Streamlining the workplace info influx

When things change in your organisation, how long does it take you to get this information in front of the right people? Minutes? Hours? Days? Longer?

And once that information is out in your company, what happens to it next? Most likely, it sits in everyone’s email inboxes - maybe it gets read, maybe it doesn’t - and that’s it. No questions, no discussions - or worse, the discussions happen between employees. The rumour mill starts turning, and you don’t have the opportunity to set the record straight.

But sharing information is a crucial part of business, from getting things done efficiently to building company culture. If you’re struggling to get information out quickly, or it’s just not reaching the right people, it’s time for a rethink.

Why do so many businesses struggle with information sharing?

More and more businesses are trying to prioritise openness and transparency in their communications, but it’s not always easy to get the balance right. Overshare, and employees will feel overwhelmed with irrelevant information. Undershare, and people will fill in the information void with speculation, creating confusion and widespread mistrust of leadership - just look at the recent Kate Middleton conspiracy theories!

There are several reasons so many companies struggle to take control of their information sharing. Just some of these include:

• Too much going on
• Not knowing which messages to prioritise
• Not being sure who needs to know what
• Sharing too much information
• Not sharing enough information
• No suitable systems for info sharing
• Assuming everyone is engaging with the information shared
• Unclear comms leading to misinformation

With so many challenges to face, how can we get smarter about the way we share info at work?

3 ways to do it better

Streamlining the way you share info won’t happen overnight, but you can start laying the groundwork today. Let’s take a look at three ways you can improve the way you share knowledge and updates across your business.

1. Different messages for different teams

A cardinal sin in the world of corporate info sharing is bombarding everyone with everything. You may think it’s more transparent, but all it means is that people get overwhelmed by the noise and zone out.

That’s why you need a way to offer curated content to meet the different priorities of each team. 5app’s smart teams allow you to build custom audiences with ease, meaning you can share assets, updates or even whole playlists only with the people who need to see them.

5app’s recent update also enables you to hide irrelevant content from users who don’t need to see it, keeping everyone focused solely on what matters to them.

2. Nudging with notifications

Every time you release an important piece of information, make sure people know about it. Sounds obvious, but you’d be surprised how often the HR team adds a post to the intranet, and then… crickets.

When it comes to workplace comms and info sharing, nothing could be less accurate than ‘If you post it, they will come’. Opting for a platform that allows you to automatically notify everyone about important messages will make your life easier, as you won’t need to manually keep everyone in the loop, as well as bringing your employees directly to the messages that matter.

But if in-platform notifications aren’t enough, you can always try…

3. Integrations with your comms systems

Even with the best notification system in the world, sometimes you just need to meet your people where they are. For instance, if you use a tool like Microsoft Teams, your people will use it all day every day. It can be tempting to blast out all important updates directly within Teams, but these can easily get missed among all the other messages going back and forth every day.

A smarter solution is to integrate your comms platforms. Send out all important updates on your learning and comms platform, then push it to all relevant employees via your Microsoft Teams integration. This process is automated, so it doesn’t create any extra work, but it can significantly improve your engagement rate simply by putting job-critical information in the flow of work.

In fact, for our global insurance customer, putting learning and comms into the flow of work helped employee engagement hit a high of 94.1%!

Avoiding information overload

When you’re streamlining the sharing of information across your business, it can be tempting to assume that more info = better. But think about the number of times you’ve sat through meetings you really didn’t need to be at ‘just in case’. It’s a waste of time and a distraction from what’s really important.

It’s exactly the same with your internal comms. Don’t just send everyone everything and let the messages pile up in inboxes - instead, it’s our job as L&D and HR professionals to curate the information people receive and help stop the overwhelm.