From silos to synergy with one powerful platform

These days, less is more. With L&D budgets constantly being squeezed, many businesses (or departments) are now thinking about consolidating their tech stacks by switching from lots of platforms to one, offering up a holistic learning and communications experience to employees.

For instance, Hemsley Fraser uses a single platform - 5app - for all of its learning and comms needs, spanning everything from skills training to company updates to onboarding. To support the onboarding experience for new starters, they’ve created the Hemsley Airport as a fun way to announce when new people are ‘landing’ into Hemsley Fraser, with profiles so employees can learn more about their new colleagues. They also show ‘departures’ when people leave for new companies, ensuring personnel movements are crystal clear and communicated to everyone.

This feeds into Hemsley Fraser’s talent mobility strategy, as employees can see who’s being promoted and where they’re moving to in the business. This is useful not just from a comms perspective, as people know who’s in what role, but also to motivate people when they see people moving up in the business.

So why should you take a leaf out of Hemsley Fraser’s book and consider making the switch to a single, holistic solution?

Championing harmonious employee relationships

Businesses often overlook the huge importance of positive employee relationships, which means they’re likely missing a trick! 22% of employees say that they’re equally or more productive when working with friends, and more than a quarter of global workers are motivated by discussing success with colleagues, showing that supporting good working relationships should be a priority for companies.

A holistic approach to learning and comms, underpinned by a single platform, means that everyone in your team (or organisation, depending on the size of your company) gets more exposure to their colleagues, fostering closer, more harmonious relationships. In turn, this leads to better collaboration and innovation, more creativity and reduced workplace conflict, giving you a happier, more productive workforce. What’s not to like?!

Your virtual watercooler

Back when everyone worked in the office (remember offices?), people would naturally congregate in the same places, whether that’s in the kitchen or around the watercooler. But in today’s hybrid working world, there are often only a handful of people in the physical workplace at the same time, meaning fewer impromptu conversations take place.

That’s why your learning and comms platform is so vital - it’s your virtual watercooler, where everyone can gather to share information, swap ideas and offer advice. 

And that’s why having one platform to serve this purpose is crucial - providing one place where everyone can come to get the information they need avoids splitting attention, and keeps everyone in the loop for better employee engagement.

What about private content?

Of course, if you just have one platform for everything, you may be wondering what happens when a topic only applies to a specific group. For instance, the leadership team may need a place to access material about upcoming changes to the business which can’t be visible to the rest of the company.

Creating private groups within your platform ensures that only the right people see certain content in a secure, controlled environment, allowing people to view and share sensitive information. This creates a sense of trust and keeps confidential content away from the rest of your people, without needing a whole separate platform to do it.

These private groups can also be used to minimise distractions for the rest of your audience. For example, the development team may want their own private group so they can discuss role-related challenges which don’t apply to everyone else. While this information doesn’t need to be kept confidential, it will create more ‘noise’ on the platform for people who don’t need to see it, so keeping it in a focused group will benefit everyone.

Levelling the playing field

If you have one learning and comms platform, everyone has access to the same information and learning opportunities. All employees can see all learning materials, whether that’s elearning, videos, webinars or signing up for live workshops. This means that development opportunities don’t just go to those who know where to find them - if it’s all in one place, everyone knows exactly where to go.

When all employees can see the learning available to them, they can rest assured that they’re getting the same opportunities as their colleagues. Their managers can also see exactly what learning they’re accessing and use this in their 1:1 meetings or performance check-ins, helping to guide career development conversations.

This could actually reveal some surprising ambitions for your people! If a manager notices that a marketing assistant is often looking at sales training content, this might spark a conversation about their long-term career ambitions, potentially allowing them to explore a role change, and increasing the likelihood that they’ll stay with your company for longer.