How to build an internal comms ROI case that actually wins budget
Still leading with open rates? In 2026, leadership wants outcomes. Here are 6 practical ways to prove internal comms ROI — from hard savings to risk reduction.
If you’re in internal communications, you’ve heard that sentence more times than you’ve heard “quick question” (which, as we know, is never actually quick).
The shift is real. Five years ago, a lot of comms tech lived in the “nice to have” bucket. In 2026, it’s a boardroom conversation — and boardrooms don’t buy “nice.” They buy outcomes: efficiency, reduced risk, better retention, higher adoption of expensive tech investments, and measurable operational wins.
In our recent webinar, Proving internal comms ROI in 2026: Lessons from the other side, Ricky Sickelmore shared what he learned after 24 years in transport (including launching Blink at Stagecoach and introducing it at Arriva) — and what consistently held up when leadership came knocking for ROI.
Here are the six takeaways internal comms teams can apply immediately.
1. Ditch vanity metrics for outcomes
Email opens. Page views. Likes.
They’re not useless… they’re just not convincing.
Ricky’s rule: stop leading with activity metrics and start leading with business value. Executives don’t want to hear that “people saw the message.” They want to know: did anything change, and did it matter?
So translate comms problems into operational and financial realities:
Safety reporting increases (e.g., digital near-miss reporting vs. “find the form somewhere and hope someone bothers”)
Turnover movement (not because comms magically fixes attrition — but because comms can remove friction, improve onboarding, and drive consistency)
A useful gut-check: If your metric can’t be repeated in a budget meeting without you adding a 3-minute explanation, it’s not your headline metric.
Executives aren’t interested in open rates. They’re interested in the financial reality.
- Ricky Sickelmore, Blink
2. Start with hard costs and operational efficiency
If you want CFO attention, lead with the stuff they can smell from three floors away: tangible savings.
Ricky shared a simple example that’s painfully common in frontline-heavy orgs: printing and distributing documents at scale. One organization saved over £200,000 by moving payslips from print-and-post to digital distribution.
But don’t just stop at “printing costs.” The strongest ROI cases widen the lens:
Printers and maintenance
Paper, postage, distribution
Staff time to print, collate, deliver, reprint
Support tickets created when things go wrong
And when you talk about “time savings,” make them real. Not “we saved time.” Instead:
“We reclaimed 10 hours per week of manager time previously spent manually filling shifts.”
“We reduced password reset requests because employees access systems through one authenticated front door.”
Pro tip from Ricky: Do a basic “time and motion” study. Follow one process end-to-end and document every human touchpoint. That one form might bounce across 8–10 people, with delays that never show up on a neat process map.
3. Build a cross-functional case, not a “comms case”
One of the biggest mistakes internal comms teams make is trying to win budget alone — with a comms-only story.
Ricky put it bluntly: ROI gets easier when internal comms stops being “the comms team’s project” and becomes an operations, safety, engineering, and HR win.
That means stakeholder interviews early — not once the deck is already written.
Ask department heads:
What’s your biggest friction point right now?
What manual work is wasting your team’s time?
Where do you have compliance risk?
What’s the cost of not fixing this?
Example Ricky gave: if a safety leader can’t reliably get 20 drivers in a room for a briefing, that’s not a comms problem — it’s an operational risk. A digital “mandatory read” gives you trackable compliance without the logistics circus.
Make it tangible: Form a small steering committee with reps from the functions that will benefit most. When you go for sign-off, you’re not walking in alone — you’re walking in with allies.
You’re not in it alone — get the right stakeholders in the room early.
Ricky Sickelmore
4. Prove time-to-value through onboarding
Want a metric that operations leaders actually care about? Onboarding efficiency.
Ricky called this one “underestimated” — and he’s right. Onboarding is where friction shows up immediately, and where improvements are easy to translate into time, money, and productivity.
If employees can receive policies, procedures, training content, and day-one essentials before they even start, you can often get people productive an entire day sooner.
That’s not “engagement.” That’s time to value.
And onboarding improvements have a bonus effect: they reduce downstream errors, reduce manager time spent repeating the same information, and improve early retention (again — comms isn’t the sole driver, but it’s a meaningful part of the system).
5. Position your platform as the digital front door
One of Ricky’s biggest reflections: early on, it’s easy to think you’re buying “a comms tool.”
But the strongest ROI cases position the platform as the gateway to your digital estate — the place employees actually start their day.
This matters because most organizations are already paying for expensive systems (HRIS, scheduling, payroll, benefits, learning, etc.). The problem isn’t always the tool — it’s access and adoption.
If your internal comms platform:
Uses SSO
Reduces password resets
Gives employees one place to find and access tools
Increases self-service
…then your comms investment is also protecting and amplifying other investments.
Ricky shared a real pattern: Once access is simplified through a single front door, usage of other systems can jump dramatically — and suddenly your internal comms platform isn’t “another tool.” It’s the tool that makes the rest usable.
6. Establish a baseline — and sell the cost of inaction
You can’t prove improvement if you don’t know where you started. And you can’t create urgency if you can’t show what “doing nothing” costs.
Ricky’s advice: Baseline early — and don’t just baseline comms metrics.
Baseline business realities that leadership recognizes:
Turnover / attrition
Survey participation rates
Safety reporting volumes
Time spent on manual processes
Printing, distribution, and support costs
Operational delays caused by information gaps
Then translate that into the cost of inaction: the money currently leaking from the business because processes are manual, access is fragmented, and frontline teams can’t reliably get what they need.
When you can credibly say, “Here’s what it costs us to do nothing,” the investment stops feeling optional.
Common mistakes to avoid when proving internal comms ROI
A few “don’t step on this rake” moments that came up in the conversation:
Don’t lead with outputs. “We sent 12 newsletters” isn’t ROI.
Don’t build the case in isolation. Cross-functional pain points = stronger case.
Don’t ignore hard money. The “soft” story matters, but hard savings gets you in the door.
Don’t skip the frontline reality check. Spend time with frontline teams. Watch the work. Learn the friction.
Don’t assume leaders know what to ask for. Often the first job is clarifying the real question behind “prove ROI.”
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Be the change maker
Internal comms ROI in 2026 isn’t about becoming a finance team overnight. It’s about learning to translate.
Translate comms into outcomes.
Translate friction into cost.
Translate “this would be helpful” into “this will reduce risk, save time, and speed up productivity.”
Or, in Ricky’s words: Be the change maker.
Frequently asked questions
#1. How do you prove ROI for internal communications?
Proving internal communications ROI starts by moving beyond vanity metrics like email open rates or page views. Instead, focus on measurable business outcomes — such as reduced turnover, time saved through streamlined processes, improved safety reporting, higher compliance rates, or increased adoption of critical systems like HR or scheduling tools. The strongest ROI cases tie communication directly to efficiency, cost reduction, and risk mitigation.
#2. What metrics matter most when measuring internal comms ROI?
The most effective internal comms ROI metrics are the ones leadership already cares about. These often include operational efficiency (time saved by managers), cost savings (printing, postage, IT support tickets), onboarding speed, system adoption rates, safety compliance, and employee retention trends. Engagement metrics still have a role — but as supporting evidence, not the headline.
#3. Why are email open rates not enough to demonstrate internal comms value?
Email open rates show activity, not impact. They don’t tell leaders whether communication changed behavior, reduced risk, or improved performance. In frontline-heavy organizations especially, email metrics can be misleading because many employees don’t regularly access inboxes. ROI-focused internal comms measurement looks at outcomes — what changed in the business as a result of the communication.
#4. How can internal communications reduce costs for an organization?
Internal communications can reduce costs by digitizing manual processes, eliminating printing and distribution expenses, reducing reliance on help desk support, and reclaiming manager time spent on repetitive tasks. When communications platforms also act as a single access point to other systems, they can significantly increase self-service and reduce operational friction across the business.
#5. What is the “cost of inaction” in internal communications?
The cost of inaction refers to the hidden financial and operational waste caused by outdated or fragmented communication processes. This can include high turnover, low system adoption, manual workarounds, compliance gaps, and time lost searching for information. Establishing a baseline for these issues helps internal comms teams show not just the ROI of investing — but the ongoing cost of doing nothing.
If you’re in internal communications, you’ve heard that sentence more times than you’ve heard “quick question” (which, as we know, is never actually quick).
The shift is real. Five years ago, a lot of comms tech lived in the “nice to have” bucket. In 2026, it’s a boardroom conversation — and boardrooms don’t buy “nice.” They buy outcomes: efficiency, reduced risk, better retention, higher adoption of expensive tech investments, and measurable operational wins.
In our recent webinar, Proving internal comms ROI in 2026: Lessons from the other side, Ricky Sickelmore shared what he learned after 24 years in transport (including launching Blink at Stagecoach and introducing it at Arriva) — and what consistently held up when leadership came knocking for ROI.
Here are the six takeaways internal comms teams can apply immediately.
1. Ditch vanity metrics for outcomes
Email opens. Page views. Likes.
They’re not useless… they’re just not convincing.
Ricky’s rule: stop leading with activity metrics and start leading with business value. Executives don’t want to hear that “people saw the message.” They want to know: did anything change, and did it matter?
So translate comms problems into operational and financial realities:
Safety reporting increases (e.g., digital near-miss reporting vs. “find the form somewhere and hope someone bothers”)
Turnover movement (not because comms magically fixes attrition — but because comms can remove friction, improve onboarding, and drive consistency)
A useful gut-check: If your metric can’t be repeated in a budget meeting without you adding a 3-minute explanation, it’s not your headline metric.
Executives aren’t interested in open rates. They’re interested in the financial reality.
- Ricky Sickelmore, Blink
2. Start with hard costs and operational efficiency
If you want CFO attention, lead with the stuff they can smell from three floors away: tangible savings.
Ricky shared a simple example that’s painfully common in frontline-heavy orgs: printing and distributing documents at scale. One organization saved over £200,000 by moving payslips from print-and-post to digital distribution.
But don’t just stop at “printing costs.” The strongest ROI cases widen the lens:
Printers and maintenance
Paper, postage, distribution
Staff time to print, collate, deliver, reprint
Support tickets created when things go wrong
And when you talk about “time savings,” make them real. Not “we saved time.” Instead:
“We reclaimed 10 hours per week of manager time previously spent manually filling shifts.”
“We reduced password reset requests because employees access systems through one authenticated front door.”
Pro tip from Ricky: Do a basic “time and motion” study. Follow one process end-to-end and document every human touchpoint. That one form might bounce across 8–10 people, with delays that never show up on a neat process map.
3. Build a cross-functional case, not a “comms case”
One of the biggest mistakes internal comms teams make is trying to win budget alone — with a comms-only story.
Ricky put it bluntly: ROI gets easier when internal comms stops being “the comms team’s project” and becomes an operations, safety, engineering, and HR win.
That means stakeholder interviews early — not once the deck is already written.
Ask department heads:
What’s your biggest friction point right now?
What manual work is wasting your team’s time?
Where do you have compliance risk?
What’s the cost of not fixing this?
Example Ricky gave: if a safety leader can’t reliably get 20 drivers in a room for a briefing, that’s not a comms problem — it’s an operational risk. A digital “mandatory read” gives you trackable compliance without the logistics circus.
Make it tangible: Form a small steering committee with reps from the functions that will benefit most. When you go for sign-off, you’re not walking in alone — you’re walking in with allies.
You’re not in it alone — get the right stakeholders in the room early.
Ricky Sickelmore
4. Prove time-to-value through onboarding
Want a metric that operations leaders actually care about? Onboarding efficiency.
Ricky called this one “underestimated” — and he’s right. Onboarding is where friction shows up immediately, and where improvements are easy to translate into time, money, and productivity.
If employees can receive policies, procedures, training content, and day-one essentials before they even start, you can often get people productive an entire day sooner.
That’s not “engagement.” That’s time to value.
And onboarding improvements have a bonus effect: they reduce downstream errors, reduce manager time spent repeating the same information, and improve early retention (again — comms isn’t the sole driver, but it’s a meaningful part of the system).
5. Position your platform as the digital front door
One of Ricky’s biggest reflections: early on, it’s easy to think you’re buying “a comms tool.”
But the strongest ROI cases position the platform as the gateway to your digital estate — the place employees actually start their day.
This matters because most organizations are already paying for expensive systems (HRIS, scheduling, payroll, benefits, learning, etc.). The problem isn’t always the tool — it’s access and adoption.
If your internal comms platform:
Uses SSO
Reduces password resets
Gives employees one place to find and access tools
Increases self-service
…then your comms investment is also protecting and amplifying other investments.
Ricky shared a real pattern: Once access is simplified through a single front door, usage of other systems can jump dramatically — and suddenly your internal comms platform isn’t “another tool.” It’s the tool that makes the rest usable.
6. Establish a baseline — and sell the cost of inaction
You can’t prove improvement if you don’t know where you started. And you can’t create urgency if you can’t show what “doing nothing” costs.
Ricky’s advice: Baseline early — and don’t just baseline comms metrics.
Baseline business realities that leadership recognizes:
Turnover / attrition
Survey participation rates
Safety reporting volumes
Time spent on manual processes
Printing, distribution, and support costs
Operational delays caused by information gaps
Then translate that into the cost of inaction: the money currently leaking from the business because processes are manual, access is fragmented, and frontline teams can’t reliably get what they need.
When you can credibly say, “Here’s what it costs us to do nothing,” the investment stops feeling optional.
Common mistakes to avoid when proving internal comms ROI
A few “don’t step on this rake” moments that came up in the conversation:
Don’t lead with outputs. “We sent 12 newsletters” isn’t ROI.
Don’t build the case in isolation. Cross-functional pain points = stronger case.
Don’t ignore hard money. The “soft” story matters, but hard savings gets you in the door.
Don’t skip the frontline reality check. Spend time with frontline teams. Watch the work. Learn the friction.
Don’t assume leaders know what to ask for. Often the first job is clarifying the real question behind “prove ROI.”
{{mobile-desktop-main="/image"}}
Be the change maker
Internal comms ROI in 2026 isn’t about becoming a finance team overnight. It’s about learning to translate.
Translate comms into outcomes.
Translate friction into cost.
Translate “this would be helpful” into “this will reduce risk, save time, and speed up productivity.”
Or, in Ricky’s words: Be the change maker.
Frequently asked questions
#1. How do you prove ROI for internal communications?
Proving internal communications ROI starts by moving beyond vanity metrics like email open rates or page views. Instead, focus on measurable business outcomes — such as reduced turnover, time saved through streamlined processes, improved safety reporting, higher compliance rates, or increased adoption of critical systems like HR or scheduling tools. The strongest ROI cases tie communication directly to efficiency, cost reduction, and risk mitigation.
#2. What metrics matter most when measuring internal comms ROI?
The most effective internal comms ROI metrics are the ones leadership already cares about. These often include operational efficiency (time saved by managers), cost savings (printing, postage, IT support tickets), onboarding speed, system adoption rates, safety compliance, and employee retention trends. Engagement metrics still have a role — but as supporting evidence, not the headline.
#3. Why are email open rates not enough to demonstrate internal comms value?
Email open rates show activity, not impact. They don’t tell leaders whether communication changed behavior, reduced risk, or improved performance. In frontline-heavy organizations especially, email metrics can be misleading because many employees don’t regularly access inboxes. ROI-focused internal comms measurement looks at outcomes — what changed in the business as a result of the communication.
#4. How can internal communications reduce costs for an organization?
Internal communications can reduce costs by digitizing manual processes, eliminating printing and distribution expenses, reducing reliance on help desk support, and reclaiming manager time spent on repetitive tasks. When communications platforms also act as a single access point to other systems, they can significantly increase self-service and reduce operational friction across the business.
#5. What is the “cost of inaction” in internal communications?
The cost of inaction refers to the hidden financial and operational waste caused by outdated or fragmented communication processes. This can include high turnover, low system adoption, manual workarounds, compliance gaps, and time lost searching for information. Establishing a baseline for these issues helps internal comms teams show not just the ROI of investing — but the ongoing cost of doing nothing.
Connecting your team, whether they're remote, in-office, or frontline, requires seamless communication and engagement.
Team communication apps centralize your team chats, updates, engagement, and experience, unifying your workforce by enabling everyone to stay aligned, regardless of location.
Our list reviews the best internal communication tools for small businesses with under 500 employees and the best internal comms app for large enterprises.
Telling you what each one does best, who it's for, and what you'll pay.
Let's see what the 9 best team communication apps for 2026 offer and which one suits your business.
How to choose the best team communication app
Clear, real-time communication is mission-critical for every team, regardless of industry or organization size. The 2025 International Employee Communication Impact Study found that a whopping 61% of employees felt that communication at their organization had broken down to a point that they considered leaving.
When poor communication affects employees, there’s a trickle-down effect that leads to missed deadlines, unhappy clients, and concerned stakeholders — all of which impact your bottom line.
So what’s the best solution? Team communication apps.
These apps provide key functions and features to help your team — whether remote, in-office, or frontline — stay connected and in sync. Using team chat, video calls, file sharing, and other vital workflow integrations, team communication apps have everything you need to keep your team aligned.
Highlights
The right team communication app aligns with how your team works, not the other way around. Prioritize tools that support your team’s size, location, and communication style (chat, video, file sharing, etc.).
Top apps for 2026 include Blink, Connecteam, Troop Messenger, Slack, Staffbase, Flock, Sling, Workvivo, and Simpplr, each tailored for different business types — from small, mobile-first teams to large global enterprises.
Key features to look for include real-time messaging, file sharing, video calls, admin tools, integrations (with HR, CRM, and project management software), mobile accessibility, and security compliance.
To find the best fit, run a short pilot with real tasks, validate usability and adoption, and ensure the platform enhances collaboration, engagement, and company culture, especially in hybrid or remote work environments.
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Here's how you choose the best team communication app
The goal, as Blink emphasizes, is to choose a team communication app that fits your team's way of working, not the other way around.
Decide on your team's communication style: Is it instant messaging, video, or file sharing?
Consider your team's location (are they remote, hybrid, or on-site?)
Think about your team's size, growth plans, and any data-related rules you need to follow
2. Lock in those core features
Ensure your team can communicate using tools such as instant messaging, threads, calls, file sharing, and organized channels. Note: Only 26% of people use online chat tools to communicate with co-workers, while 17% use project management tools, and 9% use other tools, including Microsoft Teams and WhatsApp (source: Project.co).
Confirm your tools' admin controls (user management, permissions, guest access) to ensure they align with your setup
3. Confirm integrations
Prioritize project management, CRM, calendar, file storage, HR, and payroll to check that the app integrates seamlessly and doesn't fragment workflows
4. Check usability and adoption
Look for reliable desktop and mobile apps with intuitive user integration, fast onboarding, and strong search/navigation/notification features. Because if your team doesn't (or can't) use the app, the features won't matter
5. Validate security and compliance
If your business handles private information, confirm the app's encryption, user access controls, storage policies, and certifications
6. Model scale and total cost
Plan at least 12–24 months ahead, considering licenses, storage, add-ons, mobile usage, training, and support/SLAs (like support responsiveness and uptime) to ensure pricing and user licensing scale smoothly
7. Fit your culture
Choose a tool that aligns with how your brand works (consider updates and teamwork), and ensure it includes user rules for guests and sharing outside the company
Handy tip
Try out your new team communication app with real tasks to see how well your team communicates and works together.
And if you're choosing team communication tools for SMBs, shortlist two options and run a two-week pilot following the advice above.
Mobile-first employee communication and engagement tool, built for frontline/deskless workers, is also one of best internal comms app for large enterprise.
News feed, secure chat, digital forms/surveys, analytics, recognition
From $4.50/user/month (business plan)
Connecteam
All-in-one management tool (communication, scheduling, timeclock, tasks) for non-desk/shift workers
Scheduling, time-tracking, GPS/geo-fencing, forms/checklists, communication hub
Free up to 10 users; Basic $29/month (first 30 users, annual), then per-user add-on
Troop Messenger
Secure team messaging & collaboration; focused on chat/calls
1:1 & group chat, audio/video calls, screen sharing, guest access, unlimited search history
From $2.50/user/month (Premium); higher tiers up to $9/user/month
Slack
Advanced team collaboration/messaging platform with many integrations — ideal for knowledge workers
Blink's mobile-first employee experience platform connects and engages every worker (especially frontline and deskless employees) through a single digital hub by unifying internal comms with video calling and chat, news feeds, recognition, digital forms, and analytics.
Making it one of the best internal communication tools for small businesses with under 500 employees that rely on mobile staff.
Best suited for:
Startups, SMBs, and larger companies, with a significant number of non-desk employees (such as retail, manufacturing, logistics, hospitality, and field projects).
Blink pros:
Combines chat, news feed, forms, recognition, and analytics in one app
High engagement potential, Blink claims to reach 95% of the workforce
Built for mobile/deskless workers, ensuring inclusion and access
Enhances your team's alignment, recognition, and connection
Blink cons:
Blink's strengths are communication and engagement, rather than scheduling or shift management
Businesses with large frontline teams can find the per-user pricing setup expensive
Integrations:
Blink works with single sign-on/identity providers (including Okta and Active Directory Federation Services)
It integrates with HR systems like Workday, ServiceNow, and UKG
Blink connects to various cloud tools and knowledge bases
Blink key features:
Analytics and insights on team engagement and content impact
Recognition and employee contribution features (e.g., Kudos)
Records employee journeys to provide onboarding support
Live streaming/events for broadcast-style communication
Knowledge base for policies and procedures
Mobile-first chat and secure messaging
Digital forms and survey tools
Social-style news feed
Blink pricing:
Free: Blinks offers a 30-day free trial.
Business plan: $4.50/user/month (up to 1,000 users)
Enterprise plan: Custom pricing for larger organizations
Connecteam is an all-in-one employee management app for mobile, deskless, and shift-based workforces.
It combines scheduling, time tracking, task lists, forms, HR, and skills in one platform, and is ideal for frontline and remote teams that need more than chat.
Best suited for:
Businesses from startups to SMBs and mid-market with mixed desk and non-desk workers. Organizations in retail, hospitality, field services, and logistics will find the app especially useful when they need to upgrade their scheduling, tracking, and communication.
Connecteam pros:
Combines scheduling, time tracking, communication, forms, and task management
Free small business plan for up to 10 employees with full feature access
Designed for non-desk and operational teams
Includes HR and skills tracking tools
Connecteam cons:
Some advanced features (like GPS tracking or automation) are only available in higher tiers
Complex to set up and use because of its many features
Pricing can increase as your business grows
Integrations:
Connecteam’s Application Programming Interface (API) enables simple automation and syncing
Company chat/communications connect with existing tools
Handy time tracking, HR systems, and payroll features
Connecteam key features:
Mobile communication/chat and knowledge feed
Shift management and scheduling
Task and checklist management
Onboarding and training tools
HR and skills tracking module
GPS tracking and time clock
Forms and reporting
Connecteam pricing:
Free plan: Up to 10 employees, then $0.50/user/month per user.
Basic: $29/month for up to 30 users (annual billing); additional users beyond 30 are $0.80/user/month
Troop Messenger is a secure team collaboration and communication tool with chat, audio messaging, video chat, file sharing, and enterprise-grade options. Perfect for teams that want real-time messaging without the overhead of a large platform and that don’t need HR or scheduling modules.
Best suited for:
Small to medium teams (SMBs) that need real-time communication, chat, calls, and sharing, especially where cost matters, and complete workforce management modules aren`t essential.
Troop Messenger pros:
Includes chat, audio/video, screen sharing, guest access, searchable history
Scalable with enterprise-level options
Affordable entry-level pricing
Troop Messenger cons:
Limited integrations and fewer advanced operations/workflow modules than other, more expensive team communication apps
Whilst giving you control over the settings, its on-premise/custom deployments can complicate the pricing
Integrations:
APIs for enterprise or custom deployment to partners and external developers
Dropbox, Google Drive, Jira, and Zapier
Troop Messenger key features:
Identity and authentication management systems, LDAP/Active Directory, and SSO
Collaboration tools: Including code editor, meeting notes, and tasks
A leading team communication platform with direct messaging (DMS), file sharing, fast integrations, and workflow automation, Slack is built for knowledge-based and distributed teams that rely on multiple apps.
Best suited for:
Medium to large outfits, especially knowledge workers and remote teams, depending on integrations, automation, and real-time collaboration.
Slack pros:
Strong messaging, channels, automation, and search
Free tier available for small teams
Thousands of integrations
Slack cons:
Overpowering for teams with simple communication needs
For large companies, the per-user pricing adds up quickly
No optimization for frontline and non-desk workers
Integrations:
Too many to mention, with integration available for thousands of apps, bots, custom integrations, workflow automations, and APIs
Slack key features:
App integrations, including but not limited to HR, CRM, and DevOps
Staffbase is a mobile-first internal communications platform for large, distributed teams, offering branded employee apps, targeted messaging, and analytics to reach the right people at the right time. A solid solution for large enterprises needing strategic internal comms at scale.
Best suited for:
Large companies with frontline/deskless workforces in multiple sites/countries that require a strategic internal comms platform with deep targeting and analytics.
Staffbase pros:
Strong targeting and engagement analytics
Made for mobile and deskless workers
Scales well for large enterprises
Staffbase cons:
Set-up and management require significant internal communication
Custom pricing is high (see pricing below)
Integrations:
Analytics platforms, HR/CRM systems, and mobile app frameworks
APIs for custom modules and branded experiences
Staffbase key features:
Content management/feed/news stream
Multi-location and multi-language support
Analytics/dashboards on engagement
Branded employee mobile app/hub
Targeted messaging/segmentation
Staffbase pricing:
Custom pricing depending on size and modules. An estimated starting cost is $30,000/year for 1,000 employees.
Teams looking for a budget-friendly, lightweight alternative to Slack will find their perfect fit in Flock. It's easy to use and offers most of the features you'd want in a team communication app.
Best suited for:
Smaller teams and start-ups that need a comprehensive yet affordable team communication tool with task management and messaging that integrates with apps like GitHub and Google Drive.
Flock pros:
Easy onboarding and a layman-friendly interface
More affordable than its premium competitors
Flock has a free starter tier
Flock cons:
Has fewer integrations and advanced features than its pricier competitors
It doesn't suit larger or complex organizations
Caps some features in lower tiers
Integrations:
Flock offers standard integrations with productivity tools, bots, video call apps, and task management systems
Designed specifically for local hospitality businesses (think hotels and restaurants), Sling is a scheduling and shift-planning tool with built-in communication.
Best suited for:
SMBs with hourly/shift workers who need scheduling and simple communication between team members.
Sling pros:
Combines scheduling with announcements and chat for real-time updates
The free tier has core scheduling and shift management features
Cost-effective for small businesses
Sling cons:
Besides scheduling, the app has limited internal communication features
Basic analytic options compared to more expensive team apps
Large or complex operations may find it unscalable
Integrations:
Basic chat/announcements module
Payroll/time-clock systems
Sling key features:
Time clock/attendance tracking
Shift scheduling and planning
Task and shift management
Team chat/announcements
Simple reporting
Sling pricing:
Free plan: Up to 30 users
Premium: $1.70/user/month (annual) or $2.00 monthly
Workvivo's employee experience platform (EXP) combines internal communications, recognition, engagement, analytics, intranet features, and a social-style feed into one platform, helping large organizations communicate, connect and engage with their employees.
Best suited for:
Mid-to large-sized organizations with distributed, hybrid, or multi-location teams that require a mobile-first platform that promotes culture, engagement, and unified communication.
Simpplr is an AI-powered employee experience and intranet platform (EXP) that combines multiple tools and analytics into a single solution to improve internal engagement, communication, and productivity.
Best suited for:
Large organizations that use Microsoft Teams and need a digital workplace hub that combines a business's communication platform with chat, knowledge sharing, analytics, and personalization across a global workforce.
Simpplr pros:
Mobile app allowing employees to access their digital workplace anywhere and anytime
Provides automated workflows and integrates with other workplace apps
Supports personalization, content management, and knowledge sharing
Advanced intranet and employee experience features
Scalable for large organizations
AI search feature
Simpplr cons:
Requires ongoing management and content maintenance
Too heavy for teams seeking simple chat
Expensive custom-based pricing model
Integrations:
Knowledge management systems (including SharePoint, Google Drive, Confluence, Dropbox, and Salesforce), content management, and analytic platforms
AI-powered personalization and intranet modules
Simpplr key features:
Knowledge management and content distribution, including social newsfeeds and newsletters
AI-powered tools for communication and personalized content
Content engagement analytics and insights
Employee recognition and survey tools
Mobile accessibility for employees
Intranet and digital workplace hub
Simpplr pricing:
Custom quotes by size and complexity. Starts at $12/user/month for full EX functionality.
[News feed product screen]
Final thoughts: Choosing the right team communication app
When choosing communication tools for small businesses with fewer than 500 employees, prioritize easy-to-use, mobile-friendly options.
Choose a platform that reflects how your team works, not just what shines on a features page.
For a large company’s internal communications app, ensure it includes strong governance, audience targeting, data tracking, and deployment assistance.
Start with a short pilot, measure adoption, grow from there, and remember:
Blink meets 95% of the workforce where they are and provides the solutions for the team communication problems they face today. So, if you’re ready to start communicating on a whole new level…
Employee retention is the art of holding onto your staff once you’ve hired them.
And, in 202w, it’s more important than ever.
Why?
Because companies are finally waking up to the competitive advantages of being a "people" company. A "churn and burn" approach to hiring results in poor customer service.
This is an issue, because customers are placing increasing value on good service. With smartphones, it’s easier than ever to find a competitor company to buy from. Or in the case of consumer goods, to avoid the shop altogether and order online.
Before we start.
You can hold onto employees (more or less) by treating them well. Listening to their concerns, and providing them with a few incentives to stay put.
If you’re an HR professional or a CEO, you don’t need us to tell you that. What you might find useful is an in-depth guide to employee retention in the modern workforce.
How to maximize your employee engagement efforts. And make sure there were no stones left unturned in creating the most comprehensive guide... we asked some industry-leading experts to contribute. We’ll cover:
Detail on the importance of employee retention today.
How to build effective employee retention strategies.
The exit interview, and how to turn it into your secret employee retention weapon.
Let’s begin...
Why is employee retention important?
Employee retention means "treating your employees right"; it’s an end in itself, not just the means.
From an ethical standpoint, no company should mistreat their employees. Meeting your colleagues’ basic needs and providing them with a safe and stimulating workplace? It's the right thing to do for its own sake.
But it’s more than that.
Attracting talent to your company—and keeping it once you’ve found it—has so many advantages. According to Herzberg's famous Two-Factory Theory, employee retention and employee motivation are interdependent. You can find out more about this in the Vantage Circle HR blog. A strong employee retention strategy will:
Reduce operating costs.
Improve customer service levels.
Allow you to out-compete your competitors for the best people.
The cost of high employee turnover
Hiring and firing is expensive.
Eye-wateringly expensive, to be precise. Think six to nine months salary as a conservative estimate.
Then you need to consider the impact of not having someone there to do that person’s work. That could slow down a massive project. Cause higher overtime costs as existing staff pick up their work. Or just lead to a reduction in staff morale as they struggle with increased workloads.
Companies tend to get the importance of this for salaried positions and execs. but there’s often a bit of a blind spot when it comes to their non-desk workforce and the real cost of losing an employee.
Sure, replacing a senior-level manager is more expensive than replacing a bus driver. But what happens if your bus drivers’ morale becomes so low that two or three quit per month?
It all adds up.
"Losing talented staff can also have emotional consequences on those who stay. Effectively reducing productivity by decreasing morality and motivation," says Rochelle van Rensburg of the Ezzely Blog.
"Maintaining essential talent is therefore mission-critical to organizational effectiveness for all these reasons. Staff retention puts companies ahead of their competitors, by reducing recruiting and re-skilling costs. But more importantly, by keeping the top performers, which results in all of their specialized knowledge and expertise remaining in-house."
Your mobile workforce interacts most with customers. They are the public face of your company. So, their happiness will reflect in the level of service they give your customers.
Happier, more engaged employees deliver better customer service. They also build up a bank of operational knowledge over time. This helps them respond to queries quicker and more effectively than a steady stream of new hires ever could.
The importance of employee retention in 2020
An active employee retention strategy is more important than ever. There are two key reasons for this:
Firstly, it's never been easier for customers to look elsewhere if they feel that your levels of service don’t match their expectations. We live in an age where any information you want is available via a few taps of a smartphone screen.
Dissatisfied with a hotel stay? Booking.com can recommend thousands of others.
Bad experience in a taxi? A quick Google gets you all the phone numbers of other local firms.
Poor customer experience at a theme park? TripAdvisor lists other attractions.
You get the idea.
Despite this, customers still want to be loyal. Millennials want to stick around if your brand fits in with their personal values. Don’t throw away this loyal market.
Secondly, it's never been easier to browse jobs via online jobs boards. If your workforce isn’t happy they will move. Don’t assume that they will sit in their job miserable because there aren’t any other options.
Reasons why employees leave and reasons why managers leave aren't always the same.
Your competitors may be waking up to the benefits of being a "people company." They'll more than happily snap up the staff you can't keep.
The best employee retention strategies
A strong employee retention rate is crucial to remain competitive. How you go about doing this is worth examining in some depth.
Remember - you are an employee too! As you create your employee retention strategies, keep asking yourself, "would I be happy with this?" or, "does this seem reasonable to me?"
Here are a few points you’ll need to cover when creating an employee engagement plan. Remember, the employee experience starts before the first day at the interviewing stage. To set each new starter up for success, getting the onboarding right is crucial. Want to learn more? Check out the Definitive Guide to Onboarding.
Let's quickly touch on the foundation of any working relationship: trust. As Kayla Lopez from the recruitment firm Viqtory.com reminds us. "If your employees trust you and the organization they tend to embrace the workplace; this begins before the employee is even hired. Transparency is something that we need to willingly support to gain trust. A workforce that trusts you will be engaged, a workforce that is engaged will retain. Trust is the foundation of all strong partnerships."
Now for the details...
Pay well
We’ll start with the basics.
If your pay rates don’t match with your competitors’, you’re going to have a bad time keeping hold of your high achievers.
Take a quick look at what your competitors pay for equal positions. Try and build a league table of what similar companies to you pay, and where you rank. Glassdoor is a good starting point.
Aiming for the absolute top is ideal if you can afford it, but you don’t have to offer the best salary offer out there. There are plenty of other ways to encourage your staff to stay put (more on that below), as long as you can land in the middle of the table. For someone working in a frontline job, it is difficult to give your best at work knowing you could get $5.00 per hour more for the same job elsewhere. (Even if there’s free pizza every Friday).
It’s also worth noting that even a generous wage packet won’t persuade your employees to stay if you’re otherwise a nightmare to work for. Consider this step the cornerstone of all your employee engagement efforts. Not enough by itself, but essential in building something lasting and meaningful.
Give competitive benefits
You might not be able to take it to Silicon Valley levels. (Free three-course meals for breakfast, lunch and dinner, unlimited holidays, and puppy creches).
You can offer a benefits package or a performance bonus scheme tailored to the size of your business, your budget, and your business objectives. The key is to prioritize benefits that would have a tangible difference to the lives of your employees. Add the fancy stuff on if you have money to spare.
Think about:
Childcare vouchers: we’re all aware of the struggle to find affordable childcare. Help your workforce with their work-life balance (and keep it diverse—most of the people who end up quitting jobs for childcare reasons tend to be women) by offering vouchers to help with the cost.
Health coverfor employees and dependents: an absolute must if you're US-based, although even if you live in a country which has some form of universal health care, giving employees the opportunity to go private is very appealing.
Flexible working: if the type of work you do accommodates it, flexible working is like gold dust to your staff. A "work your hours however you want" policy helps people manage childcare commitments, fit in dentist appointments, and reduce the stress of trying to juggle work and life commitments.
Lunch program: Most of the lunch break is spent buying, prepping or reheating food. Offering a tasty and healthy in-house solution, such as the online canteen Smunch, allows your employees to capitalize on their break time and share a meal together. Ultimately, this will improve your company culture and cross-departmental communication as well.
Once you’ve got the basics sorted, some nice-to-have options include:
Above average PTO allowances
Free gym memberships and cycle to work programs
Personal development funds
Develop a feedback culture to empower employees
Your employees know their workplace better than anyone else. Make the most of it.
If your employees feel involved in shaping their workplace and consulted on major decisions then they will be reluctant to leave it.
The key to this is to carry regular, easy-to-complete employee engagement surveys so you know exactly what the mood on the ground is and how to improve it.
Employees will hold an enormous amount of goodwill towards a workplace that listens to their concerns and acts on them. Equally, they will reserve a special sort of resentment for those that send out survey after survey, only to ignore the results.
It’s essential to have a solid plan in place for your employee engagement surveys, or they will backfire spectacularly.
Key pointers
Small, regular surveys are better than long, annual ones. Only giving your employees one chance per year to raise issues will result in bottled up frustrations spewing out come survey time. Not only does this result in surveys that skew unhelpfully negative, but it also means that your HR team will face an uphill struggle
Another point about designing surveys that you can respond to effectively: keep it targeted. Focus each of your quick-answer surveys on a specific area—facilities onsite, for example, or about relationships with line managers.
Use short answer questions: "yes/no" or "on a scale of 1-5" formats make it easier for people to respond immediately. Long-form feedback can be helpful, but having lots of long-answer text boxes on your survey will put people off completing it. A good compromise is to have an optional "any specific comments" box at the end of the survey.
When you’ve processed the surveys, share the results and shout about what you’re doing to act on feedback. Employees will appreciate the transparency, and it’s important to signpost what you’re doing to address the concerns they raise—or they won’t bother to participate in future surveys.
Try and create a "feedback culture" in your company by encouraging people to come forward with suggestions for improvements any time they want. Surveys highlight pain points as they are reactive; an anonymous suggestions box (either digital or real-life), on the other hand, will bring out the more innovative side of your workforce.
These suggestions might be small—a new way of organizing the break room fridge, or the introduction of free coffee Mondays—but the opportunity to improve the workplace in this way will work wonders for your wider staff’s sense of allegiance to it.
Make your workplace a fun place to work
If your coworkers are your friends, spending time at work doesn’t seem so taxing.
This is where the fun stuff comes in—the away days, lunchtime yoga, the free breakfast bar, the Christmas party...
If you have a mobile workforce, don’t forget to include them, too! They might not be in the office that often, so having regular get-togethers or breakfast clubs when shifts change is a great way to build a sense of belonging.
Obviously, base these activities on what your own workforce would like, but some ideas include:
Regular lunchtime sports clubs (running, yoga, five-a-side, badminton are good starting points)
Away days and team-building weekends.
Semi-regular opportunities for free food. Depending on the size of your team, you could offer lunch on the company each Friday, pizza parties when teams hit their targets or just because
Big events like Christmas parties and family fun days. If you run awareness weeks for things like diversity, mental health and stress, why not run some exciting events for these too?
Recognition of key milestones. If there are particularly busy periods throughout the year (like the Christmas rush for anyone working in retail or hospitality), put on an event to recognize the hard work your employees put in. This could be a full-on party, or simply just giving your staff the nod to take off after lunch on a quiet day.
This step does, however, come with a big flashing warning sign that says: don’t bother doing any of these without doing the steps listed above first.
Because these are fun and exciting, and sound super trendy when you put them on your Careers page, people often use them in place of paying a decent wage, or offering flexible working hours, or acting on employee feedback.
The exit interview - your employee retention secret weapon
One of the best ways of figuring out what’s going wrong with your employee retention efforts is asking your colleagues when they leave.
Seems counter-intuitive, and rather frustrating, doesn’t it?
And in some ways, it is. No amount of collecting and aggregating exit interview data, tweaking your employee engagement plan and making changes in your company to reduce employee turnover will change the fact that, for that particular employee, your efforts weren’t enough. For HR people and line managers, that stings sometimes.
Still, if you can take your losses on the chin, this is a real opportunity to do better for your colleagues, and identify and fix any major issues that push people to leave.
There are three main reasons why exit interviews are so effective at flagging up things that need to change:
The employee is leaving so won't hold back
Regardless of how many times you reassure your colleagues that your pulse surveys are anonymous and that helpful suggestions are encouraged, they will still be a little suspicious.
The worry that surveys aren’t really anonymous, or that speaking out about a key workplace bugbear will get them labelled as a troublemaker, will be a constant thorn in the side of your employee retention efforts.
(As a side note, if this attitude is pervasive then it might be time to take a look at your workplace culture. A little reticence is natural. An all-encompassing dread of speaking up might indicate something a little more sinister).
The exit interview is a different kettle of fish. They’re leaving. There are no raises or opportunities for promotion in the pipeline. This is their opportunity to "tell it like it really is."
Listen, even if you think they’re being unfair and bitter.
Problems brought up during exit interviews tend to have weighed heavily on an employee’s decision to leave. In other words, they’re big issues you need to address urgently.
Get the whole picture
Multiple exit interviews help build up a better picture of life on the ground.
Of course, there’s always the chance that one particular employee just, for whatever reason, didn’t have a good time.
That’s where keeping data from previous exit interviews comes in.
For example, if an employee complains about their line manager being unbearable, it might just be a clash of personalities. Equally it could be because that line manager is difficult to work for and too demanding. It’s difficult to say without further info.
So. Run some analytics.
How many other employees from that line manager’s team have left over the past year?
Did they say anything in their exit interviews?
Have they been flagged to HR for anything previously?
If so, you might want to investigate further.
This is why it’s important to conduct an exit interview for every single person that leaves the business. If you restrict it to management positions, people based in HQ, or full-time workers, you’re missing key sets of data that could be useful in improving your employee retention strategy.
Find out what went wrong
An exit interview, conducted well, helps you identify wrong turns in your employee journey map.
You’ll probably have some sort of employee journey map already.
You might call it something different. We’re referring to the plan you make that starts at the hire phase and ends with the offboarding phase when the employee leaves. This normally includes guidelines for each stage they go through with your company. For example:
Hiring:
Offer letter and contract sent
Start date agreed two weeks in advance
Onboarding:
First day: tour of premises, fire safety, welcome coffee or lunch
First six weeks: all e-learning to be completed
You get the idea. Here's a basic template you could expand on:
The exit interview provides an excellent opportunity to ask your employees about various stages in this plan, to see whether they’ve been carried out to your expectations.
Ask specifically, and don’t be afraid to go right back to the start of their employment. Whether they felt welcomed in their first weeks, for example. If they were given clear and regular feedback on their performance, and compare that to your notes on how your employee journey should pan out.
It could be that, despite your meticulous efforts in planning it, your employee journey map isn’t being adhered to by managers in the wider organisation. This could be why your employees are leaving - this map provides guidelines on how to make sure people feel safe, supported and included at work. If people don’t follow it you’re going to have problems.
Your employee journey map is important. If it isn’t being followed, you need to correct that as soon as you can. Exit interviews are the best way to do this.
How to conduct an employee retention interview
Be flexible around your employees needs
If a lot of your workforce are remote or mobile, don’t insist on a face-to-face interview at HQ.
There are several free video calling apps available, so why not make use of them? An employee is more likely to feel comfortable talking to you if you’ve made accommodations for their situation.
If they’re more comfortable talking to you, they’re more likely to be honest with you, and that’s exactly what you want.
Don’t make it overly formal
Go for a relaxed vibe. Making things too formal will only stifle conversation.
If you’re conducting a face-to-face interview, it’s a nice touch to provide some sort of refreshments; hot drinks and a pastry, maybe. The employee will appreciate the gesture, and it will encourage a more conversational feel, which is exactly what will get them to open up.
Identify the specifics to touch on
You will know, from previous exit interviews if there are any particular pain points in your employee experience.
Ask about them. You’ll then be able to establish:
Whether these are still issues
What progress you’ve made on them, and how effective your efforts to tackle them have been.
...But allow them to express their opinion too
If the structure of the interview is entirely created by you, you could miss something important.
By allowing employees space to expand on their own concerns, you give yourself the opportunity to pick up on potential issues that aren’t on your radar. Sure, a lot of this could be specific to that particular individual, but you should investigate nonetheless—otherwise you’ll never know whether it’s the iceberg tip of something bigger.
Remember: your relationship with the employee isn't over
People leave for all sorts of reasons—not all of them negative.
You might want to leave the door open for talented employees, in case they want to return at some point. Also consider that talented former employees can be great source of referrals.
These can be your company’s cheerleaders, even after they’ve left. A good exit interview can make this relationship. A poor one can ruin it.
Of course, there’s also the possibility that the employee leaving has been less than stellar. In this case you should see the exit interview as a chance to smooth things over, and divert potentially negative Glassdoor reviews or social media mentions.
Final thoughts
To summarize:
An employee retention strategy is important because it makes your employees happier. Happier, more engaged employees perform better in general, and deliver better customer service.
The cost of employee turnover is measured in increased operational costs and decreased institutional knowledge.
Bearing this in mind, the question you should be asking yourself isn’t "can we afford to expand our employee retention efforts?"
It’s "can we afford not to?"
An engaged, happy workforce with a low churn rate isn’t just a nice thing to have.
It’s not just something you can boast about on your Careers page.
It’s a competitive advantage—and people are only just waking up to this fact. Because now more than ever, people value good customer service. If you can provide that, you’ll have a serious head start on your competitors.
Blink is an internal communications tool that’s does everything your intranet does, but better. Try it out today! Request a free demo to get started.
With shifts in working patterns over the past couple of years, maintaining employee productivity has seemed like an uphill battle for many employers!
The good news: your employees genuinely want to do good work. If you provide them with the right tools, environment and support, you’ll get great performance in return.
The slightly-less-than-good-news: you need to do this amidst ongoing uncertainty around COVID and potentially figure out the ramifications of permanent hybrid and remote working arrangements.
This isn’t always easy – but it is doable. Gallup reports that it recorded its highest ever percentage of engaged employees in 2021. Given the links between employee productivity and engagement, this is a really solid starting point for your efforts.
This 101 guide will help you understand a little more about employee productivity, how to increase it and its ties with employee engagement.
What is employee productivity?
‘Employee productivity’ is a measure of performance which tracks the amount of output each employee creates per unit of work.
If that sounds a little fiddly to you…you’re absolutely right.
Unlike ‘workforce productivity’ (also known as ‘labor productivity’) which measures the output of your workforce as a whole, employee productivity is a completely individual measure.
What does that mean?
Firstly, it’s more difficult to define. Each of your employees plays a vital role in the success of your business. What constitutes a ‘unit of productive output’ for your marketing team? What about your frontline retail staff or your drivers?
Secondly, it’s more difficult to measure. You can measure the output of your workforce as a whole relatively easily. Because not every employee will work in a position with an easily definable output, you’ll need to seriously consider how to adjust your approach for different positions in your organization.
How to improve employee productivity
Investopedia identifies three key factors that increase labor productivity:
Physical capital
Technological progress
Human capital development
We think that exactly the same applies when you’re trying to increase employee productivity. After all, the output from each of your employees adds up to the output of your business as a whole. Employee productivity is the individual building block of organizational success.
‘Technological advancement’ feels particularly important with the drastic rise in hybrid and remote working caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. A 2021 study found that home workers dealt with a gruelling four tech problems a week on average, whilst 24% said they didn’t have adequate tools to do their job.
Equally, whilst tech is a major factor in keeping employees productive, it’s not a cure-all. You can invest in all of the latest collaboration tools – AI note-taking tools, augmented reality conferencing solutions, the rest – but it won’t make a difference if your workforce is directionless, confused, and unmotivated.
Here are a few steps you can take to improve employee productivity – both tech and people-focused.
Set clear goals, expectations and priorities
Having solid goals to work towards helps employees remain focused and productive. If they have a clear idea of what to expect, they can figure out how to meet those expectations and prioritize accordingly.
Set deadlines, but contextualize them. “I need this done by Wednesday lunchtime” comes across as needlessly authoritarian and creates stress for the sake of it. “I need this by Wednesday lunchtime so that we can pass onto the production team in time for our to-market target” draws your employees in by emphasizing how important their work is to the wider organization.
Invest in your workforce
In the USA, there are now 5 million more unfilled job vacancies than there are unemployed workers. Getting the most from your existing workforce has never been more important.
Invest time and capital building your workforce’s skills. Offering training – whether in person or e-learning – both allows your employees to do their job more effectively and shows that you’re invested in their long-term career development. Employees work harder and get more done as a result.
Work on building employee trust
Can you trust your direct report to follow instructions and complete tasks on time?
It’s a valid question, but it’s really only half of the equation.
Can they trust you to support them in their goals, be transparent about company developments, communicate effectively and respect their time (such as by approving leave requests promptly without follow up)?
Trust in any relationship goes both ways. If you uphold your end of the bargain with support and respect, you’ll see increased morale and productivity as a result.
Identify issues first. Then find the tech that helps
Since the pandemic began, the market for productivity apps & tools has exploded. It’s tempting if you’ve seen productivity levels dropping, to dive right in and rectify the problem immediately.
Take a step back. Before you commit to anything, work out which issues are currently barriers to employee productivity and look for tech solutions for those specific problems.
For example, virtual kanban boards like Trello can make managing large, desk-based departments much easier with notifications and deadline reminders, immediate visibility into task completion and an easy-to-follow visual layout. Would it offer the same benefits to rapid-fire ER healthcare teams, whose work priorities and tasks shift rapidly throughout the day?
Employee engagement and productivity
Setting clear goals, investing in your workforce, building employee trust and providing time-saving tech solutions all increase employee productivity.
Why?
It’s because they also increase employee engagement – and engaged employees are 17% more productive than non-engaged employees. Understanding how these two concepts are linked is essential in building employee productivity in the long term.
‘Employee engagement' has been a fundamental concept in people strategy circles for the past decade. There’s no absolute definition, but we like global advisory firm Gallup’s for its simplicity and directness:
“Employee engagement as the involvement and enthusiasm of employees in their work and workplace.”
If we had to simplify it even more: employee engagement measures how much your employees buy into your organization. Do they support your organization’s goals, see their work as meaningful and see their career developing at your business over time? Or, are they disinterested, doing the bare minimum and about to jump ship?
Highly engaged teams are more productive. If employees feel involved, respected and needed in the workplace, they innovate more, collaborate willingly and are significantly more motivated – and they’re much less likely to leave, which your hiring budget will thank you for.
How to measure employee productivity
As we discussed above, there isn’t a catch-all approach to employee productivity measurement
As such, your line managers will need to be involved in measuring employee productivity from step one, setting goals and analyzing performance from their direct reports to find effective ways to motivate each individual employee.
Here are a few tools your managers can use to get started.
Percentage of goals met
If you offer clear objectives and goals for each employee, check in on how effectively they’re completing these. Measuring the percentage of goals met gives a good baseline understanding of overall employee performance.
Benchmarks and targets
Businesses now hold more past performance data than ever before. Use this data to set realistic targets and benchmarks for employees, taking into account seasonality and external conditions.
Revenue per employee
How much revenue did you make last quarter? Divide it by the number of employees to give an average of revenue generated per hire.
Employee productivity software: how to track employee productivity
It isn’t easy to track employee productivity at the best of times. With the increase in home-working and virtual collaboration, the employee digital experience makes this even harder.
Employee productivity tracking software is a great way to get insights into how your team is performing, particularly in remote and hybrid environments. You may find some employee experience software has this built in as standard.
The key to success here is not to use tracking software completely negatively. It’s as effective at identifying the habits of top performers (and allowing you to reward and share them) as it is for picking up potentially disengaged employees.
And, when you do use it to identify which employees are lagging behind, you can target coaching to their specific needs to address any potential weak spots and turn their performance around.
When you’re looking for employee tracking software, these features are must-haves:
You might have figured out by now that increasing employee productivity will need time, effort and potentially investment on your part.
What does this get you, in the long term?
The simple answer is: more revenue. Two welcome words for any key decision-maker!
Engaged, productive employees care more and put in more effort as a result. This gives more scope to innovate, more drive to provide great service and better performance across the business in general.
The effort you put into improving employee productivity will more than make its money back as remote and hybrid works become ever more established. If you haven’t already, now’s the perfect time to start.
Team building activities get a bad rap. While the intention behind such exercises is to break the ice, they are often seen as embarrassing and awkward.
Leaders are so enthusiastic when conducting these games that they don’t even notice workers looking for the nearest exit.
That’s not to say you shouldn’t conduct team-building exercises. Building collaboration skills in your team is essential, and team-building games can really help you achieve that.
The problem usually lies with the team-building activities managers pick. A quick search for team-building ideas will show you that the web is filled with hundreds of them. But many are unfeasible, difficult, or uncomfortable for workers. They look good on paper but you can’t really implement them in an actual workplace.
So in this post, we are going to solve this problem. Instead of giving you a huge directory of endless activities, we’ve handpicked a few team-building activities that are easy, effective, and enjoyable.
Types of team building activities
Some team-building ideas are more suited for your company than others. Your choices will depend on several factors, such as team size and function.
But you also need to consider where you’re going to conduct the team-building exercises and how the location impacts the mindset of your team members. Based on the location of the team-building games, they can be split into three main categories.
Indoor team building activities
Indoor games take place in the office or another work location. And you’ll likely conduct them during regular work hours. For this reason, indoor activities have a serious, formal overall vibe. If your whole team works from a single location, then choosing indoor team-building exercises is your best bet.
Outdoor team building activities
At a team retreat, you need team-building games that can be played outdoors. Plus, the overall mood is more relaxed and casual than indoor exercises. So the team-building activities you pick should be more fun and energetic.
Virtual/online team building activities
More and more people are working remotely, and many teams are spread out in different locations these days. If that applies to your team too, you need remote team-building activities that can be conducted via web conferencing.
The good news is we’ve covered all the three types in the list below. In fact, some of our team-building ideas belong to multiple categories. For example, you’ll also find exercises that can be run indoors as well as online.
For each team-building activity, we’ve also mentioned its best-suited environments. So without further ado, let’s jump in.
Quick and easy team building activities
Campfire stories
Suitable environments: indoor, online, outdoor
Number of team members: 5-25
Objective: Foster informal communication by encouraging team members to share and identify common experiences
This is one of the evergreen team-building activities. It improves team bonding via inspired storytelling. Team members gather in a circle, as people do in a fireside chat when camping. They share workplace experiences, get to know each other better, and refresh memories.
What makes it great: Storytelling is a time-tested way to pass information informally and shape communities. So a storytelling session with work-related stories can get your team members to loosen up, learn some useful lessons, and feel closer to one another. You can also confine the stories to train people around a certain theme.
How it works: Come up with a list of words that can trigger your employees’ memories and remind them of a previous experience. For example, these could be “demo day,” "on-site trip," "side project,” and so on.
Find a way to display all the words to your team members. If you are conducting the activity indoors, for example, you can use a whiteboard.
Have team members take turns to pick a trigger word and share an experience related to it. Once a trigger word has been taken by a participant, move it to a separate area so it can’t be repeated.
You can also ask workers to share more trigger words that come to mind after they have heard a story. So you won’t run out of ideas for stories.
Blind draw
Suitable environments: indoor, outdoor
Number of team members: 10-25
Objective: Improve delegation skills, communication, and teamwork among participants
This team-building exercise involves drawing an object with just spoken instructions. You can use this team-building exercise as a fun, light activity between two intense sessions.
What makes it great: It looks simple on the surface. But to win this team-building game, team members will have to get many things right. For example, they’ll have to pick the right person to draw, and to give instructions. Plus, they’ll need to communicate well. So the activity teaches them both delegation and collaboration.
How it works: Gather some everyday objects, signs, or shapes. You can print them on sheets of paper, or search for photos on a free stock photography website.
Divide employees into teams of five people. Have each team choose the “artist” who will draw the shape. Assign a different object to each team and give them a time limit of 3-5 minutes.
Each team will then guide the artist on drawing the object. But they can’t say the name of the object. While the artist is drawing, he couldn’t know what the object is, nor can his team know what he is drawing until he’s done. The team with the drawing most similar to their object wins.
You know who
Suitable environments: indoor, online
Number of participants: 10-50
Objective: Introduce team members to one another and establish connections
In this team-building game, employees will map the connections between one another on a whiteboard. Teams can choose their “avatars”, and then draw arrows to map how they are connected to other workers. It’s a great way to break the ice when team members don’t know each other well.
What makes it great: This team-building activity lets you build a small, social-media-style network, but without the technology. It will not just help as a standalone activity, but also allow team members to keep mingling throughout the whole day or event.
How it works: Provide participants with index cards, markers, and tape. Each worker will then write their name, add their job title, and draw an "avatar" on their index card, like how there’s a profile photo on a social network.
Then gather all the index cards and stick them on a whiteboard, with plenty of space between every two cards. Participants will then draw arrows from their card to others who they already know in some capacity.
Plus, they’ll also mention how they know the person. For example, maybe they went to the same university or were part of the same team in the past.
Cross-functional jigsaw
Suitable environments: indoor
Number of team members: 10-20
Objective: Build cross-functional collaboration, communication, and problem-solving skills
This team-building activity divides a group of employees into two teams, both of which are asked to solve a jigsaw puzzle in the time limit specified.
But there’s a twist. Some of the pieces required by each team belong to the other team. So both the teams need to work together.
What makes it great: This is a great exercise in improvisation, problem-solving, and collaboration. When the teams start putting the pieces together, they don’t know about the catch. They are surprised by the realization that their success depends on working with the other team, and this lesson remains with them for a long time.
How it works: Simple! Take two puzzles. Replace some pieces in one puzzle with those of the other. Make two teams and give them the puzzles to solve. Ask them to keep communicating with each other while they’re on the task. But don’t tell them that you have interchanged some pieces. Let them figure it out on their own. Also, declare another rule that teams can exchange only one puzzle piece at a time.
Survival priorities
Suitable environments: indoor, outdoor
Number of team members: 5-30
Objective: Inspire participants to solve problems together, demonstrate leadership, and practice negotiation.
Imagine your plane has crashed on an island in the middle of nowhere, and it’s burning. There are only a few minutes to salvage some items from the wreckage. What will you take and what will you leave? That’s what this team-building exercise is about.
What makes it great: This team-building game is great for giving your team a taste of a high-stress situation, and honing their ability to work together under pressure. Their success will depend on negotiating calmly, picking a leader, and planning the whole thing carefully.
How it works: Set up a space with several survival items such as various foods, water, knives, weapons, flares, tarp, matches, and so on. You don't even need to have the actual items. You can use their pictures too.
The quantity of each item should be limited so teams will be forced to trade and collaborate. Divide employees into two or more teams. And they have 30 minutes to rank what they need the most and get survival items from the space.
Coffee standup
Suitable environments: indoor, online
Number of team members: 2-8
Objective: Build rapport and improve team communication
Countless professionals across the globe start their work with daily standup meetings and coffee. So there’s no reason you can’t combine the two. This team-building activity involves daily standups that can be conducted indoors or online. Participants talk about what’s on their to-do list for the day while enjoying a nice, hot beverage.
What makes it great: This team-building exercise is best-suited for remote teams in which workers don’t get to see their team members on a daily basis. Having a light chat while doing something casual can help build camaraderie, improve communication, and know what everyone’s doing.
How it works: Ask workers to grab a cup of coffee from the cafeteria, a coffee shop, or make one at home. Then all the employees in the team join a stand-up chat for 10-15 minutes. Each team member talks about what they intend to do, and if there’s anything they need help with.
Shark tank mania
Suitable environments: indoor, online
Number of team members: Up to 30, split into teams of five
Objective: Encourage innovation, collaboration, and skills to sell your ideas
This activity is inspired by the popular TV series — Shark Tank. In this team-building game, participants create a product pitch for investors. The product and the investors both don’t need to be real. Your team will just create a mock version of the show.
What makes it great: Getting your team members to participate in their own version of Shark Tank goes a long way to instill entrepreneurship, innovation, and the ability to think big. Since there can be multiple cofounders and others behind a startup, this activity also promotes teamwork.
How it works: Divide employees into teams of 3-5 people, and ask each team to prepare their pitch for an imaginary product. The pitch could include product name, brand tagline, marketing plan, financial projections, and so on.
Choose some people to be the investors with an imaginary pool of money. You can also give them fake backgrounds. Every team will then present their pitch to these “Sharks.” The team that gets the most funding wins.
Over to you: team building activities to engage your workforce
Running an organization is not easy. It’s hard to get hundreds of workers on the same page, let alone get them to take collective action towards business goals.
Hard, but not impossible. With the right collaboration strategies and team-building activities, you can build an atmosphere of camaraderie and open communication at work. Plus, these exercises also teach your team valuable soft skills such as leadership, negotiation, and problem-solving.
They might take some time and effort to execute in the beginning, but the results will convince you to keep going. So start putting them into practice and reap the benefits of improved culture and collaboration at your workplace.
Also, the right technology can turbocharge your efforts to build a culture of open communication and collaboration. This is where Blink can help. Consider booking a free Blink demo today.
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.
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.
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.
If you’re like most people, you’d probably prefer not to imagine what happens in a worst-case scenario, or a situational crisis.
However, imagining what could go wrong — and how you’ll react to it — is one of the most important things you can do for your business.
An effective crisis communications plan starts with your employees. With early, clear, and consistent messaging, your team can become advocates for your company during any crisis.
By following these four straightforward crisis communication best practices, your stress levels will go from 100 to 10 (hopefully).
The 4 crisis communication best practices you need to remember
Make messaging consistent
Back up statements with action
Balance timeliness and precision
Practice empathy
Let’s have a more in-depth look at each of these practices.
1. Make messaging consistent
Your internal communications during a crisis should convey the same stance and expectations to every member of your team, regardless of level.
That is more effective if you already have an easy, direct line of communication with each member of your organization.
While different roles may need to respond differently, it’s crucial t foster a sense of transparency rather than secrecy to ensure a better response across your organization.
Communicate often to make sure everyone is on the same page, even with constantly changing information.
In a 2020 Edelman study on internal communications during the COVID-19 pandemic, 63% of employees wanted daily updates, and 23% wanted communications multiple times a day.
2. Back up statements with action
It's important for your team to understand how to talk about a situation, but it's even more important for them to understand what's being done — and their role in the process.
As soon as you have a response plan, communicate it to your team. That way, what's being done to resolve an issue is at the forefront of the conversation. Share what your organization's plan is to prevent situations from arising and use as many concrete steps as you can.
Recruit those in your organization who can help with definite tasks. Perhaps the PR team needs to create an official statement, or the development team needs to redesign a product. Whatever it is, let everyone know how they can help to react to the crisis.
3. Balance timeliness and precision
The moments immediately following an event are often the most critical for your internal communications during a crisis.
You don’t want there to be a sudden vacuum of silence where others may be left to speculate. That is the time to get your initial response out quickly, to guide the narrative.
It’s alright to let your employees know there are some things you still don’t know. It’s better to be upfront about how you’re addressing uncertainties than to wait to communicate at all.
With that in mind, it’s also appropriate to take your time to craft a more thought-out response for the long term. Planning for crises means you’re prepared immediately in the event.
While it can be impossible to plan out the details of your crisis response, it's vital to create crisis response documents that lay the groundwork processes for establishing more detailed responses with your team.
4. Practice empathy
The crisis will undoubtedly affect your employees day-to-day, some certainly more than others.
It’s critical to empathize with your employee’s struggles throughout the crisis and recognize where their duties have become more difficult.
A 2020 Catalyst survey on the effects of empathy in the workplace during COVID-19 found that empathetic leaders and managers increase productivity, innovation, and engagement.
Although you don’t want to dwell on how the situation is causing setbacks or difficulties, you can still empathize with your workers while returning to the positive.
Communicate your gratitude for their continued hard work and outline plans to alleviate their stressors.
The Catalyst study states empathetic leadership entails:
Respecting life circumstances
Supporting both life and work needs
Fostering inclusion
Open lines of communication to hear their input and experiences. Solicit feedback through forms, polls, and one-on-one interviews. Let your employees know that you want to listen to their thoughts on tackling the crisis from their point of view.
Show up in more than just writing. Video messages and calls communicate more empathy than written statements.
Final thoughts: 4 crisis communication best practices
Your internal communication during a situational crisis is just as important as your public communication — and perhaps even more so.
That’s why it’s essential to lay the groundwork for a plan so you can react effectively if necessary. Your internal crisis communications should be consistent, actionable, timely, and empathetic.
All the members of your organization deserve frequent, comprehensive, and accessible updates during a crisis.
Psst – looking for crisis communication tools?
Blink’s employee communications app provides an efficient way for you to communicate with everyone in your organization. From company-wide status updates to policy changes through the intranet, the all-in-one app makes connecting with your employees simple.
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