According to a survey by Clarizon, 81% of employers have said that their attempts to improve communication in order to boost productivity and keep projects on track had failed. When you’re trying to compete with Slack, Whatsapp, Sharepoint and a buzzing email inbox to deliver important information to your workers, how do you make sure you get heard?

Getting a message across to an entire workforce should be able to transcend age, culture, behavioral habits and hierarchy in order to be understood and engaged with.

With these differentials, the traditional method of dividing your company up by departments or office locations is ineffective. There is a need to make sure what you want to communicate gets the attention and involvement of the people in question.

So how do you do this successfully? One of the key methods is to create personas within your organization. Personas can help you effectively communicate with each age group, wherever they are in the organizational hierarchy.

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What are personas?

Personas are a semi-fictional representation of the people you are attempting to connect with.

These snapshots allow you to develop a more sophisticated style of communication. With these personas, you can understand your user’s needs, behaviors and experience and create strategies which will help your audience respond better to your message.

Sales and marketing people have been using personas to tailor their message to a set of distinct personalities for years. Its success as a technique has helped it become popular with internal communication experts more recently, so there’s no reason why you can’t use these tactics to create a sales or marketing intranet using personas for these departments, or any department in your organization.

Personas address differentials within a company. The main differences in a workforce are:

Age – An older generation will use a digital workplace differently to a younger worker.

Location – a message about the kitchen in the London office will not be relevant to home workers or anyone who works in the depot or another office.

Role – Internal communications can be tricky if some of your workforce are customer-facing, working remotely or are non-wired.

There are many other variables which help form personas, which we’ll look at shortly. But even with these three factors, it’s clear that developing a system for successful communication across a diverse organization is key.

Why use personas?

The age of memos being emailed to all staff, or of notice in the break room being sufficient, is long gone. Every day we are bombarded by channels all peddling different messages trying to grab a few moments of our attention. Through pop-up notifications, social media and instant messages on laptops, tablets and phones, a company needs to cut through this noise with communication that will engage and resonate with their people.

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This goal is even more challenging when the people in the organization are a mixture of different traits, behaviors and ages.

That’s why, when you’re developing internal communications strategies, it’s important to have an idea of the personas within your organization. Finding out what motivates people, what frustrates them and what their needs are allows you to deliver information, conversation and develop a culture that connects with your workforce. When you know who you’re targeting, you’re able to deliver a more empathic message, so personas also help deliver more effective communications.

Using this information, you’re also able to look at any software features or functionalities that can be used to support them. This, in turn, furthers the evolution of the business, with increased participation, engagement and contribution from more members.

Establishing the personas in your business allows you to create a conversation with your employees regardless of the countless differentiators. The employee-centered approach can stop workers being data on a screen and allow them to be seen as people.

How to create personas

The creation of your personas is based on a number of things – the role they are in, the challenges they face and their preferences. While personas are, to all extent and purposes, imaginary, they are based on reality and on the likes, dislikes, behaviors and motivations of your real-life work force.

(Interact customer, Piedmont Healthcare, created personas to identify the main target audiences for their new intranet project. Their strategic approach to identifying and satisfying user needs saw Piedmont secure recognition at the Intranet Excellence Awards. Discover more about their story in our Award-Winning Intranets guide.

There are a number of ways of grabbing information to create your personas. The data can come from the following sources:

Interviews – One-to-ones with individual members should unearth some valuable bits of information

Stakeholders – Involving stakeholders in the persona process gives them the opportunity to become engaged and more willing to adopt any new systems you are developing.

Focus groups – Have the groups come together to talk about their roles, challenges, frustrations and wish lists in their job

Surveys – Anonymous surveys can be very effective in working out what individuals are not saying out loud

Line managers – Their next-in-command will provide another view point.

This information from multiple sources should condense down to create no more than five or six separate personas, depending on the size of the company.

And as a business changes and evolves, it’s also important to revisit this process annually or biannually to keep abreast with developments.

What should a persona profile look like?

(UK children’s charity, the NSPCC, created archetypal personas based on information gathered from their staff. The persona helped identify the unique needs and attributes of their different employee groups, helping them to tailor communications accordingly.)

Constructing a persona should gather as much useful information to build up a good profile. Regardless of length, they will contain the core details:

• A name
• A short biography
• Their role
• A description of their personality
• A photograph

In order to get a better understanding, a list of their challenges and barriers that they face in their job should be included:

• The times they work
• Their average workload
• Their processes
• Any frustrations they experience
• Their roles and goals
• Traits
• Tasks
• Motivators
• Demographics
• Network
• Organizational Awareness

This information turns communication around. Instead of the traditional top-down structure informing workers what they think they should know, you can provide news and information that individual employees will find useful and meaningful in regard to the business as a whole. This will boost a staff member’s interaction with the organization.

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How to adopt personas

Personas can be used in a variety of areas within HR and internal communications. These snap shots of your workforce can help you improve how you do your job and enhance the working lives of your organization.

But while you form a detailed strategy for creating personas, the same level attention is required to make sure that the people that need to use them, do use them.

In order for the creation of persona profiles to be useful, they need to not only be based on real-life data, they need to be adopted by everyone on the internal comms team. It’s a good idea to get everyone’s involvement right from the beginning, so they help form the profiles and have an understanding of the role that the personas will play.

Getting leadership buy-in is important. Without the support of the top level, most projects will struggle to reach fruition. But you also need engagement with the stakeholders. Involving both parties in the creation of the personas will allow them to be far more engaged when it comes to roll out.

Launching personas in internal communications

If the business has existed for many years without the use of personas, you may come across some of the following objections:

“They are just stereotypes!”

“They do not reflect our workforce!”

“What are we supposed to do with them?”

And as part of persona creation involves looking at staff pain points, some departments may also object to unearthing more problems within an organization.

Building personas creates a more improved business. Aside from allowing internal communications to engage and connect more effectively with its people, the gathering of this information is invaluable to streamlining processes, providing extra resources and working out better ways to improve job roles.

Once the personas have been created, it is fundamental that they are adopted. After their launch, they should no longer be printed handouts, but ingrained into the psyche of the internal comms department. They should be organic to processes and be regarded as one of the many techniques which create better communication across the company.

If you’re working on improving the effectiveness of your internal communications department through the use of personas, you might be interested in our blog that suggests ways of measuring the success of IC operations.

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It’s official. Diversity makes us smarter. 

After decades of research from experts in sociology and psychology, economists, and organizational scientists, socially diverse have been proven to be more innovative than homogenous groups.

This means, the more varied your teams are in gender, sexual orientation, ethnicity, and race, the better they are at comprehending complex ideas, working together towards solutions, and collaborating to solve problems more efficiently.

While it makes sense that groups with more diverse expertise are more likely to be better at solving complex, non-routine challenges, science has proven that social diversity brings about the same benefits.

Why? Simply put, people with different backgrounds bring different angles and new information. Not only this but just interacting with different people adjusts each personal mindset, enabling the individual to take on alternative viewpoints and understand the effort required in reaching a consensus. 

How do you incorporate diversity in your workplace?

Of course, building a diverse workplace starts at the hiring stage. To this end, you need to look at your recruitment practices. Are your methods of sourcing candidates inclusive enough?

Consider using a job board specializing in diversity. There are plenty of recruitment agencies that specialize in ex-vets, people with disabilities, individuals on the autism spectrum, and people of color. Revise your current methods. Are you currently hiring talent in close proximity to your offices? Why? Off the back of 2020, remote working has proven itself to be just as effective as in-office working. A global talent pool is within easy reach and could provide you with different specialties that could transform your business.

Advertise your focus on a diverse workplace. People are actively looking for a diverse and inclusive workplace. Jobseeker searches for the term “diversity” rose about 222% year-over-year, according to July data from employment marketplace provider ZipRecruiter. According to Staffbase, most Americans are looking to work for a diverse modern workplace, with three-quarters of those polled stating that it’s very (49 percent) or somewhat (26 percent) important for companies and organizations to promote racial and ethnic diversity in their workplace.

Diversify your interview panel. Aside from recruitment, the next important stage for diversity is the interviewing stage. Ensure that at least at one stage during the interviewing process for each candidate you have a diverse group of people taking part. These people should be able to help you uncover unconscious biases and improve the fairness and equality principles of your whole recruitment process.

Tokenism

“If a company is hiring diverse candidates for diversity’s sake alone, then the risk is tokenism, which is harmful and isn’t necessary when there is an abundance of diverse talent out there.”

What is tokenism? According to Merriam Webster, it’s the practice of doing something (such as hiring a person who belongs to a minority group) only to prevent criticism and give the appearance that people are being treated fairly”. The individual isn’t being hired for their skills – but for their appearance. This may be done to minimize any criticisms of the lack of diversity in the workplace. In terms of creating an equal workplace – handpicking candidates for their ‘look’ is a very shallow initiative, as well as being very offensive to your talent pool.

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However, tokenism is very hard to prove. If you’re the only person in the organization of color, for instance, were you a token hire? Or has the organization realized its lack of diversity, and you were one of the first few hires at the beginning of this initiative? The determining factor is intent. If the business recognizes that its hiring process is problematic and is attempting to reset its policies for DE&I, it could be argued that their aim is honorable. On the other hand, if the organization is systematically handpicking ‘faces’ to offset any critique, there is a problem that needs urgently addressing.

How do you avoid tokenism?

As we’ve discussed, the most well-meaning, forward-thinking organizations are at risk of accusations of tokenism. So, how do we as business leaders ensure that our workforce represents our approach to inclusivity?

HR has three components to prevent tokenism: diversity, equity, and inclusion. We’ll break these terms down for clarity.

Diversity: Workplace diversity has become a buzzword in business. But it’s crucial for it not to lose its true meaning, which is to have a workforce from a range of backgrounds, including ethnicity, race, socioeconomic class, nationality, socioeconomic class, and gender.

Equity: This is ensuring everyone within your organization has equal access to pay raises, resources, mentors, promotions, responsibilities. It’s not the same as equality, which is having the same allotted benefits to everyone whether it’s appropriate or not. Equity is slightly different in that it attempts to identify the specific needs and requirements informed by demographic traits such as ethnicity, nationality, age, gender, etc. It then tries to address the differing needs of each group by bridging the gap between minority and majority groups.

Inclusivity: Inclusivity in the workplace means that each employee, no matter their background, feels welcomed and valued within the group. Many employees have a strong sense of identity linked to their religion, nationality, sexual orientation, and so on, but feel they need to leave this side of themselves at home. Employers must work hard to nurture an inclusive culture that extends to every individual. This creates a multi-dimensional culture at work that enables the employee to express who they are, feel valued, and add value. After all, each person has a set of experiences that can be leveraged to benefit the entire business. 

The bottom-line benefits of DEI

While DEI should be a prerequisite in talent acquisition in every organization, the benefits are manifold:

Higher profit margins

While corporate bottom lines shouldn’t be a reason for nurturing a diverse workforce, it’s an undeniable truth: those businesses who are proven to have a healthy diversity record also have higher profit margins. In fact, a recent study in the Harvard Business Review found that companies with above-average total diversity have 19% points higher innovation revenues and 9% points higher EBIT margins, on average.

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Optimized performance

A report from Deloitte saw that those companies that had a strong history of maintaining a diverse, equitable, and inclusive workforce were twice as likely to meet or exceed their financial target. The study also saw that they were eight times more likely to achieve better business outcomes. This positivity impacts employee sentiment too, with happiness and satisfaction levels increasing in diverse workplaces. 

Corporate bottom lines shouldn’t be a reason for nurturing a diverse workforce, but it’s an undeniable truth that those businesses who are proven to have a healthy diversity record also have higher profit margins.

Strong and steady growth

With this increase in performance and higher profit margins, steady growth inevitably follows. The Center for Talent Innovation studied publicly traded companies and found that those with greater diversity workforces were 45% more likely to have an expanded market share in the past twelve months than those who didn’t. The more diverse organizations were 70% more like to have captured a new market too. 

Why DEI programs don’t always work

But why do businesses have such a hard time implementing such a program? The truth is there are several obstacles in the way of organizations achieving a seamless initiative that has a good balance of people from all backgrounds. These include:

Putting the theory into practice is difficult

So we know it’s the right thing to do, we’ve read all the benefits, so why isn’t something that makes so much sense, easy to carry out? Because a theory needs a plan, and for a diversity program to succeed, it needs to have the people and support to bring it to fruition.  

Like any large-scale implementation, you will require people power and leadership buy-in to keep plans on track and objectives within sight. Ultimately, this initiative will impact everyone. Therefore every employee needs to understand what changes are taking place, and why. Effective communication at every level is critical.

HR suggestion: Many organizations set up a dedicated role to hold the business accountable for results. A new post, like a Head of Diversity within HR or talent acquisition, means that someone is managing the program and is reporting to line management regularly.

Your goals could be a lot different from your rival’s

You’ve seen a business implement a successful diversity strategy in record time. Surely, it’s just a case of replicating what they’ve done, right?

Wrong. Every business is different and has its own unique set of goals. Your diversity objectives need to align with these goals to be successful. This means you can’t copy what a rival organization has done. You need to shape your plan around your own specific culture. For example, you may have a strong LGBTQ community within your organization. So focusing on this area might not be a good use of time or resource. Instead, look at something like intersectionality and look at whether your workplace recognizes that your employees have more than one identity each.

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HR suggestion: To work out what goals best suit your specific situation, ask for the feedback of your workforce. Employees will have a much better idea of what is – and isn’t – working in your organization and will be able to offer you places to focus your initiatives.

Managers are your mouthpiece

One of the biggest obstacles comes from senior-level. When managers don’t understand the concept, fail to realize the importance, or are just not communicating effectively, you have a major weak spot in your plan. The effect of management is critical within an organization, so promoting diversity initiatives with them on board is important. They are the ones who have a considerable influence on team members and, in this way, can act as cheerleaders for whatever program you plan to roll out. For something culturally sensitive as diversity and inclusion in the workplace, it is vital that appropriate training is given to each manager. It is important that this training is pitched correctly: what they learn will be passed down to their employees and taken on board.  

HR solution: While this may be your initiative, it doesn’t mean you have to come up with the training! This is a discipline in itself, and there is a wide selection of training management companies with years of experience in DEI programs. These are the experts who will ensure the right language is used, handle any objections, and ensure continuity in your plan.

Bias is inherent

Unfortunately, bias in humans has always existed and remains a major stumbling block to every DEI strategy. Scientific research has repeatedly shown that most human decision-making is based on biases and beliefs – not facts or logic.

The fact that people may discriminate unintentionally – avoiding anyone whose first language isn’t English, having prejudices about those people of particular faiths – continues to have implications for understanding disparities in so many aspects of society. This may include, but not limited to health care, policing, education, and organizational practices like hiring and promotion. Even the most well-meaning employer may be guilty of it at some point in their career.

HR solution: Challenging these prejudices or unconscious bias (also known as implicit bias), educating on the vast range of ways we are different, and delivering a culture of tolerance and acceptance requires consistent and ongoing effort. Be aware of it and understand how to avoid bias or address it if you see it.

“This is unnecessary”

Don’t expect everyone to be onboard with the changes you wish to make. There may be some individuals who will resist. Some may feel like there is no need to focus further on this area, and some may just feel uncomfortable with change. Very occasionally, there may be an employer who will actively object to the strategy. 

This could turn into another HR matter, but overall, it’s essential to keep consistent. Part of your role is to constantly educate your employees, spread your message and build a diverse workforce by leading by example. 

HR solution: It’s important to remember that DEI strategies don’t happen overnight. You are managing a highly complex workforce, and each individual comes with their own agendas, identities, and motivations. As a result, your job is to simply help people understand your aims. While there will be a whole lot of people who will want to support your message, it’s essential to look out for those who are struggling to understand its importance. Your overall goal requires focusing, where possible, on results and outcomes – rather than aspirations. If your organization fails to meet its targets, own that and take responsibility, talking not only about what steps you take, but perhaps what needs to be done differently going forward.

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Market Leaders are vendors with a substantial customer base & market share. Market Leaders have the highest ratio of customer reference content, content quality score, and social media presence relative to company size.

The report is based on over 1,950 pieces of verified customer reference content. A vendor’s overall customer success score is reached via a weighted average of their Content, Market Presence, and Company Scores. Of the vendors listed in the FeaturedCustomers’ Employee Intranet Software category, 28 vendors met the minimum requirements needed to be considered for the customer success report.

The award comes after a huge period of growth for Interact, with a rollout of brand-new features, and a greater market presence over the past twelve months kickstarting a huge recruitment drive for the organization.

To download the Spring 2021 report and read more about Interact’s role as market leader in the employee intranet software vendor market, head here.

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The last year has presented businesses with many challenges – particularly our role in managing political and social discourse in the workplace. As business leaders, do we create an environment that can support and encourage the need for employees to express their opinions and feel comfortable discussing political and social matters in the context of our day-to-day work lives? Or are these types of conversations a scourge on the workplace, creating division, hostile working environments, and isolation?

Organizations, particularly high-profile ones, are gaining press attention in the way they are managing the employee voice in the workplace. In the past twelve months, we’ve experienced a traumatic and politically charged pandemic, a polarizing US election, and global protests against racial inequality and police brutality. These are all important subjects that are affecting our co-workers, friends, family – even ourselves. But they create difficult conversations and many different perspectives. When we’re trying to maintain social harmony within our organizations, but external events are impacting our employees, how political should we let our workplaces be?

Do we welcome political discussion or shy away from divisiveness?

As more employees become moved to speak more openly about their views and the circumstances surrounding them, businesses will need to confront this question. A number of high-profile organizations have already declared their stance on political discussion in the workplace. 

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Managing this is a delicate matter for businesses. A veto on political speech could be seen as censorship, a failure to address real-time issues, a dehumanizing of the workplace. However, encouraging employees to side with the company’s political affiliations like Nike, Lush, and Heinz do could risk alienation, discrimination, and a derailing of the primary mission of the business.

Despite the obvious controversy it could cause, some brands have been very vocal with their policies, drawing a mixture of criticism and admiration from social media and news outlets. 

The leave-it-at-the-door approach

In April 2021, Jason Friend, founder of Basecamp, sent a note to all employees informing them of a reworking of the company’s policy on political discussion in the workplace. 

“Today’s social and political waters are especially choppy. Sensitivities are at 11, and every discussion remotely related to politics, advocacy, or society at large quickly spins away from pleasant. You shouldn’t have to wonder if staying out of it means you’re complicit or wading into it means you’re a target. These are difficult enough waters to navigate in life, but significantly more so at work.

When the CEO of Coinbase released a memo restricting political speech in the office, more than 60 employees, or roughly 5% of its workforce, accepted exit packages.

Forbes

“It’s become too much. It’s a major distraction. It saps our energy and redirects our dialog towards dark places. It’s not healthy, it hasn’t served us well. And we’re done with it on our company Basecamp account where the work happens. People can take the conversations with willing co-workers to Signal, Whatsapp, or even a personal Basecamp account, but it can’t happen where the work happens anymore. “

Basecamp has been criticized for an apparent lack of cultural awareness and an embargo on important conversations. But is it contributing to the silencing of those who already have to shout to be heard? Many others have supported the policy, with Coinbase chief executive Brian Armstrong (who set down similar company guidelines in 2020) tweeting, “another mission-focused company…Who will be next?”

The embrace-the-discussion approach

In the tech industry, where many businesses try to stand out among their competition with unique and progressive attitudes towards corporate social responsibility, Basecamp’s stance is unusual. When Fried says, “We’re not a social impact company. We’re in the business of making software,” he’s contradicting his Silicon Valley associates and their claims about the role of tech in society. 

In sharp contrast to Basecamp, a large number of big brands have used their platform and status to talk openly about social, political, and cultural issues. Nike has famously been politically vocal for many years, creating an ad in the run-up to the last US election calling upon Americans to “change the world.” When Colin Kaepernick took the knee to protest against racial injustice, Nike made the quarterback the star of their next campaign. 

Ice cream brand, Ben & Jerry’s, has not shied away from political discussion either, particularly its anti-Trump sentiment. During the 45th presidency, the company produced a new flavor, “Pecan Resist”, to support “groups creating a more just and equitable nation for us all, and who are fighting President Trump’s regressive agenda”. Employees at Ben & Jerry’s are encouraged to engage in philanthropy and social change, to support grassroots activism and communities. 

Brand activism

This approach taken by Nike and Ben & Jerry’s is brand activism – something used by a growing number of companies to promote a higher purpose than their bottom lines. Brand activism is a product of the more established Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) and Environmental and Social Governance (ESG) programs within organizations.

Of course, it’s the organization’s prerogative on how heavy it wants to go in this arena. Most companies have a CSR program which could be seen as light touch compared to some high-profile brands. But this isn’t to suggest these programs mean any less. In fact, businesses are realizing more and more how important it is to stand for something.

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In 2015, Harvard Business Review produced their Best Performing CEOs in the World. Their rankings were based on 80% long-term financial results and 20% ESG. Given Amazon’s relatively weak ESG score, Jeff Bezos did not even make the top fifty. The top spot was given to Lars Rebien Sørensen, CEO of Novo Nordisk, the Danish pharmaceutical company. This is a company that has decided to focus on CSR to maximize the value of the company over a long period, as Sørensen says. “In the long term, social and environmental issues become financial issues.”

It has done this by offering insulin at a steep discount to consumers in developing countries, providing transparent and limited political lobbying practices, and declaring a responsible policy on animal testing. This is long-term thinking, and a clear awareness of the responsibility it carries. Sørensen knows he is able to make effective change, while still keeping shareholders satisfied. With this methodology, employees are happy to work for a business that has a mission and a purpose.

Employee activism

But when this mission is unclear – or even non-existent – disillusionment sets in.

Enter the employee activist.

Employee activism is a growing social movement that has been helped along in no small way by digital and social media. Several high-profile companies have seen their workers speak out against the practices and codes of their employers. Amazon has famously had disputes with workers, who have been speaking out about pay, benefits, and working conditions. Controversy around the organization’s stance on global issues, notably climate change, has shown just how quickly and easily employees can impact a brand’s reputation.  

In September 2019, Jeff Bezos announced that the company would be carbon neutral by 2040. The next day, Amazon staff staged a walk-out to support the Global Climate Strike opposing this new policy, and more than 8,000 workers signed a letter to Bezos demanding that more aggressive action was taken. 

“80% of companies expect a rise in employee activism”

Herbert Smith Freehills, The Future of Work

Other organizations have experienced similar situations in recent times. After a Google executive was accused of sexual misconduct, employees marched against the generous severance deal agreed on his departure. Microsoft employees have been very vocal about their employer supplying the US Army with technology “designed to help people kill.” In a world where a tweet from a disgruntled employee can go viral, silencing voices is no longer an option for companies. They have to facilitate open dialogue. 

Back to Nike, and their concern for ‘doing the right thing’ carries over to internal affairs. Their Code of Conduct actively encourages employees to speak up about any wrongdoing they see being carried out by the company. In a foreword to the document, Ann Miller, Chief Ethics and Compliance Officer states,

“I urge all Nike employees to be guided by both the letter and the spirit of our Code of Conduct. Sometimes, identifying the right thing to do isn’t an easy call. If you aren’t sure, don’t be afraid to speak up and seek guidance from any of the resources identified in the Code. As Chief Ethics & Compliance Officer, I can’t overstate the importance of staying diligent in reporting any concerns or potential violations of the Code as soon as they arise – without exception.”

(As an aside, despite its outspokenness on a range of political and social matters, Nike’s practices don’t seem to be living up to its principles. There is a range of ethical issues, including human rights, workers’ rights, supply chain management, pollution, habitats and resources, environmental reporting, use of controversial technologies, and animal rights, that are raising concerns. Perhaps examining any dubious practices is something to consider when cultivating a reputation based on progressiveness, fairness and empowerment.)

HR’s duty amid activism

Employees are now creating factions similar to unions to support their cause and bolster their strength. As working becomes more politicized, how does HR deal with the ramifications of this?

Firstly, with employee activism, any protestation against company practices isn’t just an HR issue. It’s a company issue that needs to be addressed at its roots. In fact, not doing so has widespread consequences on the success of the business.

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According to Glassdoor, around 75 percent of 18-34-year-olds say they expect their employer to take a stand on important issues facing their country and constitutional rights. Those businesses who fail to live up to employees’ expectation in this area will more than likely experience issues with attracting, hiring and retaining staff long term. 

But the broader issue of political discussion within the workplace is a lot more difficult to unpick. On the surface, the decision-making process of Basecamp and Coinbase is understandable. Their aim is to reduce the occasions where an exchange of views becomes heated. To cultivate a workplace that is agenda-free, non-partisan, and politically neutral. Somewhere that has no risk of inflammatory comments, workplace bullying, and discrimination based on political outlook. 

Early 2021, a survey of 500 employees found that 78% of people talk about politics at work, and 47% of people said that the 2020 presidential election had impacted their ability to get work done.

Gartner

A 2016 study by the American Psychological Association found that political discussions in the workplace resulted in 28 percent of younger workers feeling stressed, 23 percent of all workers feeling more isolated, 25 percent experiencing increased hostility in the workplace, and 27 percent experiencing at least one negative outcome. If we’re looking to maintain harmony among our employees, surely an outright ban is the quickest and easiest solution?

But in the past twelve months alone, we have seen great injustice, trauma, and oppression inflicted on people both on a national and global scale. These events impact our people, creating feelings, thoughts, and views. When this type of energy is forcibly cut-off during working hours, it can manifest itself in other areas, and present a flight risk for many employees. Prohibiting conversation is not a viable option for many people. When they’re directly affected by government policy, racial discrimination, or any form of prejudice, employers must ensure concerns are addressed.

Maintaining a professional and respectful working environment

Businesses can choose to ban political speech outright. But if they choose to allow free exchange, it is critical to establish the importance of respectful and professional workplace communications. This can be done by effectively communicating some key guidelines:

Anti-harassment: Your organization should have clear policies on discrimination, harassment, and equal opportunities in the workplace. Ensure employees are reminded of these in a timely manner.

Diversity and inclusion: How far does your business go in establishing a culture that emphasizes diversity, equality, and inclusivity? Your internal comms and HR departments must work together to establishing values that reflect your company’s stance on fairness.

Political expression policy: To avoid confusion and ambiguity over what is acceptable in the workplace, it’s essential to outline your company’s policy. This should cover the wearing of political clothing, activism within the workplace, political signage, and any other behavior that has the potential to lead to conflict.

When it comes to laying down policies for your company, there is a lot to learn from companies who have made the press. Ultimately, it comes down to leadership listening to their workforce. Those organizations that have made headlines for employee activism in recent months have failed on this count. Leaders need to stop dismissing activists as attention seekers and start listening to employees’ demands. Research from Weber Shandwick reveals that only 11% of activists want media attention. Far more want the attention of fellow employees (46%) and the organization’s leadership (43%).

Basecamp’s outright ban of political speech in the workplace is one solution to warring workplace factions. But for other organizations, this may seem too simplistic for an issue that is so complicated. By trying to calm the fires, Basecamp has unwittingly lit the touchpaper, creating more division and disengagement among its workforce than ever before. If these headline stories teach us anything, it’s to continue actively listening to our employees, communicating, and supporting our people. Basecamp has essentially prioritized those who find these types of conversations uncomfortable. It’s for everyone else who will now feel unacknowledged to work around the new policies.

The problem isn’t the discussion of politics. It’s the inability of a section of the workforce to listen to a conflicting opinion and be respectful of the political views of others. Many organizations may find their solution by taking Basecamp’s approach. But many others may find the hard work that goes into creating a culture of respect and professionalism a lot more beneficial long-term.

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Whether we’re dealing with a hybrid workforce, or have recruited globally, or plan to keep our offices closed even after normal times resume… the chances of some of our workforces remaining dispersed for the foreseeable future remains high.

Which means the way we communicate needs to change.

We’ve already had to adapt our comms to our remote employees – but how do we make effective changes that mean effective comms for everyone, regardless of location?

Where will our employees be this time next year?

The future of work hangs in the balance. Are we looking at the death of downtown, with workers staying in their home offices permanently? Big Tech companies were the first to announce their bold, post-pandemic plans, with Facebook, Twitter, and Google all telling workers they could work from home indefinitely.

But despite this, huge developments are still underway all over San Francisco, with a new Google campus built in San Jose and Facebook having similar construction plans in the Bay Area. Despite their visionary announcements, these tech giants are struggling to loosen their grip on real estate plans and the return to office is inevitable for many.

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The likeliest outcome is the hybrid workplace, a model where employees will be able to choose where they work. This satisfies the requirement of offices while providing this pressing demand for more flexibility. And it’s a milestone for employees who now have more power to work where they want to – opening up huge possibilities across the globe.

Internal comms tips for the new era

The pressing issue is how we formulate communications within our organizations to support workers in the office, at home, on the road, and even halfway across the world. Is it possible to engage every worker regardless of location?

The past twelve months has seen an overhaul of internal comms strategy, as comms practitioners reassess new ways of working and the challenges that currently present themselves.

Everyone is engaged in different ways

Just because all your employees are working from home, it doesn’t necessarily mean they will all be engaged by the same set of comms. Most internal communicators channel their messaging to different departments, groups, and offices. But is this enough?

Reviewing current communications is vital to engaging a dispersed workforce, particularly those who you do not see face-to-face every day. Think about the various personas in your business and think of how they would expect to be engaged. When it comes to engaging staff, one size does not fit all. In order to create comms that resonate with your audience, you have to think about their various needs and wants.

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It pays to be creative. Incorporate new ideas into your strategy that allows you to reach different corners of your organization. Online gatherings, downloadable assets for employee wellbeing, virtual coffee breaks, and team-building sessions are great ways to use digital tools to engage your people.

#1. Target the many different personas within your dispersed workforce

Similarly, firing messages across the organization will result in decreasing engagement. Your New York base won’t be interested in new HR forms that your London employees need to fill out. Similarly, everyone who works on a PC doesn’t need to know about complications with the new iOS update. When comms has no way of targeting their comms, they face an audience who slowly but surely tap out.

This is why you need your comms platform to provide you with the ability to define dynamic employee groups. A dispersed workforce may be divided into locations, departments, and teams, but this doesn’t actually reflect how we work. Just because an employee is a member of one department – it doesn’t necessarily mean that they don’t fall into other more dynamic categories. Look for software that groups your employees according to multiple criteria so you can define your desired personas and then personalise your comms accordingly.

#2. Managers need to promote one-to-ones

Mindful of the removal of face-to-face communication, managers must promote a culture of confidentiality, trust, and wellbeing in their dispersed teams. The easiest way of providing this is through regular one-to-ones with members of their team. Comms leaders generally recommend this is done weekly but can be rearranged as and when the employee feels the need.

While generally, discussions will be catch-ups on work and tasks, these one-to-ones should also touch on employee wellbeing, any personal issues that could affect work, or any other problems causing an undue amount of stress. This is the manager’s opportunity to build these all-important relationships that may suffer in remote working circumstances.

#3. Smart communication

The average employee will be bombarded by emails, task management alerts, instant chat updates, and notifications on team communication platforms. And then there are the countless video calls scheduled throughout the day. Zoom fatigue has entered our lexicon and captured that sense of exhaustion of being on screen for hours a day. Employees are saturated – with unnecessary comms, with too much content, with meetings, alerts, quick catch-ups, progress reports… the working from home model needed to adjust, and quick.

This realization that working hours were being overtaken by ineffective comms has forced organizations to review how we manage our dispersed communications and work out ways of using our digital tools to minimize the number of meetings and on-screen interactions that take place every day. When it comes to comms, work out what needs to be communicated and to whom. Reduce email overload by using a comms platform or an intranet to direct employees to when they have the capacity to catch up on news that is relevant to them.

#4. Promote achievements

Working from home can often create a distant relationship from the hub of the organization. Remote workers may feel cut off from activities and the general culture of the office. As a result, it’s important to remind your workforce that it’s still business as usual despite people working in dispersed locations.

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To create a sense of team and shared purpose, promote the achievements within the organization and outside as well. Has a co-worker passed an important qualification? Is someone organizing a fundraising event? Has your company been nominated for an award? Keep the PR going to remind employees that they are working in an organization that is moving forward despite the difficult circumstances.

#5. Ask for feedback

The tradition for many businesses is top-down communication. Setting guidelines, imposing rules, informing the employee – organizations have well-established channels of communication for this, starting from the top and letting it filter all the way down the organization hierarchy.

This approach enables businesses to keep a stream of dialogue between senior-level and the workforce, but most organizations are ill-equipped to receive feedback and opinion from their employees. Pulse surveys are a simple way of correcting this by using a comms platform or intranet to send users a short survey or even a simple question. This provides workers with some degree of input. Research shows that employees with this type of stake in their employer are more engaged than those who feel their work and opinions are expendable.

#6. Make your comms local

If you’re in charge of comms for a global company, it’s essential you recognize that your messages have to be tuned into the various locations and cultures you’re speaking to. This means creating a local approach to every office you’re managing. It is crucial to bear in mind that workers from different backgrounds react differently to different management and comms styles.

Beware of culturally appropriate communication and non-verbal business etiquette. Management in new locations must understand the local customs and accepted behaviors. What could be deemed ‘normal’ in a US office may be considered anti-social elsewhere. A thumbs-up in the Middle East, for example, is akin to swearing. It’s essential to know your audience to navigate what is culturally appropriate and what is not. It only takes an emoji or the wrong greeting to alienate an entire section of your dispersed workforce.

#7. Speak your employees’ language

It’s not only global enterprises that need to be culturally aware. During the past twelve months, there has been a massive increase in diversified talent pools, meaning even SMEs have hired talent across the world. While this has allowed businesses to bring in the skills needed regardless of location, language barriers have proven to be an obstacle when managing this new global workforce. And it goes without saying that being able to communicate effectively is essential to the long-term success of a business.

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According to a survey by Rosetta Stone, 90 percent of organizations struggle with language barriers in their day-to-day work. You can overcome language barriers with intranet translation tools. As the touchstone for every employee in your business, your intranet can provide that much-needed facility to support understanding and communication.

#8. Allow for individual voices to speak up

A large component of an engaging and inclusive working environment is encouraging employees to feel empowered to use their voice, ask questions, share knowledge and provide feedback. Creating this kind of open culture helps to embed that necessary sense of community that is often found lacking in a dispersed workforce.

There are ways of enabling this. Using the digital tools available to the workforce, encourage users to make themselves heard. This could be in the form of individual blogs, social tools that can help users like and comment on discussions, and forums to ask questions. Comms platforms or intranets often have an appreciation program implemented which allows for peer-to-peer recognition – a great way of highlighting outstanding work or deeds carried out within the organization and shining a light on employees who may otherwise go unnoticed.

#9. Keep improving on information sharing

Supplying employees with the right information at the right time is a sure-fire way of improving engagement. Staff no longer have to break off to ask co-workers for help, look around fruitlessly for the right resource or create workarounds to solve their current issue. So how do you keep staff, who are geographically dispersed, informed at all times?

By creating a single point for all business information: from protocols to sales scripts, HR forms to certification – these should all be stored on a central platform accessible to all. And to support those staff who are not desk-based all day, make this platform mobile-responsive and accessible via users’ cell phones. That way, customer-facing workers and field employees can get the information just as easily as their office-based co-workers.

#10. Find out more about your people

Team catch-ups and online content can often be very linear – the progress of a project, certain issues that have cropped up in the past 24 hours, goals, and objectives. However, it’s also important to provide a sense of down-time, where weekends are discussed, holiday plans are shared, current affairs are dissected.

A comms platform or an intranet can support this by dedicating certain areas of the homepage to informal communities – those who are watching a certain box set or employees who are dog owners, for example. Introducing non-work-related chat via digital channels effectively forms bonds among employees and contributes to a fun, open culture within the remote workplace. Team catch-ups, for example, should not just focus on work solely but be a place for team members to share weekend plans, funny anecdotes, and space to learn more about each other.

For internal communicators, advancements in technology may feel like a double-edged sword. While there are myriad comms tools to use to share news, inform and update employees, it’s also enabled a remote workforce that can be more difficult to engage.

But these digital tools have made it possible for the workplace to evolve and for companies to employ a workforce based in multiple locations, including their home. Telecommuting and flexible work arrangements should only add to employee’s sense of ownership and satisfaction, with the right comms strategy, engagement should become easier as a result.

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The average healthcare organization is a complex structure. There are the patient-facing staff – doctors, nurses, and allied health professionals – and there are the support and administrative staff who support the day-to-day running of the organization. Many points during the day are literally life-or-death situations for many of the employees. The tools and tech used by these workers need to support them, the decisions they make, and the knowledge they need to make their workplace as safe and efficient as possible.

UKHC has a collective mission: to provide the most advanced patient care, serve as an information resource and strengthen local health care. They define vision as, “to create a healthier Kentucky,” would require a review of the tools, tech, and processes they were operating under, to reassess what could be done better. Huge change was underway, and as a result, improving communication, information, and knowledge-sharing were of fundamental importance.

Jan Taylor, Director Corporate Communications, and Jan Carrico, Digital Workplace Comms Manager, had long realized this need to connect and engage the workforce. And with plans to implement huge growth and rapid change throughout the organization, this was now a pressing need.

Communicating change

Any significant change within a business requires a great deal of work in keeping the workforce informed. It is an organization’s responsibility to provide one source of truth for any news, internal or external, that could affect the business and the careers within. With a roadmap in place, thoughts started turning to digital tools that could foster this culture of communication.

“One of our first objectives being to try and engage the workforce to what was going on as we were going through rapid change,” says Taylor. “But initially, we weren’t even thinking about an intranet.”

Over the next few years, the team looked around for the right software for their community. While some products seemed to tick the boxes, the expense and stakeholder response saw potential solutions rejected.

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“We needed to communicate more effectively, but that didn’t resonate with the people who were in charge of approving the spending. We continued for a long while with one single person in charge of internal communications. We had a newsletter, and we sent blast email… that was largely the extent of our communications.”

But in 2015, the marketing department was reorganized, and a separate group – a corporate communication team – was formed to tackle the problems around organizational communication in the business.

With their search for the right software continuing, this move narrowed their focus. Soon, Carrico, Taylor, and the team started searching for an internal communication platform that would not only serve the corporate communication team, but also managers and employees too.

Embracing change

With their chief objective to improve employee engagement, UKHC came on board with Interact in early 2020. 

But then the pandemic happened. This cataclysmic event became a huge symbol for the change that the organization was making.

With engagement being high up the agenda, the team set up an employee advisory council, which they would use as a sounding post throughout the intranet build process. The council would put forward their opinions on what would make them use – and not use – the new platform.

With the intranet build in motion, conversations began regarding how the new system would be introduced to the workforce. Should it be an overnight switch or something more staggered? The board representing the workforce was firmly in favor of embracing the new system straight away. The intranet team was a little more hesitant.

“In a healthcare environment, there is a huge sense of not doing anything that could cause harm – not changing anything hastily, or doing something that people will not understand or cause them to make a poor decision around patient care… All the while they (the council) encouraged us to be bolder than what we were proposing to be.

“We were very cautious, from the viewpoint of changing something that people were using for something new, and how quickly we were going to make that change. The people encouraged us to rip off the Band-Aid and get the platform implemented as quickly as possible.”

While it was a good sign to the team that the workforce wanted to start using the intranet as quickly as possible, it didn’t happen that way. “That sense of caution existed in the leaders above us as well,” says Taylor. “They wanted to play it safe, so we took the slow approach.”

In hindsight, planning a phased intranet launch campaign was probably a prudent choice. At this point, the US was in the throes of the pandemic, and as a healthcare provider, UKHC needed to progress with caution.

Carrico comments, “We were in the middle of a pandemic, so in June we were rolling out the EHR (UKHC’s new electronic health record drive), which added to the caution. There was so much change already: with COVID, the closures of many different areas within the healthcare system, and then the gradual opening up, and then the vaccine roll-out. With this much change, as much as we wanted to ‘rip off the Band-Aid’, the environment was just too complicated for that type of action.”

Why Interact?

No two intranets are the same, and there are countless different reasons why an organization chooses an intranet software provider. In this instance, UKHC saw a synergy with Interact from the very beginning.

“We really liked that Interact was providing strategic support as part of their professional services – there was a real motivation there to make us successful.”

This strategic support ran from the very beginning of the build to post-launch, “In the presentation, I recall one of the things that made Interact stand out was this strategic approach. Rather than figuring out how to implement the software, we went through a process of outlining what our objectives are. This is a process which we go through ourselves, so we found it very appealing.”

“There was a real motivation there to make us successful.”

The plan was drawn up. The content management system would target communications and overcome email overload within the system. Integrations would link to the array of SharePoint sites that were already in use. The robust search capabilities were required to connect to important resources. And most importantly, they needed the new intranet to establish a two-way dialogue.  

“We wanted feedback opportunities. Over the course of our journey, we’d gone from pushing a lot of information downwards to needing to hear from our teams. We needed functionality to be able to help our teams provide feedback to each other and to leadership.”

This steady feedback loop, and the use of intranet analytics, would identify popular content, pinpoint issues, and continually measure intranet effectiveness.

The next challenge was to forge a working relationship between comms and IT.

Relationship with comms and IT

Usually, the introduction of IT into an intranet project can be a sticking point. They are usually brought in at a later stage, and traditionally risk-averse, they scrutinize the product for problems, loopholes, and weaknesses. IT can therefore gain a reputation of slowing down projects, identifying issues that don’t exist, and creating a drag on something that has gained momentum. From their perspective, they are simply ensuring that the new software integrates with the current tech stack and doesn’t create complications further down the line.

But with UKHC, there was no friction. The team had spent so long researching the right tech that it had already taken on the thoughts and opinions of IT. Carrico responds, “All it took was for us to say, we have a problem, and we want to solve it, and I can also see you have a problem that needs to be solved too, so why don’t we work together?”

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The legacy platform within the business was complex and unwieldy. IT was responsible for it, and so well versed in its various issues. They were in charge of this single homepage which had links to many different documents in wide-ranging locations (“over 200 different locations,” Carrico adds). Despite being responsible for it, they had no control over what people were doing with it, and they recognized how important it was to have some form of centralized control.

As a result, it was having similar objectives that helped both parties agree to fixing the issue. They saw that the new system would come with guidelines, rules, and policy – all of which did not exist before – and IT welcomed this order and control.

Project planning: strategy

2020 saw a pandemic, various departmental closures, reconfigured ways of working, the EHR project… it wasn’t great timing for building and launching a transformational intranet. Despite the clear pressures on the team, they carried on regardless.

“In the RFP process, we heard that Interact could pull it all together in four months, which aligned with the launch of the EHR project in June. We knew that would be quite a push – even without a pandemic – but we knew we could do a phased rollout, so that was our initial goal.”

With a tight schedule, the team worked out what they needed to pull together for their MVP – Minimal Viable Product. This was a version of the intranet that wouldn’t have had the complete range of features but had enough functionality to be considered launchable and support the EHR project.

This type of strategy and a flexible attitude to tasks allowed the team to progress despite the unprecedented circumstances they were working within.

The team also identifies the support and dedication of the stakeholders involved in the project. “The strategic planning helped a lot, and the MVP allowed us to establish what we needed to do to launch. But our key content stakeholders were working under a high degree of pressure, with the EHR project, working in a pandemic, and dealing with rapid change, so I remain amazed that we were able to get the platform up within six months.

“Many of the stakeholders would be involved at the beginning, but then would – for one reason or another – be forced to drop out. But then, because of their dedication to the project, they would come back in later, and this is down to the flexibility of our planning and the support of Interact.”

Imperfect action is better than perfect inaction

The Loop was created in a very unusual climate. The electronic health record program was always going to be monumental for the organization – and would require a huge amount of resources to get right. Throw in a pandemic and an equal need to build and launch an intranet, and the workload on the team at times must have been overwhelming. How did they manage to pull it all together in six months?

“We were in two pretty large change management events – with our electronic health record and a pandemic, and as a result, we quickly realized that we could only do our best, be very flexible, and not let trying to reach perfection get in the way of making good improvements and getting – partially – what we wanted. So that was our lesson.

“I don’t think I’d recommend people trying to implement an intranet in the middle of a pandemic, but we just felt it was so critical to us that we felt there was no choice but to move forward.”

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But there was one disappointment. Initially, the plan was to run two parallel projects: the implementation of the Interact platform and the development of the master data hub, or ‘People Hub’, which were created to complement each other and move at the same pace.

The Hub was to act as UKHC’s source of data, but early on in the project, the team was told that because of complications with the EHR, that this would be delayed. This Hub is still in process, however, and will be introduced in the near future.

How to achieve user adoption in a lockdown

Despite the challenges of 2020, there was a lot of engagement around the launch of The Loop. This was, in no small part, down to the great effort from the team to raise awareness of the product and create excitement within the workforce.

Employees received direct mail to their homes informing them of the intranet launch and details on a treasure hunt, a fun challenge that would encourage people to log on to the new system with the promise of a prize draw.

“As part of the treasure hunt, we gave out Kindle Fires to people who were first to complete their profile. We were driving employees to the People Directory, which was a key piece of functionality.”

And amid strict COVID regulations, the team organized a Launch Day, setting out tables and giving out items to spur people on to downloading the mobile app.

It was, as the team called it, “a campaign of persuasion”: making The Loop as appealing as possible and ensuring it had everything employees need. In the background, conscious of their soft launch, the team was working at getting as many people on to the new platform and gradually making the old resources harder to access.

“But at the same time, we’ve had to be very careful not to interfere too much with people’s normal routine with how they find things,” says Taylor. This moving away from the old way of doing things had to be done slowly and carefully, but in the meantime, The Loop was gaining momentum.

“Regardless of the soft launch, there has been a steady growth in adoption and engagement since launch. Our original goal was a workforce adoption that was equivalent to our blast emails’ average opening rate, which was 35%. In September, when we launched, we had a 7% user adoption. Today we’re at 52%. That, to me, shows that we’re doing something right.

“And we continue to promote the platform. For example, we had three storm warnings here recently in Kentucky, so we took advantage of that situation with our weather alerts, encouraging staff to logon to the intranet to find out more.”

What’s next?

As any intranet project leader knows, the intranet launch isn’t the finish line, it’s just a milestone, and a successful system evolves and adapts with the business. The Loop has proved to be a hit with the workforce and, according to Carrico, continues to be relevant in the most unexpected ways.

“I was in a leadership training call with another lady who was on the clinical side of our main operating room. She learned that I was working on The Loop, and she had a lot of great things to say, especially on the look and feel of the new platform.”

This co-worker began to describe communication problems within her own department and wondered whether the platform could solve these issues. This conversation highlighted to Carrico new ways of promoting The Loop to different groups of people.

“If your intranet solves people’s problems, you get engagement”

“We identified her needs and are now about to conduct a pilot with them and change their default browser to The Loop, moving away from the traditional homepage. We’re also piloting the use of MS Teams to move away from email.”

Beyond the analytics that displays month-on-month increases in users and engagement levels, this is an example of anecdotal success and symptomatic of how the organization has embraced the Loop.

“It’s very encouraging and promising – and we’re solving problems. And when you solve a problem, you get engagement. I think the fact we can solve people’s work problems is the key to our intranet and its continued success.”

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Manchester, UK – 10 March 2021: KM World’s list features mature companies whose offerings have evolved over many years, as well as more recent entrants in the KM market who all seek to provide value by helping organizations transform their information into insight.

Interact has focused on connecting enterprises for years – something that has never been more important than in the past twelve months, where many businesses have struggled to adapt to a radically changing workplace.

KM World states, “The past year created dramatic shifts in how organizations operate, provide products and services, interact with customers and partners, and support work strategies… to thrive, all organizations must have the right tools and products so they can break down information silos, better understand the experiences of their customers and employees, see hidden connections, expand collaboration, enable AI and machine learning where it is feasible, and take advantage of automation to streamline processes.”

Interact has supported its organizations with a wide range of features and functionality designed to help them maintain the right information, communication channels and engagement needed to navigate the pandemic.

Scott Hitchins, CMO at Interact comments, “We are proud to be on this list of innovative knowledge management companies whose offerings can help organizations expand access to information and accelerate growth.”

For more information on our product – from maximizing adoption to maintaining engagement – download our free Intranet Planning and Deploying guide.

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The new tool – an addition to their existing Analytics feature – allows users to pull in usage data from their intranet into their own business intelligence tools.

Users can discover deeper insights, uncover user journey behaviors, and create custom reports using third-party products including Power BI, Qlik, SAP, and Sisense.

Interact CEO, Simon Dance, comments, “This update to Analytics now allows our customers to pull in their Interact usage data into their own business intelligence tools – something that is becoming a common ask from our top-tier customers.

“We find that many of the enterprises who use Interact have data science teams that want access to the raw data and enrich with other data sources. We have created the feature to supply this growing demand for deeper analysis when measuring intranet effectiveness.”

For more information on the Advanced Analytics feature, head here.

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Corporations hit the news every week detailing plans for the new normal. For every Barclays and Mondelez forecasting the end of the office as we know it, there is a company boss planning to put a stop to working from home as soon as it is safe to do so. David Solomon, CEO of Goldman Sachs, argues that there won’t be any ‘new normal’ within his organization and that remote work is “an aberration”.

Right now, talk of the future of work is chaotic. No one knows exactly what the workplace will look like in a year. But right now, with data influencing restrictions and a workforce that is, largely, making working from home a success, a hybrid workplace seems the most organic outcome to the events of 2020.

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But of course, like any hastily-drawn together plans, this new way of working has its shortcomings. In order to make it work, organizations are looking at possible solutions to ensure organizations can move forward successfully.

So what are these challenges? And what can organizations do to help those who cannot experience the benefits of a more flexible way of working?

Addressing the various working from home issues that are emerging, we offer potential solutions to overcome them and discover that rather than make people fit around work, we need to make work shape around the complex and varying needs of the workforce.

At-risk groups

Ongoing research from Gartner identifies three possible at-risk groups in the new working from home movement. These are the employees that the research company recognizes as enduring unfair career consequences through a range of shortcomings:

Digital introverts: these may be employees who are work-driven but screen-shy, unconfident in front of the camera, or simply digitally under-trained.

Employees who lacked confidence in virtual meetings would usually participate quite freely during in-person meetings. While they enjoy working from home, they are uncomfortable with speaking up online. This may seem them being overlooked by managers when it comes to advancing their careers further.

As always, it comes down to who is more visible. While work rates remain the same, Gartner found that those working remotely are twice as likely to receive corrective feedback.

Women: Data shows that the burden of childcare fell mostly on women during lockdown. This trend expects to follow in a similar fashion while working from home, running a home, and managing children. Research shows that traditional gender demarcations are still ongoing in the workplace. Gartner expects this increase in childcare responsibilities to contribute largely to the gender wage gap to worsen in 2021.

Junior staff: Newcomers are expected to not advance as quickly due to below-standard remote working practices. These employees – particularly younger staff members – are seen to be more hindered by some of remote working’s shortcomings, particularly insufficient processes like onboarding and training. This group will be regarded as a major flight risk to organizations once the job market resumes.

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The fix: The digitally introverted, those who live outside of a reasonable commute, women with young children, and younger employees have all been pinpointed as vulnerable to the perils of poor hybrid workplace management. Whether it’s at risk of being ignored or bypassed, condemned to the burden of childcare reducing their likelihood of getting back into the office, or overlooked when it comes to promotion. These groups are bearing the brunt of online, remote work. These fears may be being realized, but should they be accepted?

With a greater focus on diversity and inclusivity, work should provide the encouragement and support that these groups of people need in today’s workplace. As we move forward, teams should be very clear on the commitments of others and draw up a charter for the team, so everyone knows each others’ commitments and situations. Senior-level leadership should follow by example and build an employee-first culture. There is a huge need to remove the idea of presenteeism and place as much importance on remote workers as in-office employees. Organizations should also develop robust and engaging onboarding and training programs to ensure that those at home benefit from the same opportunities as traditional office workers.

Mixed mode

The hybrid workplace promises many benefits, but there are fears that a mixed mode of working, where half the team remains at home, while the other half commute could pose serious problems. Nicholas Bloom, the British economist at Stanford University, suggests office-based team workers would undoubtedly experience more privileges than their at-home counterparts.

Backing up the warnings from Gartner, a study – carried out years before the epidemic – looked at a Chinese travel firm who trialed a working-from-home initiative. The results showed that people who worked at home were promoted at about half the rate of those in the office. This revealed a bias for those who remain in the office, who are readily visible, exchange conversation, become a part of the in-house culture. This group are seen to foster more ‘managerial capital’ than those who are only connectable through Zoom or Microsoft Teams.

The fix: So, can the hybrid workplace take off? Yes, according to Bloom, but only if organizations have more influence on the schedules of workers – and ensure that team members keep the same rota on office and remote work. If teams are going ahead with hybrid working, it’s advised that they keep to the same calendar, attending the office and working from home on the same days. That way, teams can collaborate together on the chosen days, and focus on single-person tasks at home. Everyone is working with the same schedule, reducing conflict, and nurturing better ways of communicating.

Noise environment

Studies have shown that workers are almost 65% less productive in a noisy work environment than employees who work in much quieter offices. Which is why organizations go to great lengths to secure a pleasant ambient sound level. Installing soundproofing walls, fitting acoustic screens, and quiet pods are some ways of reducing distracting noise in shared, commercial space. But at home, without these structures in place, workers can be subjected to loud machinery, traffic, construction work, and noisy neighbors.

The fix? This issue has been made complicated, not least by the various lockdowns which have seen homeschooling and work attempt to operate side by side. In terms of noise pollution from external sources, some countries are working out ways of enabling home work to continue as unhindered as possible. Portugal, for example, is recognizing the importance of ambient noise in and around homes and so is imposing limits to noise levels within residential buildings. Reuters have reported some kickbacks to these plans with the construction sector fearing short-term damage and demanding a clear time limit to the rule since “COVID will end, but remote working won’t.”

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Equipment

Many of us have had to find makeshift office space while working from home. There are many dos and don’ts when it comes to working from home, and it’s recommended that home workers need to set up a suitable home office, ideally with an ergonomic chair and desk at the right level. Despite this, research shows 72% of Americans have worked from bed during the pandemic. There are plenty of studies to show that bed-based work can be bad for both the mind and body. Blurring work and rest can impact productivity, and the ability to sleep soundly and poor posture could also result in headaches and back pain. Sprained necks and sciatica have been some of the most common medical working-from-home complaints of the last year.

The fix? Organizations need to be mindful of their employees’ working environments – even if work is at home. Supplying office furniture that has been designed to aid comfort and ease back issues to remote workers should be mandatory; however, according to Procurify, only 53% of businesses do this. If you can’t work at a desk, experts suggest using pillows to support your lower back and knees and positioning your screen in a way that is similar to sitting in a proper chair.

WiFi connection

The pandemic triggered an urban exodus, as people paying high rates to live in major cities realized that location no longer mattered: New York City saw a huge popular decline because of this. In the throes of COVID-19, people left their urban sprawls, preferring more open space, a cheaper cost of living, and a cleaner lifestyle. However, with the benefits of country living comes logistical problems: poor WiFi connections affect many rural areas, causing a digital divide that can profoundly impact the careers of those who don’t live in cities.

According to the Federal Communications Commission, more than 18 million Americans – around 5.6 percent of the US population – lack access to high-speed internet. High-speed internet refers to a connection strong enough to browse the web, check email, and stream videos all at the same time.

And with remote working, homeschooling, and staying home as much as possible, the burden on home broadband is greater than ever before. Nearly two-thirds of rural American households don’t have access to that type of high-speed symmetrical connection, which should be capable of handling both uploads and downloads at 25 megabits per second. 

Poor WiFi has a massive impact on students trying to learn, people trying to apply to jobs, and employees trying to maintain the same levels of productivity experience pre-COVID. Affordability is a problem too – the cost of broadband creating a huge disadvantage to low-wage households.

The fix? While a concern in Europe too, the vast expanse and larger population in the US means that the digital divide is a pressing issue. By the end of 2020, Congress had allocated $3.2 billion for an emergency broadband benefit program which promised up to $50 a month to subsidize internet subscriptions for many low-income Americans.

The Federal Communications Commission said recently that it looks to roll out plans within the next two months. Corporations have been stepping in too. The CTIA, the wireless trade association, has built a portal where school districts can submit how many connectivity requirements they need, enabling them to be connected to local network providers who offer free or heavily deducted services. These short-term solutions will require longer-term changes to not only the rural/urban divide, but also the affordability aspect too.

Isolation

Loneliness and isolation were the buzzwords in 2020, and while restrictions are lifting slowly across the globe, many workers will continue to battle with isolation while working from home. Remote working demands careful management of this area. Your organization needs to be mindful of how remote workers engage with their workplace, and what software and services could improve the employee’s relationship with work.

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If staff are feeling cut off, silo-ed, unappreciated, or simply out the loop while working from home, the resulting sense of isolation can have a detrimental impact on productivity and overall well-being. At a time when our employees need to come together and adapt to a truly unique set of circumstances, it’s vital to take those steps to reduce any risk factors for isolation upfront.

The fix? While hybrid working can remedy these negative feelings by offering a few days of office work during the week, this isn’t an option for many remote workers. Many businesses are adopting coworking at a shared, local space as a way to allow home workers who live in close proximity to meet up and work together.

Resentment

Of course, there are those jobs that can only be done in company space. For those employees who have to work on the shop floor, or in warehouses and factories, there may be a feeling of ‘us and them’ as their clerical co-workers opt to remain at home. Similarly, there may be office workers who have maintained their in-office status throughout the pandemic who are feeling resentful towards their at-home colleagues.

The fix? There have been some cases where in-office staff have been rewarded with bonuses and perks to assuage negative feelings. But on a long-term basis, a greater understanding of the workload and accountability of remote workers needs to be implemented, and this culture of home or hybrid working be embedded from the onboarding stage onwards.

Commuting

The ‘us and them’ culture does have further cause for concern. Commuting to the office is a big deal – both in terms of time and money. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, in 2019, the average US household spent $2,094 on gas and motor oil, while total transportation expenditures reached $10,742. This works out at about $29 per day spent on transportation. There are clear disparities between those workers who stay at home and those who need to spend time and money on getting to their workplace in order to fulfill their role.

The fix? Where possible, workers should be given as much flexibility as possible. With working from home taking this cost down to zero, it’s something that organizations may have to factor in when it comes to reflecting this cost in paychecks for those who have to make the commute.

Short term issues for long term gains

Organizations have been surprised at the success of working from home. However, remote working isn’t without its drawbacks. There are several aspects of home working that need reviewing and modifying in order to maintain long-term success. However, these challenges are not insurmountable and could quite easily be seen as teething problems to a new mode of working that is still in its infancy.

Some professions will not bend to hybrid working. The responsibilities and regulations of certain roles require the security and infrastructure that a traditional office provides. However, for most of the workforce who could theoretically split their time between office and home, this new way of working offers up far more advantages than disadvantages.

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Adjusting to new ways of working, implementing makeshift workarounds to temporary tech issues, adapting to a working from home environment, and the countless other interruptions of the past twelve months have tested the most finely tuned businesses.

But as these changes become more permanent and business leaders begin to shape a hybrid way of working, many organizations are aware that a corporate productivity gap is widening.

The productivity gap

Pre-pandemic, working from home failed to become a mainstream practice chiefly because of fears around productivity. As soon as workers became ‘invisible,’ so would their drive, focus, and work ethic. The pandemic proved this hypothesis wrong. Productivity was already in-built; you didn’t need a culture of presenteeism to allay concerns. Those employees who were unproductive in a working-from-home environment were most likely to have already been unproductive in the office.

Harvard Business Review boils productivity down to three main components: time, talent, and energy:

• The time each employee has to dedicate to productive work each day, without distraction from excessive e-communications, unnecessary meetings, or bureaucratic processes and procedures;
• The talent that each worker can bring to their job and, importantly, how an organization’s best talent is deployed, teamed, and led; and
• The discretionary energy each employee is willing to invest in their work and dedicate to the success of the company, its customers, and other stakeholders.

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These three elements were already within many businesses pre-pandemic. They helped organizations hone processes, explore issues and solutions more adeptly, bring a passion to the workplace. Those that had this combination of time, talent, and energy were able to transition through the pandemic more adeptly than those who were scarcer in these areas.

And the pandemic has only widened this gap – those higher-performing companies have been able to flex their productivity muscles in this adverse period, becoming more productive – while the lesser companies have gone the other way.

However, declines such as these are not irreversible. There is a vast range of measures that can be implemented to buck productivity slides in organizations.

How to boost productivity

Productivity isn’t just about how quickly work is completed. It’s maintaining positive remote work culture, clear channels of communication, and a steady focus on achievable targets that keep the team sharpened on their goals and motivated for the next challenge.

Whether your remote teams are a temporary fix or a permanent fixture, keeping them motivated and productive is a challenge most organizations face. In the face of global change, how do you keep your remote teams motivated, connected, and engaged?

Follow these tips to improve employee productivity in your organization:

Give them a sense of belonging

In a restricted working from home setting, employees need to feel they belong to their organization more than ever. This sense of community, feeling they are an essential part of a collective goal, and most importantly, valued, means that they have a greater sense of engagement with their organization.

There are many ways of achieving this. Internal communications must work hard to create a remote work culture that provides online conversation.

Provide a clearer set of goals

Does your team even know what they are working towards? Board rooms may have pored over ways to reach their ambitious targets, but without sharing that knowledge to the teams that play a huge role in getting there, these figures are redundant. Ensure your team has a clear idea of the targets they must reach, with access to dashboards, daily or weekly progress reviews, and discussions on reaching the goals more quickly.

Use task management systems

According to research, task completion is quicker at home. But to maintain this productivity, managers need to ensure that their task management is being tracked, given levels of priority, assigned to the right people, and given clear, achievable deadlines. This relies on more focused communication to ensure clear understanding for all parties. That way, employees are aware of what they need to do, and managers feel more in control of the overall direction despite not having the same face-to-face visibility as in-office.

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Be more employee-focused

Working in-office provided organizations with an ease of communication, from quick catch-ups to over-the-desk updates. Over the past twelve months, business leaders have been trying to replicate this online. To build a better communication strategy, it must have the employees as the centerpiece and work to their strengths. Rather than heading up communication channels in the traditional way, find out how your team wants to communicate, with what platforms, and when.

Do you really need that meeting?

Researchers at Harvard Business School and New York University found that the number of meetings increased during the pandemic by 12.9%, on average, and the number of attendees per meeting grew by 13.5%. These not only eat into the time of each individual every day, but they also create a period of disruption afterward, as attentions are diverted to address points covered. Assess whether there are other ways of communicating topics without assembling groups of people online.

Regular virtual contact

It goes without saying that communication is essential in a remote work setting. There is, however, a point where your workforce can start to feel zoom fatigue, so it’s important to strike a balance. Teams should work out a way of keeping in touch throughout the day, often with a morning ‘stand up’ to start the day. Managers should lead by example, setting up one-to-ones and taking into account the feedback from team members.

De-siloing

But to reduce siloing, there is also a need for cross-departmental communication. Channeling these conversations through an intranet, setting up forums for discussion, creating fun challenges and inspiring extra-curricular dialogue, setting up a rewards and recognition program – these are all ways of getting employees engaged with this evolving online version of your business.

Target your messages

A lot of the working day is consumed by wading through unnecessary, irrelevant comms. Send-all emails, updates, news, and information, provide blanket coverage which can often do more harm than good. Using software that provides customized communications, sending correct news to the right parties allows internal comms to be recognized as relevant and not ignored.

Search

Another productivity blocker is an inadequate search function that helps employees surface the information they need from the digital clutter. Even the most digital-savvy businesses across the world are home to badly performing software hampering their progression. It’s essential to ensure that your pages are easy to find within the intranet and make improvements to ensure they’re surfaced in searches. This cuts down unnecessary finding time and creates a satisfactory experience for every worker.

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Encourage feedback loops

How do you know your methods, software, management styles, protocol, and processes are well received? Listening to your employees is essential – these are the people who have the knowledge and expertise driving your business forward. If something isn’t working, they should have the means to provide their thoughts and feedback on it. This empowers staff to communicate, offer new ideas, or suggest alternative options which can be worked on.

Nurture a culture of knowledge sharing

The age of the company ‘lifer’ is long gone. Nowadays employees are a lot happier to move to a new organization depending on the priorities they need to fulfill. With this transient workforce comes a massive knowledge drain as talent moves from in and out of business taking their know-how, ideas, and discoveries with them. Try and retain this knowledge by creating a culture of sharing and discussion on your intranet or employee engagement platform where ideas are shared and expertise offered up.

Provide career road maps

As discussed earlier, talent retention is key to productivity. However, most people leave businesses when they’ve hit a wall in the development of their role. When employees feel they’re reaching this career cul-de-sac, productivity is one of the first things to slide. Provide your employees with as many career growth opportunities as possible. Online trainings are ideal for a remote workforce. And provide open and honest feedback on their progress. This way, you develop in-house skills, hang on to the talent within your business and develop a professional relationship based on transparency and trust.

Introduce flexible hours

The nine-to-five working structure is slowly being overlooked in favor of a more flexible approach to working. Employees have different working styles, and while some experience their energy peak in the morning, others don’t have a focus until later on in the day. Cater to the differences in your workforce by allowing your workers – where possible – to fulfill their hours at a time that suits them.

Develop your hybrid workplace

Many employees have flourished in a working from home setting. Others have not fared as well, preferring the office environment. It’s now time to develop your hybrid workplace plan and allow workers to choose where they work when it’s safe to do so. Hybrid working boosts productivity as it allows workers to choose where they work on any given day.

Provide manager training

The pandemic saw traditional work turn on its head, and a new way of working develop almost overnight. As a result managers had to respond accordingly, often without adequate training. This continues to be an oversight in most business that underestimate the impact that the pandemic has had on employees. Training your managers to deal with a wide range of situations – engagement, morale, mental health and problem solving – can make a considerable difference to the productivity and ambitions of a team.

Consider a remote workspace

While most employees moved from office to home working in 2020, a large percentage of the working population are permanently remote. Many organizations provide a shared space for these remote workers to convene and can be a productivity booster by providing collaboration and enjoying a better-designed workspace.

Choose the right communication tool

It might surprise you how significantly better communication can improve productivity. Luckily, there are tools designed to overcome communication barriers remote work brings into organizations. And not all of them have a focus on video conferencing. Remote communication can come in many different forms. Simple light touch chat, updates, and check-ins can be done through apps like Slack and Teams. Social tools enable different people to reach out to others in the organization with a ‘like’ or a comment. Intranet software can boost engagement levels with a variety of media, features, and community areas.

Be aware of the soft skills

In business, it’s generally our hard skills that gather the most attention – what qualifications we have, whether we’ve done the right training, the certificates we’ve acquired along the way. Soft skills get overlooked, but it’s these that can be assets in the team – who is able to work under intense pressure, who can communicate to a diverse audience, who can lift the morale of the group. Pay attention to the soft skills in your team and think about how you can use them to spur on your group of employees.

Productivity will drive you to the next stage

Almost everyone will have encountered productivity issues throughout their working life, and particularly during the pandemic. This period of adversity has pushed us to the limit of what we once thought was possible. However deliberate changes can transform how you and your team operates. They can be very easy steps like making online meetings quicker and more efficient. Or they can be more strategic, implementing a new internal communications channel or revising your organization’s approach to hybrid working.

While the pandemic has been an onslaught on businesses, one thing it has taught us is the need to be agile, and adapt to changes quickly. If we can do this, and maintain productivity across all areas of the business, we will have possibly weathered the ultimate storm with a large degree of success.

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The post Is your business experiencing a corporate productivity gap? appeared first on Interact software.

The latest update focus on personalization, and creating a more customized digital workplace where users choose and receive information that is tailored and relevant to them.

Interact CMO, Scott Hitchins, comments, “The past twelve months have seen great change in our workplaces, as the impact of the pandemic looks to permanently shape how we work. As we move with these times, it’s critical that our intranet software complements these new ways of working.”

The latest update introduces Topics a brand-new set of features which enhance the user experience. With an employee-first approach, intranet software has never been more agile and adaptable to the needs of the workforce.

Customized content: Topics allow employees to select the subjects they’re interested in and dynamically fine-tune their homepage content.

Takes out the guesswork: Interact’s unique AI-based recommendation engine automatically suggests Topics to help employees discover new content.

Manage Topics: The powerful dashboard provides an easy bird’s eye view of all Topics and subscribers for enterprise administrators.

Find out more about our personalization features here.

Content management

In a remote and more dispersed work environment, delivering relevant comms to employees is essential. In order to maintain that all-important engagement, you need to be able to deliver news, info and updates that are personalized and tailored to their needs.

Audience targeting: Selectively alert different audiences with custom messaging when new or updated content has been published.

Classifications: Assigning content to predefined internal classifications makes it easier to find and highlight content.

Confidentiality rating: Provide company-wide confidentiality ratings to pages to ensure readers are aware of content sensitivity.

Find out more about our CMS features here.

The post Personalization: How Interact’s latest product release is catering to changing ways of working appeared first on Interact software.

The news comes in light of the publication of ClearBox’s Independents Intranet report, published last month. Interact scored highly in this report, particularly on user experience, news and publishing, analytics and content quality, and enterprise scale.

Today’s announcement acknowledges the depth of experience in the industry which has helped Interact become a leading global intranet brand..

ClearBox Consulting comments, “Interact have a long track record in the intranet market and this level of experience is reflected in the product. Interact is among one of the highest-scoring products in the independent intranet report, with a range of features that makes the experience for end-users smooth and engaging.”

You can read more about the ClearBox Intranet Choices here.

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