Ways to Improve Communication at Work with a Storyboard

By Caitlin Percival
October 24, 2018
3 min read
Blog
Intranet
Ways to improve communication at work

With storyboard in a matter of months, we’ve been able to successfully share:

  • Over 20 stories
  • 4 surveys, each with 100% response rate
  • The Source 14.5 Launch Plan
  • A story about our CEO in the news
  • Congratulations to a colleague in her new role
  • 2 organizational goals that were reached this quarter
  • Requests for feedback to HR on job satisfaction
  • Motivating YouTube videos
  • Charity requests that raised hundreds of dollars
  • Signups for a hockey pool
  • Voted on what to do for our Christmas event
  • Signups for social events like our Halloween Escape Room, and The Handsome Guys’ Cycle Club

Our experience with storyboard has resulted in an increased level of engagement, a greater connection between employees, and vastly improved internal communication.

Improve Employee Connection:

Our team likes to get close. We have our Friday socials (often including a very competitive foosball tournament), group ‘huddle’ every morning where we can ask for help, make announcements, and talk about what we did over the weekend. The addition of storyboard helped bring us even closer together. The most noticeable ways were with our charitable initiatives, employee feedback, and inclusiveness.

Giving Back

Previously, when someone was participating in a charity event, they’d post it to their wall, get some words of encouragement and a donation or two. To be honest, people just skimmed by wall posts. Since the introduction of  Just this summer, our Account Executive raised $850 for the BC Schizophrenia Society Scotia Bank Run, and about a third of the company sponsored our CEO in 50km bike Ride for Refuge, where they raised over $6500 for Himalayan Life Canada, and our VP of Marketing and Sales raised over $500 for Cassie and Friends, which supports children living with juvenile arthritis.

Employee Engagement

Have you ever sent an email or made an announcement and heard crickets? Luckily, with Storyboard, your messages sent in the right channel, to the entire organization, in a visually pleasing format that triggers an action. This is because each story is placed to be top of mind, on the top of the company intranet homepage, in a central location that’s accessible to the entire team, in order of importance. One of the many ways storyboard has improved employee engagement at IC Thrive is with the process of gathering feedback from employees. HR put out or bi-annual employee satisfaction survey, that returned over 95% of responses in a 24-hour period. Talk about efficiency!

Inclusiveness

Since we’re nestled in the foothills of the North Shore mountains, it’s no surprise that IC Thrive employees love our mountain sports! Whether it’s hiking, skiing, or in this case, biking, you can guarantee we spend our free time in high altitude. The Handsome Guys Cycle Club started with a couple of colleagues biking home together, then riding trails. But they wanted to be able to give everyone in the company the chance to come out for a spin! Asking each person is repetitive and time consuming. There’s also the chance of someone missing out. But advertising it to the team on Storyboard was a great way to be inclusive and get a good laugh too.

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With the addition of Storyboard in Source 14.5, we’ve learned a lot about ways to improve communication at work. Here’s a few ways our team has shared information using storyboard.

Source by IC Thrive 14.5: Elevate Engagement is all about improving the way we share information as an organization.

With storyboard in a matter of months, we’ve been able to successfully share:

  • Over 20 stories
  • 4 surveys, each with 100% response rate
  • The Source 14.5 Launch Plan
  • A story about our CEO in the news
  • Congratulations to a colleague in her new role
  • 2 organizational goals that were reached this quarter
  • Requests for feedback to HR on job satisfaction
  • Motivating YouTube videos
  • Charity requests that raised hundreds of dollars
  • Signups for a hockey pool
  • Voted on what to do for our Christmas event
  • Signups for social events like our Halloween Escape Room, and The Handsome Guys’ Cycle Club

Our experience with storyboard has resulted in an increased level of engagement, a greater connection between employees, and vastly improved internal communication.

Improve Employee Connection:

Our team likes to get close. We have our Friday socials (often including a very competitive foosball tournament), group ‘huddle’ every morning where we can ask for help, make announcements, and talk about what we did over the weekend. The addition of storyboard helped bring us even closer together. The most noticeable ways were with our charitable initiatives, employee feedback, and inclusiveness.

Giving Back

Previously, when someone was participating in a charity event, they’d post it to their wall, get some words of encouragement and a donation or two. To be honest, people just skimmed by wall posts. Since the introduction of  Just this summer, our Account Executive raised $850 for the BC Schizophrenia Society Scotia Bank Run, and about a third of the company sponsored our CEO in 50km bike Ride for Refuge, where they raised over $6500 for Himalayan Life Canada, and our VP of Marketing and Sales raised over $500 for Cassie and Friends, which supports children living with juvenile arthritis.

Employee Engagement

Have you ever sent an email or made an announcement and heard crickets? Luckily, with Storyboard, your messages sent in the right channel, to the entire organization, in a visually pleasing format that triggers an action. This is because each story is placed to be top of mind, on the top of the company intranet homepage, in a central location that’s accessible to the entire team, in order of importance. One of the many ways storyboard has improved employee engagement at IC Thrive is with the process of gathering feedback from employees. HR put out or bi-annual employee satisfaction survey, that returned over 95% of responses in a 24-hour period. Talk about efficiency!

Inclusiveness

Since we’re nestled in the foothills of the North Shore mountains, it’s no surprise that IC Thrive employees love our mountain sports! Whether it’s hiking, skiing, or in this case, biking, you can guarantee we spend our free time in high altitude. The Handsome Guys Cycle Club started with a couple of colleagues biking home together, then riding trails. But they wanted to be able to give everyone in the company the chance to come out for a spin! Asking each person is repetitive and time consuming. There’s also the chance of someone missing out. But advertising it to the team on Storyboard was a great way to be inclusive and get a good laugh too.

By Caitlin Percival

Caitlin is a strategy-driven marketing professional with over six years of experience. She is well versed in goal-driven initiatives and her efforts in digital marketing have included numerous successful marketing campaigns, building and executing social media portfolios and creative storytelling. She holds a Digital and Mobile Marketing Certificate from Simon Fraser University as well as a Bachelor of Commerce (Honours Marketing) degree from the University of Guelph. When she's not in the office, you'll find her in the mountains either skiing or hiking.