Since 2019, a few things have changed:
- The widespread adoption of remote work
- The increased adoption of direct messaging for workplace communications
- Generation Z has entered the workforce
It’s time for how you approach your internal comms to also change.
Push messaging is the common solution to all three changes highlighted above. Remote work requires reaching your employees quickly and effectively (especially in moments of crisis). Direct messaging means that employees now expect communications to also come to them. Finally, Gen Z is the generation raised on the internet, where tools like iMessage, FaceBook Messenger, and Snapchat were the primary form of communication.
When to slide into your employees’ DMs
Knowing when to use push communications is paramount to ensuring that your overall is effective and engaging. Having a balance of push and pull communications can help make sure your push messages are even more attention-grabbing and engaging. Know what things belong on an intranet, to pull employees into A great example of the latter would be crisis communications, where all employees need to be alerted as quickly as possible to the ongoing situation.
Channel strategy
In order to effectively balance push and pull communications, it’s important that you have a clear in place. Performing a channel audit, with the help of IC’s free tool, can help you discern where to broadcast certain messages. You want to balance your channels so that they keep employees engaged—the last thing you want is for employees to be muting the Slack or Teams channels because they find the bombardment of messages a nuisance. To effectively use push communications, balance them across channels and create so your entire team (whether HR, IT, marketing, or comms) is on the same page.
Merging the new and the old
As more and more Millennials and Gen Zs enter the workforce, the more intuitive it is to use push communications to reach your employees—especially in the age of hybrid and remote work. However, it is important to remember that a large portion, maybe even a majority, of your workforce is not as adept to push messaging being a primary workplace communication. Therefore, it is important to find a way to:
- Offer support for your workforce in learning and adopting push messaging
- Use more historic channels, such as email, for your push messages—as opposed to Slack/SMS/Teams—and letting employees choose their preferred channels.
It’s also equally important to remember that no group in your workforce is monolithic. Different people, regardless of generation, will have different preferences, and when shopping for internal comms software, it’s important to find solutions that allow users to choose their preferred methods of communication.
Track results and performance
Whenever you introduce a new piece of software or methodology to your internal comms plan, you need to actively be keeping tabs on its performance. Otherwise, you lack the insight to be able to deduce that your efforts are not in vain, and you have no tangible data to show managers and execs who want to see the ROI of your internal comms. With purpose-built internal comms solutions, like IC’s intranet software, analytics should be easy and insightful. Our software empowers you with quick access to data, showing open rates, click rates, and much more; ensuring that your internal comms (and use of push messages) truly are empowering your employees and boosting engagement. And with the help of our expert team, we can help you take your internal comms strategy to the next level, all included in the price of our software!
Ready to start push messaging?
If you want to boost employee engagement through push messaging, while also allowing them to choose which channels they’d like to be contacted on, IC’s intranet software was built for you. Your first step is booking a no obligations demo, and getting in touch with our knowledgeable and experienced sales team, who will guide you through our software and how it will help you reach your employees in a brand new way.
