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Before the COVID-19 pandemic, internal communications via in-person meetings, team-building exercises, and other non-virtual means were common. These days, 52% of global employees work remotely at least once a week, forcing companies to rely on online mediums for internal communication.
Despite having access to multiple communication apps, 67% of UK employees feel disconnected from their company culture and colleagues while working remotely, 49% of these employees say that this disconnect is affecting their work performance.
Prevent disconnect and keep employees aligned with your organisational goals through effective internal communication. Before explaining how to do that, let’s look at the benefits of employees aligning with organisational goals.
Organisational goals are the objectives your company aims to achieve. You must clearly define these goals and share them with your employees. When employees know and understand the organisational goals, they can work towards them, leading to benefits like:
Research indicates that disengaged employees cost the UK economy around £340 billion yearly. That’s because disengaged employees are less productive, less trainable, and more prone to absenteeism.
Having clearly defined organisational goals and helping employees align with those goals gives your workers something to focus on and work towards. The more focused your employees are, the more engaged and productive they will be.
When employees share the same goals as their company, there is less friction within the organisation. That’s because everyone is working towards a common goal to make the company successful. Reduced workplace friction also prevents disputes and speeds up decision making, leading to improved company efficiency.
When employees focus more on personal goals, they take decisions that benefit them but not necessarily the company. On the other hand, the more aligned your employees are with your company’s goals, the more likely they are to make decisions that positively impact the entire organisation.
Organisational goals are the short and long-term outcomes that your company wants to achieve. A company is more likely to achieve its goals if employee actions and behaviours support those goals. However, employees cannot align with organisational goals if they do not know or understand them.
If you want employees to understand and embrace your organisational goals, make the goals:
Follow these steps to create organisational goals that have the above features:
During remote work, employees can easily lose sight of organisational goals and become less productive. Your company can combat this issue through frequent, engaging, and coherent internal communication.
Frequent internal communication keeps remote workers in tune with the company’s short and long-term objectives. It accomplishes this by providing employees with updates about what the company has accomplished and the next steps for achieving other objectives.
Engaging and coherent internal communication ensures that remote employees pay attention to information shared by the company and understand it. When internal communication has these features, it creates a balanced employee experience that benefits all your workers.
When every worker has the same quality employee experience, employee engagement improves across the board. Compared to low employee engagement workplaces, companies with high levels of employee engagement are 22% more profitable and 21% more productive (Gallup). Establish engaging internal communications with all of your employees, regardless of their role, location, or rank.
Emails and other traditional forms of internal communication still work, but they don’t get the best results, especially in remote or hybrid work environments. Here are some non-traditional internal communication mediums that are great for carrying your in-office and remote employees along:
While most traditional internal communication methods have low employee engagement (below 20%), internal podcast engagement is over 60%. The high engagement rate makes internal podcasts an excellent choice for asynchronous communication–communication that doesn’t require immediate attention.
Organisation leaders can create podcasts to keep remote employees updated about company goals and ensure that employees stay aligned with the company’s vision. Since podcasts don’t have to be in real time, employees can listen to them at their convenience, as many times as they want.
Podcasts are suitable for large companies and growing startups, especially if the company has remote employees spread across various time zones. Besides sharing company updates, you can use podcasts to onboard new employees and introduce them to your organisational culture and goals.
For synchronous or real-time communications, you can live-stream messages from company leaders. Live-streaming is ideal for organisation-wide internal communications, especially since it can reach every employee at once.
Optimise the engagement of a live-streamed internal communication by making it interactive. If remote employees can ask questions and raise concerns during a live stream, they will feel more connected with their colleagues and the company culture. Having their voice heard will also increase remote employee’s work satisfaction and make them feel included.
Employee feedback is essential for learning about your company’s shortcomings and how to improve the employee experience. Through pulse surveys, you can get frequent, timely, and accurate feedback about the quality of your company’s employee experience.
Also, when workers regularly provide feedback, they become engaged employees because they believe that their input can make a difference in the workplace. Lastly, you can use pulse surveys to see if employees understand the organisational goals and steer them in the right direction if they are straying from the set goals.
Position your company for long-term success by making sure your employees share the same goals as your company. Through transparent and frequent internal communications, help your employees understand the organisational goals and guide them towards making those goals a reality.
Want to know how Engagedly can make your internal communication seamless? Request for a live demo.
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