An organization's Internal Communication department is always curious on how it can use the employees' enthusiasm over mobile technology to improve their work performance. There have been various cases and scenarios that show the effectiveness of smartphones, tablets and apps as the latest trends in communication everywhere and even in the internal communication system in organizations.
People from all walks of life either have a smartphone or a tablet and many even have both. These communication technologies are becoming a part of their lives as shown in the past five years. Technology has greatly improved its sophistication and has provided various advancements and features to meet their users' demand.
Organizations are always on the lookout on how they can improve their internal communication systems and there have been various instances that employee communication apps are very effective in managing the internal communications in organizations and even anywhere in the world.
The communication app provides an uncompromising experience for mobile staff
The staff of a busy satellite hospital based in Connecticut are almost always not on their desks. St. Francis Care is a healthcare network with various hospitals, satellite offices and community clinics. Their medical staff are always roaming around and checking on their patients. Only very few employees can be seen sitting on their desks and most staff are directly involved in the caring of the patients. They go from one bedside and ward to another. Not only that, its satellite nature allows them to shuttle between labs and clinics in other hospital campuses.
The mobile nature of work has created a significant communication challenge which is to find the best employee communication app that can serve everybody's needs. The organization uses Yammer, a social networking tool that can be installed as an app in the mobile devices.
Yammer provides opportunities for the management and staff to communicate with each other via messaging as well as inquire about matters relating to their work such as hospital strategies or policies. Other leaders use Yammer to promote their meetings and after those meetings, the employees can post their comments and questions about the presentation.
How a communication app can nurture employee's enthusiasm
The BYOD (Bring Your Own Device) lets the employees bring their own tablets or smartphones for work purposes. Organizations know that tapping into the latest employee communication trends can greatly help improve internal communication in the organization. Using their own devices for work is nurturing what employees have and love as well as create enthusiasm of using them in their work.
Recent research have echoed that mobile is where people will do their personal as well as professional tasks and a very effective way for companies to communicate with their employees. It has been predicted that mobile traffic will eventually outstrip the laptops' and desktops' traffic in the future.
Stay tuned to company matters with the intranet on your phone
It is a very logical step that organizations extend their intranet to the mobile devices considering that it is the latest communication trend and that is always going to be the way in a long time. An intranet with a responsible design is effective in engaging employees into the apps.
An intranet is composed of everything that employees need to know about their company. However, with its various pages to search from, it may not be practical to use it as an employee communication app. To solve this problem, intranet apps that are customized for mobile use have been created. These apps streamlined its features and functionalities to keep only the handful ones such as announcements and company news.
The growing world of business apps
SAP is a global software giant that has been exploring to include apps for internal company use. With its vast workforce that work across 130 countries composing of a lot of salespeople and consultants working on customer sites, it is a must that they have their own internal communication app to serve its own organizational needs.
The creation and development of the SAP News that serves as the company's ' online communication portal for the organization's articles and announcements both locally and internationally, have become a means for employees to stay tuned to the updates in the organization.
To improve its internal communication, the company has developed the SAP Now which is the RSS feed of SAP News. Even if employees are not logged in to the SAP news, SAP Now sends the various information updates to their mobile device.
Considering all the various advantages and benefits of an employee communication app, it is sensible to acquire smartphone or tablet as its apps are the latest internal communication tools that organizations use to communicate to their employees. However, organizations see this trend not only as a sensible way to communicate internally but it is also considered as mandatory to its employees.
