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Inside Comm’ #4
Internal communication tools in 2020

Helene Renaud

Author

Helene Renaud

Welcome to Inside Comm’, the podcast in which I explore the internal communication landscape!
I’m Hélène Renaud, the host of this podcast. You’ll get to know me throughout these episodes where I alternate between shorter episodes with some quick tips & tricks and slightly longer episodes where I discuss with internal communicators some best practices and some of their inspiring projects.

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Internal communication tools in 2020

There is no magic formula when it comes to successful internal communication. It’s more a combination of elements to keep in mind when planning how to convey information to your teams.

The different notions that I think should be incorporated are:

  • regularity,
  • flexibility,
  • education

And adaptation, as you progress, of areas for improvement.

This will enable you to reach the goal you set for yourself: Bringing your employees closer together, even if they are physically separated.

Once this virus has been eradicated, there will still be a new way of working.

As we know, remote working will feature in this new work era.

So in this episode, I’m going to take a look at the different channels that can help with internal communication.

Formal vs informal communication

But first of all, we need to distinguish between two types of communication for these different channels: formal communication and informal communication.

You’ll know from my first episode that formal communication is what I call top/down communication. The one that comes from management.

Whereas informal communication refers to exchanges between colleagues. It’s therefore by definition freer and less corporate.

These two types of communication are important if they are balanced and handled well.

It also depends on the size of the company you work for or manage.

It’s not a case of one-size-fits-all 🙂

Chat systems

The following are just a few examples of these tools.

In the category communication channels for informal communication, a chat or internal messaging tool is an option. At Absolute Agency we use the well-known Slack tool. We’ve been using it for a few years, and I have to say that it has helped us cut down on sending internal emails.

The tool is really well designed, as we can create channels by job or by subject. We can also have conversations in small groups or through live messages with the different members of our team.

Many have also set up or used more frequently messaging systems such as WhatsApp or corporate social networks such as Yammer and others.

Some employees have also set up FB groups.

Video tools

This lockdown period has seen the advent of video tools. Teams, Skype and Webex have become very popular (maybe too popular, as it can be tiring spending whole days discussing things on-screen) But we couldn’t have done without them!

They were also used for more fun times like the virtual happy hours in the 1st lockdown!!

For sharing corporate information, intranets have also been used. As have newsletters and industry journals which are more often the digital voice of management.

These tools made it possible to cover more specific subjects such as:

  • the organisation’s financial health
  • business news
  • HR or legal information

Chatbots

Finally, more specialist advances have come about, including the creation of an HR chatbot to handle some of the HR team’s recurring issues.

The more creative the communication team is, the longer this list can grow, but this is just a quick recap of the tools available to you to liven up your company communication!

I encourage you to explore each of these tools in more detail in the next episodes!!

Thank you for listening and see you soon! 🙂

 

By Hélène Renaud