How to increase engagement with employee communications

SocialChorus, a global workforce communications platform, today announced results from its 2018 Comms Effectiveness Survey, which highlights how companies with the right tools effectively capture and maintain employee attention and engagement. SocialChorus surveyed 840 end-users of the SocialChorus platform and analyzed activity across its global programs with data from more than 1.5 million employees worldwide, including engagement with mobile apps, emails and push notifications.

Large enterprises face ongoing challenges including brand reputation, employee retention and changing employee expectations for the work experience. Further, the increasing number of deskless and distributed workers require that organizations find a better way to connect with an increasingly dispersed workforce.

At the heart of these shifting dynamics is employee communications. SocialChorus’ new report, the “2018 Comms Effectiveness Survey,” asserts that as enterprises adjust to this new climate, modernizing their employee communication and engagement strategies is critical to maintaining organizational alignment. The findings highlight that employees expect a similar experience in their work lives as they do in their personal lives. They want news and company information that is concise, relevant, and easy to access and consume.

How to increase engagement with employee communications

Apps rule

According to the survey, two-thirds of workers also found their company app easier and faster than other content sources, such as their intranet, email, and printed materials. Additionally, mobile apps are a necessity for reaching a distributed workforce and deskless workers, such as retail and factory employees. When it comes to length, employees use their company app for around two minutes at a time. This doesn’t mean the content should be shorter, but it should be “snackable.” Long text can be broken up with headlines, photos, links, or any other way to make the content scannable and easy to read on a small screen or a variety of screens. At the same time,push notifications could work for you. The survey found that 66% of iOS users opt in to receive push notifications, which is significantly higher than the 40% industry average. Push notifications let your employees know about important news, and 77% of Power Users read content from a push notification. P

Videos can help

Video contributes to keeping 53% more employees as active users after their first 30 days using the company mobile app. Communicators and company leaders who use video to communicate with employees see three times higher click-through rates than any other type of content. Top-performing videos (measured by percentage of likes) tend to be either less than 30 seconds in length or 60-90 seconds long. Make videos short and to the point.

Diversify.

Use different content types to help your workforce better understand what you are trying to communicate. One way is to use a variety of visuals, such as GIFs, videos, photos, and infographics. You’ll increase engagement and help employees grasp your communications more easily. You want employees to turn to your company app for news; but, to keep them coming back, you need to think about content types. The highest performing programs test and vary the types of messages they push through the platform.

Top performers include:

• Contests and trivia
• CEO messages
• Employees sharing personal info
• Employee recognition and awards
• Personal and professional growth tips

Be personal.

According to the results, one size does not fit all, and targeting communications to different groups helps you personalize your messages and drive desired actions. Moreover, it benefits communicators and workers. For example, rather than sending out a wide blast of policy changes that affect only a portion of your workforce, you could send the information only to those affected. People feel more engaged with relevant content, and the survey saw nearly double the clickthrough rate with targeted channels. Like targeting with relevant content, your workers want to personalize their experience, similar to consumer apps.

Personalization drives more frequent use and a higher rate of retention. In fact, users who personalize their content feeds are four times more likely to be using the app after 90 days. These workers continuously return to their company app because they find value and engage with content relevant to them. They also:

• Follow at least one channel (average: 1.74)

• Read an average of 16 content cards

• Bookmark content 9 percent more often

“Our study underscores the shifts we are seeing in the employee experience and how organizations can no longer rely on a single tool or method to effectively reach and engage all employees,” said Sonia Fiorenza, vice president of communications and engagement strategies at SocialChorus. “Ultimately, organizations that thrive will not only be equipped with the right communications tools, but can also quickly adapt to changing employee needs and reach every employee, at the right time with the right message.”