Will your work be remote or in-person in 2021? What challenges can a new permanent work model bring? A survey by SocialBase on trends in Internal Communication showed that employee productivity in home office during the pandemic it increased to more than 64% of companies, even so, 30% of them have not yet decided which format to follow from now on: whether in person, whether remote or hybrid.
Meanwhile, we can already observe trends marked by the first year of the pandemic that were decisive in the way we will communicate in corporate relationships (whether remotely or not) this year. Check out the highlights below:
More media communication: The use of videos, lives, and podcasts joined the ranks of the most used communication resources in the last year around the world, responsible for ensuring greater proximity – or less isolation. The research showed that 58% of companies broadcast live to communicate with their employees, and 15% they do it daily. You can invest in impeccable professional productions, on the other hand the video self, or home productions tend to be more successful because there is a touch of personality in them. Use the digital murals to disseminate this content on video.
Simplify: less is more!
Speed of information is undoubtedly one of the mandatory characteristics of this time. And it is precisely to be more agile that you cannot get lost in complexities. Technology is a great partner in accelerating our deliveries, making information arrive faster and faster, but it is our role to simplify the content, making it clearer and more objective. So cut out the excess data and prioritize the key message for your audience. This way, you reduce noise and the chance of employees becoming uninterested in the subject before they even get to the main content.
Leadership – your front line: According to one of the largest IC specialists in the international market Sharon McIntosh, CEO at And Then Communications, “employees will continue to expect executives to show up, listen more and talk less”. For Priya Bates, CEO of Inner Strength Communications, “connections will lead to more engagement and trust, while disconnections will lead to a lack of trust.” Leadership needs to remain active and connected with their team in the home office beyond the pandemic, for this it is necessary to train them, prepare them strategically to develop their relational and communication skills.
People's well-being: The topic will not be left off the agenda. Quality of life has been a criterion valued by more and more professionals for some time now and will become an essential part of the work environment following this pandemic. It is necessary to address relevant issues that help employees take better care of their physical and mental health to carry out work more easily, being productive and balancing personal projects.
Engagement – how to deal with more distractions? With remote work, the possible distractions that your employee will have due to being in an environment outside the structural and controlled context of an office increase. This scenario makes our mission of public engagement even more challenging. Therefore, a tip is to rely on visual and audio resources (such as podcasts) in your communications, in addition to using short, clear and direct messages. And to reduce the chance of losing your employee's audience between computer and smartphone screens, try allowing them to find all the information they need to orient themselves or communicate in the same tool: Worksphere, for example, is this type of platform. Try it for free.
What to measure? The absence of a physical environment that can be more easily observed in relation to the organizational climate, for example, makes the measuring results even more necessary. Here, do not give in to the desperation of measuring everything and anything just to have numbers to show, prioritize what needs to be strategically measured in order to reveal significant results from communication interventions in the behavior and daily lives of employees.
What do you think of the trends for Internal Communication?
When putting together your plan, take these tips into consideration and remember to adapt them to the current work model in your company, this way, you will have much more assertive and successful communication.
