5 min read
20 game-changing tools to supercharge employee communication
Akshay Khetrapal
Last Updated: 26 June 2023
In this article:
In this article:
Poor office communication can turn even the most motivated employees into stressed-out individuals. A 2023 Forbes Report reveals that for over 40% of workers, poor communication reduces trust in their leadership and team. A jaw-dropping 50% report a drop in productivity, and 42% say it affects stress levels. These statistics are a powerful reminder that employee communication is not just an administrative function but a strategic imperative that can make or break an organization.
Decoding employee communication
Employee communication is the lifeblood of a thriving organization. It's not just about sending out memos or drafting emails. It's about fostering a culture of open dialogue, where ideas flow freely; and employees feel heard. Effective employee communication ensures that everyone aligns with the organization's goals, is well-informed, and is empowered to contribute their best work.
20 cutting-edge employee communication tools
Picture this: a workplace where communication is not just an afterthought but a competitive advantage. By tapping into the transformative power of innovative technologies, you can reap the business benefits of communication in the workplace. Let's see some of the most effective tools for your employee communication strategy.
Cross-team communication
Real-time collaboration technologies break down silos, enabling teams to easily share ideas, leverage diverse perspectives, and fuel innovation.
1. Slack
Slack is a communication hub that replaces inboxes with channels. Channels organize discussions for easy collaboration. You can create communities and converse over public or private channels as per your use case. It also integrates easily with other enterprise apps like Jira and Google Docs.
2. Google Workspace
Workspace is a package offering the best Google tools for businesses. Your teams can securely store and collaborate on documents and communicate via email, chat, and video calls.
Further Reading:
Employee Feedback
Employee listening is strategic gold. It unveils employee sentiments, needs, and aspirations. Leaders gain valuable insights for informed decision-making and targeted improvements. Trust soars, engagement thrives, and success follows. It's the secret sauce to unleash the full potential of your workforce.
3. Amber
Amber, powered by inFeedo's GPT-4 and People Science, is an employee experience platform that listens to employees on a continuous basis. It chats with employees, analyzes their sentiments, and identifies those who may be unhappy. By proactively addressing issues and assisting in resolving matters, Amber helps prevent escalations that can impact the business. With its user-friendly people analytics dashboard and AI-powered chatbot, Amber engages employees in meaningful conversations, collects feedback and sentiments, and allows HRBPs to take immediate action based on that feedback.
4. Glint
Glint enables employee surveys and offers visual dashboards for on-demand access to employee feedback and an understanding of key opportunities. It also provides an AI-based early warning system for performance and attrition risks.
Further Reading:
5. Workday Peakon Employee Voice
Workday Peakon enables you to create personalized employee surveys based on their most recent feedback and the stage in their lifecycle. It also offers benchmark engagement scores so you can accurately assess your organizational effectiveness.
Further Reading:
Remote Collaboration
With remote work and gig economy becoming the norm, you must focus on tools that enable secure and smooth collaboration among distributed teams. These help foster a sense of belonging even with limited in-person interactions.
6. Zoom
Zoom offers a range of remote collaboration features like virtual meetings, team chats, digital whiteboards, and calendar services. It allows a seamless experience across PC and mobile devices. It can also scale for large-scale employee communications through webinars.
7. Google Meet
Google Meet is an easy-to-use video chat service that users can use independently without a Google Workplace subscription. It offers multi-way video calls with shared whiteboards, reactions, polls, voting, and Q&A, to enable seamless communication between coworkers.
8. Microsoft Teams
MS Teams is an enterprise communications platform offering shared online workspaces. It enables multiple modes of employee communication. Examples include two-way chats, team channels, group conversations, and video conferencing.
Further Reading:
Project Coordination
Unified project management tools are digital command centers for organizing tasks, tracking deadlines, and keeping team members in sync.
9. Basecamp
In Basecamp, message boards and card tables help avoid long email threads and make your employee communication clutter-free. You can also configure custom to-do lists and set their visibility among your teams.
10. Notion
Notion is a highly configurable, AI-powered tool. It allows several visualizations like calendars, timelines, and boards. It also facilitates agile collaboration methods with automated sprint boards in its latest version.
11. Asana
Asana allows you to track project milestones, allocate team resources, and share instant updates across your projects and teams.
Further Reading:
Social Employee Advocacy
Social employee advocacy is a game-changer for brands seeking to engage audiences authentically. By harnessing the power of employees as brand ambassadors, you can showcase your company culture. You can highlight employee benefits and build a compelling employer brand. It also fosters a sense of pride among your employees.
12. Hootsuite
Hootsuite makes it easy for your employees to share your content. It offers an in-built AI content writer to create shareable content instantly. You can also organize promotional topics, manage employee permissions and measure the engagement and reach with Hootsuite.
13. SproutSocial
With SprooutSocial, you can send curated content to your teams through email digests. Employees can follow topics, suggest content and share content on their social media in just a few clicks.
Further Reading:
Knowledge management
Democratize information, promote self-sufficiency, and preserve organization-specific expertise with centralized knowledge management platforms.
14. Confluence
Confluence enables you to organize documents with advanced search, labels, and content hierarchy features. It also offers 75+ inbuilt best practice templates for business documentation and reports.
15. Guru
Guru allows your employees to create and capture content from any knowledge source. Also, it provides access to personalized information dashboards with AI-powered content suggestions and answers.
16. Bloomfire
It offers a knowledge-sharing platform with rich media publishing features, Q&A, and engagement analytics.
Recognition and Rewards
Elevate your employee communication strategy to the next level with recognition programs that encourage behaviors aligning with company values.
17. Bonusly
Bonusly automates peer-recognition programs with customized milestones and incentive programs to foster a positive work culture. It also offers recognition analytics like leaderboards and participation metrics.
18. Recognize App
With the Recognize app, you can formalize a system to award recognition points that employees can use for redeeming rewards from internationally curated catalogs. You can also configure daily spot bonuses and printable award certificates and track employee service milestones.
Training and development
Training is essential for communicating change to employees and upskilling them. Developing personalized learning paths for your employees that align with their career aspirations boosts engagement and retention.
19. Cornerstone OnDemand
Cornerstone offers an enterprise learning management system (LMS) for end-to-end automation of training programs. You can also track compliance rates and their effectiveness for continuous improvement.
20. LinkedIn Learning
It is an on-demand learning platform that offers thousands of expert-led courses. Your employees can train at their own pace and work on projects and quizzes to apply their learnings.
Further Reading:
Reimagine employee communication with active listening
In today's fast-paced world, effective employee communication is key to driving success. These 20 game-changing tools are here to revolutionize the way your team connects and collaborates. Say goodbye to dull emails and hello to interactive platforms that spark engagement and boost productivity.
From real-time messaging apps that bring everyone together to intuitive project management tools that streamline workflows, there's something for every communication style.
So, unleash your team's superpowers, break down barriers, and create a thriving workplace where ideas flow freely. It's time to embrace these tools, embrace communication, and watch your team soar to new heights of success!