Your company is constantly growing and changing with the times — don’t leave your employees behind with poor communication. Here are the basic pillars to maintain in any successful internal communication strategy:

Engagement

An engaged workforce is a powerful workforce. In fact, companies with engaged employees make 2.5 times more revenue on average than their competitors with low engagement levels. Keeping an engaged workforce means having a good relationship with your employees. Like any relationship, it’s about give and take: ask your employees the right questions, request feedback, and use it to shape your strategy. Employee surveys are boring, and employees often don’t feel motivated to take them, much less provide thorough, meaningful responses. Here are some techniques we’ve used with some of our clients to engage their employees and elicit feedback in unique ways:

• Encourage employees to share interests outside of work. Showcase these interests on an internal social media platform with pictures and information in the employees’ own words. This allows employees to get to know each other and interact on a more casual, personal level, which creates a more engaged, comfortable work environment.
• Use internal influencers to share your message. No one knows your employees better than, well, themselves. Peer-to-peer communication has a productive and powerful influence on the way employees work. For example, who better to promote wellness incentives than the local health nut?

Experience

Creating a pleasant internal culture that matches your external values is crucial in keeping your employees engaged. Your communication plays a big role in this — coordinate events outside of work to promote team bonding, celebrate milestones like marriage, becoming parents, or finishing grad school by throwing an in-office party. This lets employees know you care about them, but also shows that you pay attention to their life and are willing to go above and beyond. In turn, your employees are more likely to do the same for your clients.

Empowerment

It’s important to show your employees appreciation from time to time — after all, without them, there wouldn’t even be a company. Here’s how some of our clients remind employees of their value:

• Include employees that go above and beyond in a monthly or weekly newsletter. Showcase their accomplishments and their fun side in a way that grabs attention — not just in some memo that’s haphazardly slapped on a bulletin board.
• Support paid time off. Showing that you trust your employees goes a long way. Empower them to take the time off that they need – you’ll get a lot more out of well-rested employees than burned-out ones.

Caring about your employees is more than just keeping them in the loop and a good communication strategy is more than just sending an occasional company-wide email. It’s about making employees feel truly connected and part of your family. If you engage and empower your employees while giving them a good experience, you’ve built the foundation for a solid, loyal workforce.