insight and analysis triggers real-time nudges and mobile alerts across all levels of the business to aid in decision-making and prompt action. 

Key Features and Benefits  

• Gather the team - Activation analytics which track employee engagement from day one, help achieve a 95% employee activation rate. Leaderboards pushed to managers to encourage healthy competition and discussion. 
• Optimize operations - Usage analytics provide insights into the use and performance of internal apps, shift booking rates, form completion and critical updates. This improves operational efficiency and user experience across the organization. 
• Captivate with comms - Communications analytics monitor how employees interact with internal comms, helping to identify preferences and needs and create more effective internal comms campaigns.
• Building bonds to shape culture - Engagement analytics track the use of chat and channels, helping to curate effective channel sizes, increase awareness and suggest suitable channels to employees. This fosters engagement and communication across the business.
• Listen to and understand employees - Survey analytics developed with HR experts offer detailed insights from employee surveys.  AI-powered sentiment analysis provides a clear picture of employee sentiment and areas of improvement. This feature also helps to improve participation through real-time participation alerts. 
• Understand turnover risks - By integrating with HR systems like Workday,  Blink tracks highly segmented employee turnover data to identify problem areas. Correlating turnover with other engagement metrics provides a full picture of where, how, and when to act on turnover risks.

Blink’s advanced analytics leverages extensive data from the platform to provide a detailed view of engagement and adoption across an organization. The analytics dashboard allows HR leaders to examine specific metrics and trends, and to clearly understand employee behavior and communication patterns. These insights enable organizations to make informed decisions to improve employee experience and performance. 

For a comprehensive overview of Blink's superapp, click here to explore the full product capabilities.

Elara Caring Implements Blink's Advanced Analytics

Elara Caring, a leading home healthcare provider, has successfully implemented Blink's advanced employee intelligence to enhance its onboarding and retention strategies. By utilizing Blink's new hire surveys and analytics dashboards, Elara Caring gained critical insights into their employees' experiences during the first few months of employment.

"With Blink’s insights powering our ElaraCare Application, we’ve created actionable strategies to improve team member experience," said Thomas Firmani, president, Personal Care Services at Elara Caring. "New caregiver feedback data – obtained through multiple touch points – has enabled us to refine our team member engagement process. Leveraging Blink’s in-app features, we have more personalized posts, enhanced support channels, and improved recognition platforms.”

"People feeling engaged in their work and happy are critical for the success of any organization," said Sean Nolan, CEO and founder of Blink. "Our enhanced platform provides the necessary advanced tools for organizations to gain deep insights into their workforce. By understanding employee sentiments and behaviors, leaders can make informed decisions that enhance the employee experience, productivity and ultimately reduce turnover."

About Blink

Blink is a provider of a leading super-app designed for frontline organizations. The company aims to revolutionize employee work life by bridging the digital divide between deskless and desk-based employees, enabling effective communication and engagement in distributed organizations. Blink is used by industry-leading companies, including RATPDev, Elara Caring, and Domino’s. Each user opens the app an average of seven times a day, helping lower frontline attrition by up to 25%. Founded in 2015 and with offices in London, Boston, and Sydney, Blink is a Leader in the G2 Grid® for Best Employee Engagement Software. Visit Joinblink.com for more information and follow on LinkedIn and X.

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Media Contact

Elyse Familant

Transatlantic 

elyse@transatlanticent.com

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Find and fix pain points to build an employee intranet that everyone wants to use.

Let’s be real here. The word “intranet” doesn’t exactly spark joy in employees.

For many, it’s synonymous with clunky logins, endless scrolling, and outdated information. It’s the digital equivalent of a dusty bulletin board. It’s just there — not doing anything to help the employee experience.

In fact, just 13% of employees say they use their intranet daily — and 31% said they never do.

But it doesn’t have to be that way.

A modern employee intranet isn’t defunct. There’s a place for it within the modern workplace tech stack. And, if we listen to what employees actually want, you can turn an unpopular intranet into an employee magnet.

Here for the work? Let’s unpack what employees hate about your intranet experience and what you can do to fix it.

Employee intranet pain points — and what you can do to address them

#1. “It’s too hard to find anything”

Your intranet is packed with employee handbooks, policies, HR forms, org charts, benefits info, and company news. But can anyone actually find what they’re looking for?

If your intranet software is the digital black hole where documents go to die, employees will soon realize that searching through files in search of the resource they need simply isn’t worth their time.

The fix: Tidy things up

Make your company intranet easy to navigate. You can do this by:

• Improving search functionality. Allow for misspellings and synonyms, ensure results are relevant, and support employees with autocomplete and filter functions.
• Grouping content logically. Think like a user — or run focus groups — asking where you would expect to find each piece of content.
• Cleaning up your navigation. Simplify dashboards and use clear, intuitive labels that make sense to everyone.

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#2. “It’s only updated once a quarter”

If your intranet is only updated once in a blue moon, it’s no wonder employees aren’t logging in. There’s nothing new to see — and no reason to trust that the internal communications and resources they do find are up-to-date.

The result? Your intranet becomes a ghost town, with fewer and fewer employees bothering to pay a visit.

The fix: Keep it fresh

When your intranet is relevant and up-to-date, employee engagement follows. Your intranet becomes a place worth visiting, which means employees are more likely to see critical messages.

Don’t wait for “big news.” Celebrate small wins. Share behind-the-scenes moments. Post real-time updates. And take a look at these intranet content ideas if you need a little inspiration.

Internal communications team already stretched too thin? Then add employee-generated content (EGC) into the mix. Allow your entire workforce to interact with intranet content — and post content of their own — and there’s always something new and exciting for your audience to engage with.

#3. “It wasn’t built for people like me”

This is a common problem for frontline employees and more remote teams. Just 10% of frontline workers say they have high access to the tools, tech, and opportunities they need to connect and advance in their workplace.

Imagine a retail assistant who spends their days in a store serving and supporting customers. Unlike the team at HQ, they only have access to a desktop computer in the breakroom at lunchtime. And they don’t have a company email address. 

It’s then difficult — if not impossible — for them to access vital workplace documents and updates via the intranet. They feel disconnected from the company and frontline employee engagement suffers.

The fix: Go mobile

To create an intranet that your frontline employees will love, you need to think mobile-first:

• Make company resources and employee communication channels available on smartphone
• Use frontline-friendly login methods that don’t require a corporate email address
• Design for mobile devices — don’t just squeeze the desktop experience onto a smaller screen

Make your employee intranet accessible to frontline workers and you ditch the two-tier experience, where office staff feel connected to company culture and each other — and where frontline workers are left behind. You create an enjoyable intranet experience that works for everyone.

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#4.“It’s all corporate fluff”

Does your content feel like it’s gone through five rounds of legal, then taken a trip via the buzzword bus stop before finally landing on the employee intranet? Then your audience is likely to scroll right past it.

Formal, corporate language is unengaging. It’s also difficult to read. Long words, long sentences, long paragraphs. They don’t reflect the way people speak to one another in the real world. And they get in the way of meaningful employee communication and connection.

Likewise, if you only use your intranet to talk about high-level corporate happenings, employees will struggle to relate. If they can’t see themselves in the story, they’ll tune out.

The fix: Make it human

Yes, company news matters. But it doesn’t need to sound robotic and overly formal.

Write like a human. Use plain language, short sentences, and a conversational tone — just like you would talking to someone face-to-face.

And don’t forget to share stuff that your people really care about. Use your employee intranet to celebrate employee stories and customer stories. Put people at the center of each piece of content.

One final tip for ditching the corporate speak? Play around with content formats. Swap dry text-based documents for dynamic images, videos, polls, GIFs, and infographics. You’ll make the intranet feel less like a bulletin board and more like a digital community.

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#5. “It’s ugly and feels like 2009”

Still working with your parent’s intranet? Today’s employees get super-slick experiences on the tech tools they use at home. So they have increasingly high expectations for the tech they use at work.

They want minimal friction. Intuitive dashboards. Easy navigation. And then there’s personalization.

A one-size-fits-all approach to the intranet is outdated. Because most of today’s software experiences are tailored to the preferences and behaviors of each individual user.

Up against consumer-grade digital tools, a traditional intranet feels like a lumbering dinosaur. It’s hard to use and fails to delight employees.

The fix: Upgrade intranet UX

A modern intranet should look and feel like the tools employees already love using. We’re talking:

• Clean, mobile-responsive design, available via desktop and smartphone app
• Intuitive navigation and integrations, so everything employees need is just a couple of clicks away
• Personalized dashboards, based on role, location, team, and tenure
• Social features, like chats, forums, emojis, and news feeds — and lots of engaging visuals

Modern intranet features like these are no longer nice-to-haves. They’re essential if you want to meet employee expectations and keep them coming back to your social intranet for more.

#6. “No one ever showed me how to use it”

For some employees, it’s not resistance. It’s simply a lack of intranet know-how.

They don’t know how to log into the intranet or download it to their device. They’re unaware of how the intranet can support their work and don’t know how to use specific features.

Without clear training or support, they never give your intranet a try — and never discover all the amazing things it can do for them.

The fix: Support employees to get started

A good intranet should feel intuitive from the get-go. There’s a minimal learning curve and better employee adoption because the platform has a familiar and user-friendly interface.

But, beyond choosing the right intranet platform, there are a few other things you can do to support employees to use it:

• Create intranet ambassadors. Offer intranet training to a select band of employees who can share their knowledge with teammates.
• Offer how-to tips within the intranet. Add pop-ups and quick tips on relevant pages so employees get support when and where they need it.
• Bake it into onboarding. As new hires start work at your company, make an intranet walk-through an integral part of the employee onboarding process.

#7. “It doesn’t help me do my job”

Too many corporate intranets are built around what the organization wants to share — not what employees actually need. So what happens?

People work around it. They ping their manager for shift information, share documents by email, and complete HR forms by hand. They don’t see the value in your employee intranet so they don’t choose to hang out there.

The fix: Build it around employee needs

Start by asking employees what they want the intranet to do. Ask which tools they’d find useful. Then shape the user experience around that.

Some essential features that tend to be popular?

• Integrations. Link your intranet to the other workplace software you use, so employees can access the tools they need from their intranet dashboard.
• HR self-service. Support employees to request PTO, swap shifts, leave feedback, access benefits, and submit expenses — right within your intranet platform.
• Employee directory. Make it easy for employees to find and connect with colleagues across locations, teams, and shifts — even without a corporate email.
• Interactivity. Turn your intranet into a digital water cooler by providing channels for peer-to-peer connection, team collaboration, and the sharing of company culture.

From ignored to adored — your intranet makeover starts here

Let’s recap.

Most employees don’t hate the idea of the employee intranet — they just hate the version they’ve been stuck with. Outdated, clunky, hard to use, irrelevant…

But that doesn’t mean you have to scrap it and start over.

You can build a better digital employee experience by listening to your people, modernizing the experience, and meeting them where they are. On mobile — with real stories, useful tools, and relevant content that actually reflects their day-to-day work.

Build a modern intranet and your platform can become a digital home for internal communications, community, and culture — and an app that employees across your entire company enjoy opening every day.

Blink. And build an employee intranet that works for everyone.

For this week’s Life at Blink, we’re excited to shine the spotlight on Joe Whitney! As a Senior Sales Development Representative, Joe has been an integral part of the team for the past year. Starting out as an SDR, Joe’s dedication and growth have made a real impact at Blink. Join us as we explore Joe’s journey, his role in shaping our sales efforts, and what he believes makes Blink a special place to work.

How long have you been at Blink?

I’m coming up on two years — in about five days, it'll be my Blinkiversary. There is a lot going on so it’s gone by really quickly.. Looking back, it feels like these two years have flown by. So many other things outside of Blink seem to have moved a bit slower. But life moves fast, and the older you get, the quicker it seems to go.

What initially attracted you to join Blink?

I have kind of a funny story — well, not exactly funny, but it's the story of how I got to Blink.

For the eleven years before I joined Blink, I was a professional hockey player. I played four years at Boston College, and after college, I signed with the New Jersey Devils to play professional hockey. It was an amazing 11- year journey.

It took me to a lot of different places — I lived in San Antonio, Texas; Tucson, Arizona; Hartford, Connecticut; Hershey, Pennsylvania; New Jersey; and then over to Sweden and Germany. My family and I lived there for two years each. It was a great experience, and I learned a lot of valuable life lessons from seeing different cultures and parts of the world. I think it made me more well-rounded, and I’ve been able to bring some of those experiences into my work at Blink and in sales.

It was funny because when we started having kids, my wife and I never imagined we’d be taking two kids to live in Germany or Sweden for two years. But I wanted to continue my career, so we made the move. We packed all our bags and flew to Sweden. I played in a city called Linköping, and as soon as we landed, it felt like our new home, and the people were incredibly kind. It was a great culture to live in and be a part of, and I thoroughly enjoyed it.

When my contract expired, we moved to Germany to a small city called Iserlohn, about two hours from Amsterdam. The lifestyle there was very different from Sweden. It was more like North America. The town was small and quiet, but it was a great experience. I learned a lot about German culture and the people. And of course, they love their beer, which was a lot of fun!

When that career ended, it was a bit of a “holy smokes, what do I do next?” moment.

At first, I wasn’t sure if I could do it, since I didn’t have any prior experience. But after reassurance from mentors, friends, and family, encouraging me that many of the same skills in athletics can be applied to sales as well was when I decided to dive in. It was important for me to start as an SDR and work my way up.

What's a project you are proud of from your time at Blink?

The thing I’m probably most proud of at Blink is how, despite being a smaller company with a lot of changes and pivots, especially within the SDR team, we’ve been able to build something meaningful.

When I joined in October 2022, our new CRO, Jim McInerny, had just been hired, and we were preparing to go to market in the US. One of the main reasons I came to Blink was to have an impact on the culture and a smaller team. What I'm most proud of is helping to build the culture within the sales development program.

I'm really proud of the fact that after two years, we’re starting to gain traction, building out the program, and seeing the progress we are making as a company. It’s been a journey, but it’s exciting to see how far we have come.

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

Innovative, creative, tight-knit team.

There are so many different ways to describe it, which makes it tough to choose just three words. I think the culture is very open and transparent, and we have a lot of great people working together towards one mission. That’s what makes it so fun to be part of the team.

Coming from an athletic background, I'm all about teamwork, and it feels great to be in a company where the mindset is very team-oriented. There aren’t any selfish people in our organization, and that makes it incredibly enjoyable to work with everyone.

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

I feel like we’re at a point now where we truly control our own destiny. The sky’s the limit for us, and I believe that everyone on the team is fully bought into the company’s mission. The opportunities we have and the market we're tackling are so big and global that we have the potential to change the lives of so many people in different parts of the world. This could have a huge impact on how people approach their work and how they feel about going to work.

I'm really excited about the opportunities ahead of us as a company to transform the way people work and make this as big as possible.

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

Yeah, I think, obviously in sales, day to day, you’re calling people, trying to explain our approach to the employee experience, and inspiring them to see things differently. But I wouldn’t call that a specific project; it’s more like an ongoing journey in sales.

What really inspired me was some of the work we did with some of our biggest customers, particularly on the product side. They’ve done some really cool things within a work app that feels more like a social app we use in our everyday lives. The product features and the vision our product team has for making this next generation of apps so modern is really exciting to see.

Why do you work for Blink?

In general, when I first started, I wasn’t really sure what to expect. There are a million different jobs out there, and a lot of people work on cool things. But I’ve really found a sense of pride in our company’s mission and the vision of where we want to go.

There are so many essential workers around the world who, like us, are trying to take care of their families, make a living, and provide the best opportunities for their loved ones. Many of the people we serve are blue-collar workers who take immense pride in what they do. We often talk about how they’ve been underinvested in and don’t have the same resources as other types of workers.

Serving this part of the workforce is something I’m really proud of. I have a lot of friends and family members who are blue-collar workers on the frontlines, and it took me a little while to realize there was such a gap in support for them. Being at Blink and seeing it firsthand through our customers was eye-opening and helped me fully embrace our mission of serving essential frontline employees. Ultimately, these workers make the world go round.

Providing a better digital employee experience for these essential works and making it much easier to access all the tools they need to do their jobs productively is incredible. It feels like a lifelong mission.

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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 more information, check out our in-depth guide to building an iron-clad internal communication strategy.

• What do you need to communicate in the next 6-12 months?
• Which communication tasks are manual and which can be automated or streamlined with technology?
• What software/tools should you adopt for your healthcare facility?
• How will you distinguish between the handling of must-read and nice-to-know updates?
• How will you ensure and track whether important information is reaching the intended audience?
• How can you meet the communication needs of frontline workers, technologically challenged individuals, and other staff groups?
• How will you train and onboard staff members to align with new communication rules and technologies

3. Use technology to streamline communication

Using the right tools and technologies goes a long way in improving healthcare communication. A study found that 92% of healthcare workers think internal communication technology is “extremely important” or “very important” for the betterment of clinical results.

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.