For the deskless employee—or most workers across industries such as retail, hospitality, manufacturing and health care—“trickle-down” or cascading systems of communicating information is no longer effective. (image: Shutterstock)
As many HR professionals can attest, communicating information such as benefits to employees can be a daunting task. Keeping up-to-date on ever-changing policies and regulations and helping employees understand what they all mean can be a time-consuming and costly process. This is especially true of the often overlooked deskless worker who doesn't have the same privileges as his or her deskbound counterparts, including basic technologies like corporate email or intranets.
For the deskless employee—or most workers across industries such as retail, hospitality, manufacturing and health care—“trickle-down” or cascading systems of communicating information is no longer effective. HR leaders still using breakroom posters, emailed memos or snail mail are probably missing the mark when communicating to a large percentage of their employee base. If they don't adapt and implement new internal communication strategies that go beyond tactical operations and actually drive engagement with employees, these professionals run the risk of becoming obsolete.
Related: Communications breakdown: How can brokers and employers get on the same page with technology?
One key factor in creating change is through implementing the right technologies. Recently, leading analyst firm Gartner released a report that emphasized the importance of technology within internal communication to drive business success. The report highlighted mobile technology in particular as a way to modernize communication and engagement strategies. Since nearly everyone has a mobile device of some sort these days, solutions such as mobile employee communications apps offer a cost-effective way to efficiently engage all employees with timely and important information, regardless of location or job function.
Through mobile tech and apps, HR professionals can:
- Send push notifications: Mobile allows for the sending of quick updates to all employees (or targeted groups) on important information such as changes to benefits as well as the ability to easily access the various documents required. This can eliminate the challenge HR leaders sometimes face, especially in getting information to those workers who don't have corporate email or intranet access, as well as the time and expense incurred in ensuring that all employees receive critical information.
- Leverage analytics: One of the important aspects of going mobile is the ability to analyze how employees are interacting with content. Through analytics, HR leaders can actually know whether the content is being consumed at all, what content is being consumed the most, and for how long. They can better understand what kinds of content employees prefer and use this information to possibly rethink how they create content to ensure they are providing information in a way that employees will best take advantage of.
- Create content that actually resonates with employees: By leveraging analytics, HR and communication professionals can understand their employee base better than ever before and determine the best ways to distribute content through the small screens of mobile. It is well known that Millennials and GenZers prefer sound bites of information and video to long winded documents and diatribes. Mobile provides an easy distribution channel to offer employees content the way they want to receive it and when they want to receive it. It allows those involved in HR and employee communications to better reach employees with content that resonates, while still aligning with company messaging.
Technology empowers executives with the tools to spur change across their organizations. And, one can only presume that mobile technology will continue to play a pivotal role when it comes to employee communications and engagement.
Moving forward, HR leaders should not only tap this technology to achieve positive results in their work, but also use it to help shed the impression that HR departments are there just as tactical distributors of information. It offers the opportunity for HR professionals to take on a new role as strategic communicator, enhancing the employee experience while at the same time contributing to an organization's business success.
Read more:
- 5 technology and data trends affecting employee benefits
- Taking the facts OUT of benefits communications
- Target benefits communication to reach employees
Jeff Corbin is founder and CEO of APPrise Mobile, a business-to-business/enterprise native app platform. Prior to APPrise Mobile, Jeff served as the CEO of KCSA Strategic Communications in New York City.
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