We live in a time of exciting technological innovation as digital adoption has revolutionized how we communicate—in our everyday lives and the workplace. While social media is commonplace for remote communication in the personal sphere, companies are still grappling with digital communication challenges in the workplace. As companies adapt their working styles in our new corporate landscape, it is becoming clear that regardless of whether your employees are in-office, remote, or a hybrid mixture, strong communication is key to business results—and there is a lot of room for businesses to improve.

​In today’s hybrid world of fragmented digital and physical experiences, there is a disconnect between C-suite executives, employees, customers, and organizations, resulting in negative business impacts. According to a survey of American and European executives, 67% believe that poor internal communication has affected the success of company initiatives, with 81% of those executives estimating that poor communication costs them between $5 million and $50 million annually.

While communication cannot always be automated the way tedious paperwork or process flows can—there are ways to incorporate automation and tech-forward tools into communication strategies. The key is balancing the clarity and speed of messaging with the personalization and human touch that keeps messaging from feeling robotic and impersonal. With automation taking on copious amounts of redundant work, internal comms teams can focus on prioritizing employees to create the best experience possible, but this also requires the correct tools. It’s time for companies to rethink their comms strategies—moving away from simply getting a message across to creating engaging experiences that inform, inspire, and connect with their audiences.

Enterprises can create a multitude of engaging and personalized communication experiences for both internal teams and clients. From simple collaboration tools to interactive digital displays, technology is highly advantageous for enterprises to communicate more efficiently and conveniently. Adapting to these changes requires embracing new communication tools or risk falling behind resilient competitors who know the value of these tools in the market—the power of change cannot be underestimated.

Why You Need Communication Experiences
It comes as no surprise that hybrid work has altered the office and how we communicate.

Today, businesses can conduct most communication in real-time, whether through instant-messaging apps, email, video conferences, in-person, or other digital tools. While communication delivery methods are varied and multifaceted, so are the audiences that businesses and enterprises are speaking to.

The workplace comprises five generations—35% Millennials, 33% Gen Xers, 25% Baby Boomers, 5% Gen Zers, and 2% Silent Generation. Understanding how these individuals communicate and consume content is critical to building organizational culture, connection, and community. While it may be easy to send all communications via email for the sake of simplicity for the HR or comms department, doing so may isolate a generation of employees that don’t regularly check their email or who skim rather than thoroughly read the material–or simply miss workers altogether, like frontline workers that don’t have access to email during their shifts. On the other hand, messaging platforms are often less intuitive to generations that didn’t grow up using them, and live video conferencing can be a scheduling nightmare when the audience includes multiple departments.

When thinking about how employees consume and digest information, leaders must identify which modes of communication will be most effective for each group and determine how to provide multiple formats or delivery methods to ensure each employee receives the messages relevant to them or their role. Communications technology makes it easier for employees to digest and respond to company messages through their preferred channel.

Communications Technology Creates A Top-Tier Experience
While many businesses are already using digital communication tools, digital adoption, in many cases, was rapid and haphazard due to Covid-19. This has left businesses using cobbled-together communication tech stacks with inconsistent delivery methods. To standardize methods and create a truly efficient and clear communication strategy, businesses must adopt technology supporting multiple communications channels to streamline content creation, distribution, measurement, and channel governance.

Effective internal comms strategies are all about reaching your employees in meaningful ways, on the channels they prefer, with more engaging communication experiences, not just simple communication channels. Beyond communications, employers can use technology to enhance the employee experience by optimizing the workplace. With more people working remotely than ever, technology enables businesses to make offices more conducive for working through desk hoteling and reservations, allowing employees to use the office as an effective collaboration area without the hassle of finding adequate space last minute.

With the data provided from reservations, employers can also see how often their office space is used so that they can adjust their offices accordingly. If the data shows that few employees enter the physical office space on Mondays or Fridays, the company may opt to only have it open Tuesday through Thursday. They may find that they have 100 desks, but only 50 are ever used at a time—indicating that they can reduce their real estate footprint, saving money on rental costs and utilities. Or they may identify that a few small locations based in the areas with the most employees are more beneficial than one large location that is a hefty commute for many staff members. Using data from a strong workplace experience platform will enable companies to better serve their staff while also cutting down on costs.

How well employee needs are being met impacts their experience. Leveraging technology like automated surveys and feedback mechanisms provides data to better gauge what they need and how they feel about work. This lets you shift your processes again until everyone finds their groove. A seamless communications platform also improves employee collaboration without ever needing to meet face-to-face unless desired—the option is always there.

A McKinsey study noted that when asked about the most beneficial features of their companies’ communication tools, most employees often cited real-time interactions, the ability to collaborate with specific groups, and cross-platform availability. They also believed that those three features would be the most influential in improving the workplace experience in the future.

There will always be an ebb and flow of employee needs and trends in business communication. To strengthen employee relationships, you must provide access to consistent, effective, efficient, and optimized communication channels. Leveraging communications technology to create content tailored to the needs of different audiences allows employers to create reports that are targeted to the specific needs of each department or stakeholder.

How you decide to use technology to improve the employee experience within your company can not only boost employee engagement and productivity but is essential to business success.

Effective Communication is critical to a thriving culture, and having the right technology platform to reach your people in meaningful ways wherever they work is crucial. Successful enterprises of the future will become communications experience companies. The C-suite will put communications at the center of its business strategy and deliver personalized communications to all its stakeholders.