5 red flags your internal comms platform is holding you back

Shake Shack started in a hot dog cart in Madison Square Park over 25 years ago. Today we're a global brand with more than 700 restaurants, 14,000 team members, and an ambitious growth goal.

We're opening more than 60 new restaurants this year alone. Every new shack means new people, new teams, and new ways for our message to get lost along the way. Growth at that pace makes clear, consistent communication more important than ever.

For us, that meant finding a better way to reach, recognize, and engage our teams as we continue to scale.

Keeping every team connected

As Shake Shack has grown, so has the need to keep our teams informed and connected. A message may start with our support center or leadership, then move through above-shack leaders, shack leaders, managers, and frontline teams.

At our size, communication has to be timely, relevant, and easy to access for the people closest to our guests. We needed an approach built for the way our teams work today and flexible enough to support where we're headed next.

What our people were telling us

Before I moved into communications, I spent five years in our People Resources team, running our annual engagement survey. Those results gave us important insight into how team members felt about their leaders, workplace, and our culture, and reinforced how much the team experience shapes engagement.

Two things came up again and again as drivers of engagement: recognition and voice. People want their work to be seen. And they want to know that when they share an idea or a concern, someone with the power to act is actually listening.

An annual survey couldn't give us either of those things consistently, at scale, across 500-plus locations. We needed a way to make recognition and voice part of the everyday experience, not a once-a-year check-in.

What we needed from a tool

When we went looking for a platform, three things mattered most.

It had to fit into one place. Our team members already use different systems throughout the day, and we wanted to make access simpler, not add another step. A single point of entry mattered.

It had to be built for the floor, not the desk. I sit at a computer most of the day. The majority of our team members are on their feet, serving guests, with a phone in their pocket and not much time to sit and dig through an intranet. Mobile-first wasn't a nice-to-have. It was essential.

It had to inform, connect, and engage. We wanted a platform that could share the big picture, make it relevant to each team member, and connect the four walls of one Shack to the broader Shake Shack story. It also needed to feel natural for a workforce that is used to engaging through mobile, social, and real-time experiences.

That combination is what led us to Blink.

What changed

The integration piece has made the biggest difference day to day. We connected Blink to Workday through single sign-on, so a team member can go from the Blink Hub straight to viewing their payslip or a compliance module in seconds, no extra password required. Password reset requests have dropped since launch.

We also made communication more relevant. We wanted a platform that helps people see what matters to them, when it matters. An hourly team member and a corporate employee may need different information, and that targeting helps keep the experience useful and engaging.

And we made it ours. In a Shake Shack environment, Blink looks like Shake Shack: our colors, our photography, our voice.

How we got people to actually use it

A platform is only as good as its adoption. We built it with our operators, not just for them, testing and iterating before we launched company-wide. Then we found our champions early. Earlier this year, we brought almost 250 operators and leaders together for a two-day summit, and we used Blink as the event app, pushing schedules, session reminders, and photo sharing through the platform before it ever launched to the wider team.

By the time we launched a few weeks later, those leaders were already active, and the content was already there. Within the first two weeks, more than 70% of our workforce had registered. That number keeps climbing.

Where we're headed

We now have a more direct way to reach our frontline teams. As we grow and scale our business, that matters more every day.

We're also excited about where the platform itself is going. Last week, I built and launched a pulse survey in about five minutes and started seeing responses in real time, something our old, once-a-year survey tool could never do. As Shake Shack scales to 1,500 shacks, we need our tools to scale and evolve with us. Seeing that kind of innovation already happening gives me real confidence that Blink will keep meeting us where we are, and where we're headed next.

In a world where brand is everything — from how your customers experience your services to how your employees feel about the work they do — consistency matters.

Marketers obsess over customer touchpoints. Designers fine-tune fonts, colors, and microcopy to evoke emotion. Leaders talk about brand as a strategic asset. But there’s one place where branding often stops short: the tools we use to power our employee experience.

And that’s a missed opportunity.

Because here’s the truth: Your brand doesn’t just belong in your storefronts or on your website. It belongs in the everyday moments your employees experience at work — from clocking in to reading a company update to cheering on a teammate. That’s where white-labeling your employee experience platform comes in.

First, what is white-labeling?

At its core, white-labeling means taking a platform — in this case, your internal employee app or communications hub — and customizing it to reflect your brand, not the vendor’s.

That includes everything from in-app colors and logos to app store listings, custom app icons, and branded emails. Done well, white-labeling creates a seamless, fully immersive brand experience. Your employees don’t see a third-party vendor. They see you.

It’s not just a superficial coat of paint — it’s a strategic branding decision with real impact.

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Why white-labeling matters more than ever

Most organizations have spent years investing in their external brand. But in today’s workplace — especially with large, distributed, or frontline-heavy teams — it’s your internal brand that drives connection, engagement, and pride.

Here’s why white-labeling your employee experience platform is one of the smartest moves you can make:

#1. Brand immersion builds belonging

Just like a great customer experience is infused with brand personality, a great employee experience should feel unmistakably you.

When your workforce opens an app that looks and feels like your brand — not a generic third-party solution — it sends a clear signal that this technology is ours. It fosters ownership, pride, and connection. Every login becomes a brand touchpoint that reinforces identity and culture.

This is especially powerful for employees who aren’t sitting in HQ. For frontline workers, contractors, and dispersed teams, a white-labeled experience is a powerful way to extend culture and community beyond the walls of the corporate office.

#2. It’s a trust signal — even internally

Brand consistency isn’t just about aesthetics. It’s about trust. Inconsistency — logos that don’t match, tools with unfamiliar names, generic notification emails — introduces friction. People start to question whether the tool is legit, secure, or if it’s even meant for them at all.

White-labeling brings everything under one visual and emotional umbrella. The result? Higher trust, smoother adoption, and fewer support tickets asking, “Is this app safe to use?”

#3. You control the narrative

White-labeling puts your brand front and center — not the vendor’s. That matters when your goal is to unify teams, promote new initiatives, or make a bold culture shift.

When your employee platform looks and sounds like your company, every message has more weight. Every announcement lands with more credibility. And every interaction contributes to a more cohesive, compelling internal brand story.

#4. It’s not just “nice to have” — it’s a competitive differentiator

In industries where employee experience drives performance — retail, hospitality, healthcare, logistics — standing out as an employer of choice is critical.

A beautifully branded, fully immersive app experience tells your workforce (and future talent): We care about experience. We invest in culture. We do things the right way.

It’s the kind of signal that separates good employers from great ones — especially in a competitive labor market.

Not all branding options are created equal

Here’s where things get tricky: Many platforms claim to support branding. But in reality, “customizable” often means swapping out a logo or changing a background color.

That’s like giving someone a sharpie and calling them a designer.

Truly impactful white-labeling goes deeper — into every surface your employees touch. Let’s break it down:

• Theming and in-app branding: Change colors, upload your logo, swap in branded images. These are table stakes — but still powerful when thoughtfully executed.

• Custom app icon: On your employees’ phones, your platform shouldn’t be buried behind a vendor logo. A branded app icon helps the platform feel like an extension of your company, right on the home screen.

• Fully white-labeled experience: This is the gold standard. The app isn’t just themed — it becomes yours entirely. Your name in the app stores. Your brand in the notifications. Your URL in the browser. Every single interaction, owned.

If you're going to invest in an employee experience platform, it should reflect your brand in full. Otherwise, you're building culture on someone else’s terms.

When brand is the experience

One of the biggest drivers of white-labeling demand we’ve seen? Brand-first organizations.

Take a global hospitality company known for high-design hotels and curated guest experiences. For a brand so intentional about every detail — from guestroom playlists to menu typography — it was only natural to carry that same intentionality into the employee experience.

With a fully white-labeled app, the company ensured their workforce — spread across properties worldwide — could access a platform that felt as personal and curated as the guest experience they’re known for.

Every interaction felt undeniably on brand. And that’s exactly the point.

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So, is it worth it?

If your brand matters — and let’s be real, it does — then white-labeling your employee platform is absolutely worth the investment.

Because employees aren’t just logging into an app. They’re joining your culture. They’re engaging with your values. They’re experiencing your brand — whether you’ve branded it or not.

White-labeling makes sure that experience is intentional. Aligned. Consistent. And completely yours.

TLDR: Don’t wait to white-label — your brand deserves center stage

White-labeling isn’t a vanity play — it’s a strategic move to elevate culture, trust, and employee connection. And if your employee experience platform doesn’t offer it (or offers a half-baked version), it’s time to rethink what great really looks like.

Brand your experience. Own the interaction. And give your employees a platform they’re proud to open — because it reflects the brand they proudly represent.

‍Blink. And make your brand the hero of the employee experience.

Every internal comms team has a content calendar.

It’s packed with company milestones, product launches, quarterly updates, and maybe even "Employee Appreciation Week”. But for a significant proportion of your workforce, it’s largely irrelevant.

Because what it doesn’t capture is the other calendar. The calendar of frontline operational reality — of shift changes, policy updates, roster gaps, and the months where teams are working flat out just to cope with demand.  

Effective frontline communication planning means overlaying this unofficial calendar on top of the official one. Let’s explore how.

What the "official" internal comms calendar misses

Before you can build a better comms calendar and improve frontline employee communication, you need to understand how the standard employee communication strategy falls down for frontline workers.

In many organizations, there’s a gap between the content comms teams plan and what frontline workers actually need to hear. Here’s why.

It reflects business priorities not frontline concerns

The typical internal comms calendar is organized around what the business wants to say — launches, milestones, strategic updates.

This can be useful for frontline employees. But they also need other information: what’s changed, what to focus on, how to do the job well today.

It doesn’t treat operational updates as comms

Operational updates are often shared through manager cascades or notice boards rather than through official comms channels. That makes it easy for messages to be delayed, diluted, or missed altogether.

These updates rarely make it onto the content calendar because nobody thinks of them as “comms”. But for frontline workers, these are the comms that matter most.

It assumes stability in an unstable sector

Frontline environments are subject to change. Last-minute rota gaps, unexpected site disruptions, safety updates — these aren’t planned weeks in advance.

Internal communications that are entirely pre-scheduled leave organizations without the space for unplanned moments. But these are the times that most require a comprehensive comms response.

It ignores emotional cadence

Different times of year bring different levels of frontline fatigue, stress, and morale. A piece of content that lands well in October may land very differently in the first week of January.

The standard comms calendar rarely accounts for this — which means messages are written and scheduled without enough consideration for the emotional and operational context in which they land. 

Read more: Insta vs. reality: The frontline communication gap

The unofficial comms calendar: Month by month

Want to incorporate frontline comms into the official comms calendar? Here are the kinds of comms your frontline teams need throughout the year.

January

Staff shortages are still playing out. Annual leave has depleted teams. New policies roll in with the New Year. And motivation is at its lowest point of the annual cycle, with employees experiencing back-to-work blues and post-Christmas financial pressures.

The official comms calendar arrives with vision statements and annual goals. But on the floor, people are simply wondering whether they can get through the week without any surprises.  

What frontline workers need: Stability, not inspiration. Clear guidance on any policy changes. Reassurance that leadership understands what the frontline is feeling. Well-being signposting. Manager check-ins.

February

February, with its grey weather and flat energy, is a month when comms teams tend to go quiet because there’s nothing obvious to communicate. But this is a really crucial time for comms to step in and lighten the mood.

What frontline workers need: Consistency. Recognition. Peer-to-peer connection. You can prompt employees to interact with news feed content, celebrate colleagues, and start conversations with people beyond their immediate shift.

March & April

The new financial year usually means new targets, policy updates, and process changes. 

This is when a significant volume of important information needs to reach the frontline — and there’s a risk that change communications get missed or filtered imperfectly through manager cascades.

What frontline workers need: Repetition. If you haven’t said it five times, it hasn’t landed. Effective change communication for frontline workers means repeating the same information in multiple formats, across multiple touchpoints, with clear channels for questions and clarification.

Summer

A time of holidays and heat. Shift swaps spike, coverage gets unpredictable, and project and production targets shift. New or temporary staff are onboarded quickly. 

In this environment, comms that were drafted three weeks ago may bear little resemblance to what’s actually happening on the floor.

What frontline workers need: Speed and self-serve. Updates that reach workers at the right time. Updated policies and procedures available via a searchable knowledge hub. Team messaging tools for new hire questions.

September

Back-to-school season reshapes team availability. Parents may struggle to juggle work around strict pick-up and drop-off times. Students are leaving or joining. Teams are reconfiguring at the same time that new routines are being established. 

What frontline workers need: Coordination. Shift schedule comms. Reconnection with teammates after summer breaks through the people directory and communities.

October & November

Thanksgiving, Black Friday, and the festive season are all on the horizon. That means increased consumer spending and increased pressure on frontline workers across sectors. 

During this time, hiring ramps up, training is a priority, and expectations of worker output increase.

What frontline workers need: Personalization and prioritization. When everything competes for attention, nothing gets through. This is the time for careful segmentation — making sure frontline staff only receive updates relevant to their role — and for comms that connect individual effort to the bigger picture.

December

A time when many frontline organizations are working at maximum operational intensity. Workers are tired, with limited mental bandwidth. But they need to maintain momentum until the festive break. During this time, stress levels are high, mistakes are more likely, and attention is a scarce resource.

What frontline workers need: Brevity and clarity. This is not the month for lengthy updates or complex policy docs. Every piece of content should be short, sweet, and to the point. Push employee recognition at this time, too — it works wonders for morale.

The types of communication frontline workers are most likely to respond to

The frontline content you choose to share will vary depending on the month. But there are some frontline communication best practices you should try to weave into your comms calendar all year round.

Personal and timely beats corporate and scheduled

A message that arrives just at the right moment carries more weight than a perfectly crafted scheduled update. Frontline comms planning should build in space for reactive, real-time communication alongside pre-scheduled content.

Peer-to-peer comms matter as much as top-down

Frontline workers return to internal comms channels when they provide space for co-worker connection. So enable and amplify peer communities, recognition, and knowledge-sharing to create a sense of engagement and belonging that top-down messaging alone can’t achieve.

Recognition in the moment beats the end-of-quarter shoutout

By the time a quarterly recognition email arrives, workers have long forgotten the specific moment you’re referencing. Recognition that’s immediate, specific, and visible to the team has significantly more impact on morale and engagement than delayed, generic praise.

Interactive comms beat passive messaging

Content that employees can respond to, react to, and participate in generates more engagement than broadcast updates. Polls, questions, short-form video, and news feed content that invites a response are more engaging and more memorable.

Multimedia beats a page of text

Frontline employees work busy shifts. They don’t have a ton of time during the workday to check in with company comms. 

For this reason, the best messages are short, succinct, and put the most important information first. They also use images and video to convey a lot of information in a short space of time.

Comms planning for frontline workers: How to build the internal comms calendar they actually need

Understanding the unofficial calendar is the starting point. Building it into your internal comms strategy requires a few practical shifts.

Overlay operational moments onto your comms plan

Map seasonal peaks, policy change cycles, onboarding waves, and predictable points of stress alongside your standard content calendar. 

For each moment, ask: what do frontline workers need to know, feel, or be able to do at this point in time? Then, craft communications based on your answers.

Give managers the tools to communicate without becoming a bottleneck

Managers are the last mile of internal comms — but they can’t carry the full weight of operational communication without support. 

Pre-written talking points, timely manager-only briefings, and clear escalation channels help managers communicate effectively without creating delays or distortions.

Segment your audience

A warehouse operative, a new seasonal hire, and a shift supervisor have very different information needs. A frontline communication strategy that treats the whole workforce as a single audience will underserve all of them. 

Segmentation — by role, location, tenure, and shift pattern — means every employee receives communication that’s hyper-relevant to their current situation.

Frontline communication planning made easy with Blink

Building an internal comms calendar that works for frontline workers requires careful planning. But executing that plan can feel hard without the right comms infrastructure.  

A desktop intranet that shift workers never log into. A bulletin board crowded with paper notices. A manager cascade that creates confusion and bottlenecks. None of these channels provides effective support for a new and improved, frontline-focused comms schedule.

Instead, you need internal communication software built with the frontline workforce in mind. Only then can you deliver effective frontline comms and a better frontline employee experience.

Blink is a unified mobile-first platform designed around the realities of frontline work. It provides:  

• A personalized news feed so you can deliver targeted content to the right employees at the right time
• Push notifications for urgent operational updates
• A searchable knowledge hub for self-service information
• Recognition and survey tools that make employees feel valued and heard
• Analytics that show comms teams what’s landing — by team, location, and time of year

Blink gives you the tools to plan, deliver, and continuously improve frontline communication — all in one place. So you can turn your comms calendar into something frontline workers actually see, use, and rely on.

Blink. And build an internal comms calendar fit for a modern frontline workforce.

“Dear Employee, your GTK forms are now Available in the YTG portal, Please fill them by Thu so they can be processed by MONDAY. Thank you!!!!”  

Internal messages like these are liable to confuse your audience.

Grammar mistakes, inconsistent capitalization, and workplace jargon make internal communications confusing. A lack of personalization and an ill-defined tone of voice make it unengaging.

The result? Your audience doesn’t understand your message — or chooses to ignore it because it holds no interest.

We know that ineffective communication costs businesses up to $15,000 per employee per year. So consistent, effective, and engaging communication has to be the standard.

An internal communication style guide helps your communicators post content that ticks all these boxes. Let’s look at what a style guide is — and how to create one — so you can ensure clear employee communication and a positive employer brand image.

What is a business communication style guide?

A business communication style guide is a document that details the content and writing standards you want internal communicators to stick to.

It includes rules on things like grammar, formatting, writing style, word choice, and tone of voice. It offers guidance on how to make content more interesting, relevant, and easy to digest. It may also provide information on how to create and format multimedia content.

Your internal communicators can refer to these standards whenever they create content, ensuring that everything is kept consistent, no matter who is writing or posting.

This makes your internal messages easier for employees to understand. It also supports your internal communication strategy. Because when employees are used to receiving clear and relevant messages, they’re much less likely to switch off from employee communications.

A style guide keeps everyone on the same page at all times. And it embeds a shared understanding of internal content creation throughout your company.

How to write your internal communication style guide: a template

Internal messages should be as concise as possible. The same goes for your internal communication style guide.

Nobody in your company wants to spend hours reading through a list of rules before they publish an internal communication message. So don’t be tempted to write reams.

It may help to look at style guide examples and templates — like the one we’ve included here — as inspiration. There’s broad consensus on what good internal messaging looks like. So most style guides contain a lot of the same information.

However, you will need to add company-specific guidance relating to your brand personality, tone of voice, and any particular language you want to use or avoid.

With all that in mind, here are the basic components you’ll need to include in your workplace communication style guide, along with some tips.

Introduction

The first section of a style guide is the introduction. It explains the basics of the guide, like how to use it, why it’s important, and what it includes.

The VA.gov style guide hits on all these points. It provides a straightforward experience for everyone, regardless of whether they’re viewing the guide for the first or tenth time.

To ensure people can use your guide as a reference, create a list of contents and use linked subheadings. That way, users can jump straight to the information they need.

A few internal communication principles

A good business communication style guide doesn’t just cover specific rules for workers to follow. It also shares the underlying internal communication principles behind those rules.

With knowledge of these principles, content creators can make the right editorial call, even in situations the guidelines don’t cover.

Here are some of the golden rules to include for content creators in your internal communication style guide.

Stick to the four Cs: Internal communication should be correct, clear, concise, and conversational. So fact check each piece of content. Ensure your primary message shines through. Say what you want to say in as few words as possible. And write in a way that reflects how real people talk to one another — using everyday words and phrases.

Understand your audience: Plan your content before you start writing. As you form an outline, ask yourself:

• What are the key things you want to convey?
• Who is this message for?
• What will the target audience want to know?
• What is their likely state of mind when consuming the content?

This will help you write cohesive content that gets to the point and answers employee questions.

Be clear and helpful: Break down complex messages into simple, bite-size chunks. Put the most important piece of information at the start of your content. Also, break up paragraphs and sentences to make them more digestible for readers.

Make it human: It’s much easier to connect with individual people than with an inanimate organization. So use words like “we” instead of your company name. And use the word “you” to talk to employees directly.

X Blink is looking for employees who want to volunteer with a local charity.

✓ We’re looking for employees who want to volunteer with a local charity.

X Employees can get involved by clicking this link.

✓ You can get involved by clicking this link.

Write inclusively: Only refer to a person’s disability, age, race, religion, gender, or sexual orientation if it’s relevant to the context of your content.

Grammar and punctuation

The third part of your internal communication style guide is all about the mechanics of writing.

Of course, you can’t cover every single grammar rule here. But you can give guidance regarding the most common grammatical errors and inconsistencies. Here are some ideas.

Ampersands: Don’t use ampersands (&), whether in titles, subtitles or the body of a message. Use the full word “and”.

Commas: Don’t forget to add the serial comma (also known as the Oxford comma), in lists of three or more items.

X In his award speech, Tom Cruise mentioned his parents, Steven Spielberg, and Martin Scorsese.

✓ In his award speech, Tom Cruise mentioned his parents, Steven Spielberg and Martin Scorsese.

Contractions: Contractions make your writing feel less formal. So use them in all your internal communications.

X We will have more news for you soon.

✓ We’ll have more news for you soon.

Be careful with common contraction errors. Writers often confuse “its” with “it’s”.

“Its” is used to show possession:

• The HR team has its away day on Monday.

“It’s” represents the phrase “it is”:

• It’s the HR team away day on Monday.

Also, avoid non-standard contractions like “should’ve” and “would’ve”.

Exclamation marks: Some writers are prone to using lots of exclamation marks. This can come across as overly informal or a little aggressive. However, the occasional exclamation mark can make a message seem more friendly. Be clear on whether and where you want communicators to use them.

Accuracy and spelling: Ensure that your content is free from errors. Use a spell-checker to catch mistakes you might have overlooked. And proofread everything before submitting it for publication or distribution.

Style and formatting

Style and formatting are all about how you want communicators to use language — and how you want them to present their message on the page.

Acronyms and abbreviations: These can cause confusion, particularly for new employees. So try to avoid them. When absolutely necessary, write the full version of the acronym or abbreviation the first time it appears in a piece of text.

For example:

• The customer experience (CX) team achieved their target this quarter.

Then use the acronym or abbreviation throughout the rest of the text.

In some cases, when an acronym or abbreviation is commonly used in the English language, you don’t need to spell the full word out.

Some examples: Mr, Ms, Ph.D

Capitalization: Use sentence case capitalization for page titles, subheadings, text links, and buttons.

X The Ultimate Internal Communication Style Guide

✓ The ultimate internal communication style guide

Remember that proper nouns (names of specific people, places, or organizations) are always capitalized, wherever they appear. And ALL CAPS should be avoided at all costs. They make a reader feel like you’re shouting at them. 

Dates and times: Dates are displayed differently in different countries. To avoid any confusion, write dates in their full format.

X 11/12/2026

✓ November 12, 2026

Don’t abbreviate days of the week or months of the year. For example, write “Monday” not “Mon” and “January” not “Jan”.  Also, write noon and midnight, rather than 12:00 p.m. and 12:00 a.m.

Bullet lists: Bullet lists make content easier to scan and understand. If there are three or more concepts in a sentence, try putting them in a bullet list instead.

When writing bullet lists:

• Capitalize the first letter of each bullet point
• Keep each list item short (no more than one or two lines)
• Use a parallel structure (start each point in the same way —for example, with a verb or a noun)

Links: The links you include in your content should feel natural and intuitive. They should show readers where to click and where the link will take them.

When creating links:

• Use descriptive language
• Hyperlink the most relevant text
• Avoid making the hyperlinked text too long

Headings and subheadings: Use headers and subheads to organize your content. This breaks text up and makes it easier to read.

Paragraphs and sentences: Keep the majority of your sentences and paragraphs short. Long blocks of text can be overwhelming for a reader, particularly if they’re reading content on a small mobile device screen. 

Here’s a quick rule of thumb:

• No more than 25 words in a sentence
• No more than three sentences in a paragraph

Numbers, weights, and measures: Write numbers one to nine as words. Write numbers 10, 11, 12, and so on as numerals. Write out fractions as words, using hyphens. For example, two-thirds or three-quarters.

Decide whether to write out or abbreviate weights, measures, and currencies. For example, decide between:

• % and percent
• kg and kilograms
• € and euros

Vocabulary: Highlight the correct form of commonly misspelled or incorrectly formatted words — particularly those your organization uses regularly. Ensure that your company name, company locations, and hyphenated words are written the same way across all content. 

Context-specific formatting: Perhaps news feed posts shouldn’t exceed a specified word count. Or you don’t want communicators to use emojis in emails. Explain any style and formatting rules related to the internal communication channels you use.

Writing voice and tone

This is where your business communication style guide is likely to feature lots of unique content. It’s all about the brand personality you convey — and how you make employees feel.

Start by thinking about your brand personality and values. Then, imagine your brand as a person.

Ask yourself how that person would speak and the kind of words they’d use. Perhaps their speech is polished and motivational. Or maybe they prefer to talk informally, throwing in the odd joke.

In this part of your internal communication style guide, describe what your brand personality is and isn’t. Also, give written examples that show communicators how to convey this personality across internal communications.

But remember that — while brand voice is a fixed thing — your tone can vary.

You may like to adapt your tone according to each communication channel and message format — or for different audience segments. If this is the case, give examples of how to adjust the tone for different scenarios.

Beyond the specifics of your brand voice and tone, there are a few foundations of good internal communication to keep in mind.

Use active voice: Using active voice instead of passive voice makes your employee communication more engaging and energetic.

X The training day was delivered by Amy.  

✓ Amy delivered the training day.

Be open and transparent: Transparent communication builds trust. This contributes to a positive company culture. So when creating internal communications, use a tone that is approachable and honest. Be as open as possible, particularly where mistakes have been made.

Also, invite employee feedback to respond to your communications. In doing so, you establish two-way communication, giving employees a voice and discovering useful perspectives.

Be respectful: As we mentioned earlier, inclusive language is essential for internal comms. Ensure you speak to all employees as equals. Don’t patronize and don’t highlight company hierarchy unnecessarily.

Be direct and to the point: Your employees want to learn the most important details of your message as quickly as possible. Keep your copy short without missing key information. Also, include a clear call to action so employees know what to do next.

Keep it positive: We’re not saying you should gloss over bad news. But where possible, use a positive tone when writing internal messages. Avoid cynicism and sarcasm.

Write with a conversational tone: Make text easy to understand by writing in Plain English. Pick short, simple words over long, complicated ones.

It can help to read your writing out loud. If you wouldn’t use particular words or sentence structures when talking to someone face-to-face, try editing your copy to make it more conversational.

For example:

X  Blink is a software solution for frontline-centric organizations.

✓ Blink is an employee app for companies with a big frontline workforce.

Multimedia content

Text may be the foundation of internal communications. But multimedia content is incredibly engaging for employees. 

If you regularly create content like videos, images, infographics, or audio, tell your team how this media should be presented. Here are some of the things you might like to cover.

Branding: If graphics and videos need to feature the company logo, company colors, or specific fonts, tell creators how you want them to incorporate your branding. Also, give guidance on whether stock photography is acceptable.

Quality and formats: Detail the minimum resolution of images, the maximum file size of multimedia content, the required quality of audio, and preferred file formats.

Accessibility: Give instructions on alt tags, contrasting color palettes, and any video caption requirements to ensure your multimedia content is accessible to all employees.

A final note on creating your internal communication style guide

An internal communication style guide acts as a reference. Your communicators can use it to improve your internal communication, making it more consistent, engaging, and effective.

Many of the guidelines in an internal communication style guide cover best practices. These can be applied to almost any organization. But you need to adapt your guide so it reflects your branding, your tone of voice, and the needs of your employees.

It can help to treat your guide as a work in progress. Once you have a guide in place, you can add to it. Any time you see an error or an inconsistency in your internal communications, update your style guide to prevent similar mistakes in the future.

We hope this template speeds up the creation of your internal communication guide. Good luck with your first draft!

Read more: 11 engaging ideas for your internal communication plan

Looking for a Unily alternative?

Unily is a powerful platform—but for many organizations, it’s overly complex, difficult to manage, and time-consuming to implement. From rigid intranet structures to costly customizations, it often demands heavy IT involvement just to get the basics right.

If you're looking for something easier to use, faster to roll out, and more engaging for employees, you're not alone.

In this guide, we cover the top 10 Unily alternatives—platforms that deliver the same core benefits (communication, connection, and culture) without the complications. Whether you're in HR, Comms, or IT, these options are worth considering for a modern employee experience.

Top 10 Unily alternatives in 2025

#1. Blink (Best overall Unily alternative)

Blink is the employee experience platform designed to eliminate the friction that comes with legacy intranets like Unily. Where Unily often requires months of setup and technical oversight, Blink delivers immediate impact with a consumer-grade UX, built-in tools, and zero learning curve.

Why Blink is the smarter choice:

• No IT bottlenecks: Blink is designed for self-serve teams—get started in weeks, not quarters.
• Mobile and desktop ready: Unlike Unily’s more rigid intranet framework, Blink works wherever your employees do.
• One simple platform: Comms, chat, surveys, document sharing, and app integrations—all in one place.
• Instant engagement: Push updates, target messages, and track results in real time without needing an admin army.

Pros:

• Rapid deployment and intuitive for any user
• Eliminates the complexity and silos of traditional intranets
• Higher adoption and engagement rates
• Streamlined pricing and low total cost of ownership

Cons:

• Fewer deep customization options compared to Unily (by design)

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#2. Staffbase

Staffbase offers an employee communications platform designed for corporate messaging and internal branding. It supports newsletter creation, a mobile app, and intranet functionality.

Pros:

• Strong employee app for internal comms
• Designed for global organizations
• Supports multiple languages

Cons:

• Requires training and onboarding time
• Some advanced features locked behind higher-tier pricing

#3. Firstup

Firstup is focused on employee journeys and automated campaigns. It’s especially suited for organizations with complex audience segments and large enterprise needs.

Pros:

• Advanced audience segmentation and targeting
• Automation capabilities for content delivery
  

Cons:

• May require dedicated resources to manage campaigns
• Less intuitive for smaller or mid-size companies
  
  

#4. Simpplr

Simpplr positions itself as a modern intranet platform with a clean design and AI-powered search. It’s focused on streamlining communication and enabling a sense of belonging.

Pros:

• Strong content discovery and search tools
• Integrated org charts and people directories

Cons:

• Pricing can be steep for growing teams
• Limited mobile functionality compared to other platforms

#5. Workvivo

Designed to blend communication with culture, Workvivo gives employees a platform to share stories, celebrate wins, and stay informed. It supports both leadership updates and peer-to-peer engagement. The interface feels familiar to social media, driving higher adoption.

Pros:

• Social-media-style interface
• Culture and engagement features built-in
  

Cons:

• Collaboration and productivity tools are limited
• Can feel more like an engagement layer than a full intranet
  
  

#6. Interact

Interact offers a feature-rich intranet solution with a strong focus on content governance and compliance. It’s ideal for organizations with strict security or industry regulations.

Pros:

• Rich permissions and content management controls
• Good for highly regulated industries
  

Cons:

• Can be complex to configure
• Slower time-to-value compared to more modern platforms
  
  

#7. Haiilo

Formerly Smarp, Haiilo is a social intranet and advocacy platform. It focuses on content sharing, social collaboration, and employee voice.

Pros:

• Social interaction features
• Integrates with Microsoft 365
  

Cons:

• Not a full digital workplace platform
• Focus is heavier on communication than productivity
  
  

#8. Microsoft SharePoint + Viva

If you're deeply invested in the Microsoft ecosystem, SharePoint paired with Viva can be turned into a digital employee experience platform—though it often requires heavy customization.

Pros:

• Seamless with Microsoft 365 apps
• Highly customizable with IT support
  

Cons:

• Often needs consultants or developers to manage
• User experience can feel clunky without Viva add-ons
  
  

#9. Jive (Aurea)

Jive is a legacy enterprise social platform with collaboration, communities, and knowledge-sharing tools. It remains a viable choice for large, complex organizations.

Pros:

• Good for internal communities and knowledge bases
• Mature platform with years of enterprise use
  

Cons:

• Outdated user experience
• Less support for mobile and modern UI
  
  

#10. LumApps

LumApps integrates directly with Google Workspace and Microsoft 365, offering a centralized hub for company knowledge, news, and social collaboration.

Pros:

• Strong integrations with cloud suites
• Personalization and targeting features
  

Cons:

• Requires IT involvement for deployment
• Learning curve for admins and content creators
  
  

Final thoughts

Unily has long been a popular choice for enterprise intranets, but today’s workforce needs faster, more flexible, and engaging tools. If you’re rethinking your digital employee experience, platforms like Blink offer a modern alternative that’s easier to deploy, simpler to manage, and proven to engage employees across the board.

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Why teams choose Blink over Unily

Unily is a polished, enterprise-grade intranet platform, but its pricing and implementation timelines are built for large, desk-based rollouts. Blink is mobile-first, requires no corporate email, and is used daily by teams at McDonald's, Domino's, and Chick-fil-A — with a rollout that doesn't require an enterprise implementation team. See how Blink compares.

This article is part of Blink’s “frontline first” series: content created specifically for leaders of deskless or distributed teams. We know that the job of frontline leadership is entirely different from managing ‘desk-based’ teams, so this is for you and your unique set of challenges.

Driving frontline employee engagement has never been easy - but as we head into 2023, it's never been more important.

In the wake of COVID-19 and in the midst of the ongoing Great Resignation, leaders of deskless organizations now have to contend with the added pressures that a recession may bring. All this means that keeping workforces engaged and stable is critical.

Based on working with hundreds of frontline organizations all over the world, we've identified the top trends to watch out for when planning your 2025 engagement strategies.

1. Turnover

Employee turnover continues to be high, and a survey earlier this year indicated that “57% of frontline workers are ready to move into another frontline role with better salary.”

While job trends may change over the coming year, expect abnormal turnover to be the new normal going forward - and all the plays you’ve made to combat it in the last year need to be redoubled. 

2. Technology empowerment

Many frontline workforces are still using the kinds of processes that desk-based workers would have scoffed at ten years ago, let alone today. But that’s all about to change.

There’s been a 300% year-on-year growth in demand for technology services that specifically support frontline workers.

This isn’t a top-down drive: “63% of frontline workers are excited about the job opportunities tech creates, and tech ranks third on the list of factors workers say could help reduce workplace stress.” 

These kinds of technology initiatives won’t be copy-and-paste versions of what desk-based workers are used to - for example, an app version of the employee intranet. The problem with these kinds of solutions is that they’re not designed to be useful to the frontline - they ask for a frontline worker’s precious time, rather than earn it. 

2023 is therefore going to see leadership recognizing that technology solutions need to not only provide a user experience built around (not tweaked for) the mobile, deskless workday that the frontline experiences, but that contain the kind of valuable support that makes it worth their time. 

This is where we’ll see a raft of organizations finally attempt to solve for frontline employee engagement in 2023. In doing so, they’ll reap the rewards of productivity and retention gains that come with it. 

3. Burnout 

Burnout was one of the buzzwords of the pandemic and it’s not going away any time soon. A survey of 2,500 frontline employees conducted by Axonify indicated that “50% of frontline workers are preparing to leave their current jobs, with 58% citing burnout as the top reason.” This burnout is attributed to their experiences at work, such as long work hours, stressful interactions with the public, and lack of management communication. 

In 2023, frontline organizations will need to increase their efforts to provide wellbeing support, remembering that this starts with being able to listen effectively as well as act.  

4. Progression and opportunity

Research from McKinsey earlier this year showed an important gap in what frontline employees want from their jobs versus what their employers think they want. Critical here was the fact that “the opportunity for job growth or promotion is an even higher priority for frontline employees than pay or benefits alone”.

This is where organizations are in line for a wake-up call: Gartner mentioned that “44% of employees believe their employer does not have compelling career paths.” Those who are acting swiftly to promise investment in a long-term career path - such as McDonald’s Archway to Opportunity program - will both attract and retain ambitious, committed workers. 

5. Flexibility 

Frontline workers have witnessed their desk-based counterparts suddenly become able to work from the comfort of their own homes (and pajamas). Unsurprisingly then, the expectations of what employers can deliver have therefore been raised - and some companies are meeting them. For employees who balance work with caring responsibilities, education or second jobs, the ability to deliver flexibility on when and how to work can be as much of a deal-breaker as salary. 

In 2023, expect more companies to find smarter ways to offer this while maintaining reliable productivity - for example, in the use of more efficient shift scheduling software.

6. Diversity, equity and inclusion

The gap between deskless and desk-based workers is particularly pronounced when it comes to diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) programs. 

According to Axonify, 86% of office workers are satisfied with their DEI support versus 67% of branch and frontline workers. Its findings also indicate that male workers feel more satisfied with their jobs than female workers based on compensation, how they’re treated by management, and the career development they’re offered. 

Considering that frontline industries show overrepresentation of many minority groups compared to desk-based work (nearly two-thirds are women, and just over 40% are people of color), this is a front-page engagement issue for leadership. 

7. Productivity 

This is the ‘new’ concern that comes with the specter of impending recession. For private sector industries in particular - such as manufacturing, hospitality, retail, and logistics - demand and therefore revenue may be volatile, so margins will not only be squeezed, but the agility needed to adapt to changing circumstances will be make-or-break. 

Employee engagement has a huge role to play in making this possible. In tough times, engaged workers stay; disengaged workers jump ship. Just as engaged workers go above and beyond to be more productive, disengaged workers can drag down a team. 

If in doubt, the numbers talk: the behaviors of highly engaged business units result in a 23% difference in profitability.

It’s at this point that delivering frontline employee engagement will be business-critical. Those that manage to communicate effectively and efficiently will be able to have shifts filled and services delivered on time - those that don’t will find that productivity becomes a debilitating challenge. 

8. People analytics and the evolving role of HR

Over the course of 2022, human resources has taken on an even more important role in organizations - and people analytics (aka collecting HR data and then transforming it into actionable insights) is a big reason for this.

The power of harnessing data is transformative, particularly since it can help impact every single one of the key trends mentioned above - but it’s far from easy, particularly for frontline organizations where ‘data’ can still often mean paper-based forms collected in a filing cabinet. But the successful companies will be the ones who try, and getting started is easier than many think. 

Want to learn more about frontline employee engagement?

This article is an excerpt from Blink's brand-new guide to frontline employee engagement in 2023, which includes six key strategies to help leaders face the challenges that we've set out here. Click here or the image below to download your free copy: