What happens when internal communication meets innovative technology?

This post was originally written by Claire Watson, ABC, MC.  Claire is the Vice President of Strategic Communication Management for Cropley Communication. Based in Regina, Saskatchewan, Canada she holds 150 provincial, national and international communication awards for her ability to deliver buisness results. 

Good internal communication has a halo effect on all business operations. It is strategic, communicates the business agenda and informs employees how they contribute to success.

A solid strategy is the backbone of internal communication and the path to business results. Yet, many communication professionals head straight to execution without researching the business or the audience or informing their work with relevant data.

“If you don’t know where you’re going, any road will do.”

This famous quote penned by Lewis Carroll for Alice in Wonderland’s Cheshire Cat epitomizes the need for data that informs decisions ranging from what road to take, what messages to send to which audience, how to create them, how to deliver them and how to measure results. Strategy without research is like shooting an arrow at a target in the dark and hoping you hit the bull’s eye. Good luck.

Counting communication outputs is easy. How many hits were there to what pages of the intranet? How many employees attended the town hall meeting? How many publications were distributed? Sadly, these leading indicators tell us nothing about the impact of internal communication.

Counting communication outcomes is not so easy. We need to demonstrate how our communication work influences increased awareness and understanding resulting in more commitment, engagement and changes in behaviour manifested in better business results. That’s where the rubber meets the road. That’s what senior executives embrace. And, that’s what moves communication professionals from being tacticians to being trusted advisors. These lagging indicators demonstrate the impact of internal communication on business results.

Benchmarking and measuring against the benchmark are essential. If there is no data, there is no strategy, only a gut feeling that the decisions are right. If there is no data, there is no way to prove that the audience receives and acts on communication messages.

If the audience doesn’t get the message, ignores it, can’t understand it, or thinks it’s irrelevant, everything else is academic.

Demonstrating value without data is next to impossible. How do you know whether employees are aware of the business direction? How do you know they see their role in contributing to business results? How do you even know they are receiving and reading messages?

There’s a lot riding on the ability to gather data because in the business world, numbers matter. Numbers alone show progress toward business results. Without solid, reliable data any claim that communication influences positive business outcomes is simply an opinion.

Until now, benchmarking awareness and engagement with communication usually meant conducting complex internal research using quantitative and qualitative methodology. While data generated this way provides great insight and informs strategic direction, it is only a snapshot in time. Sooner or later the process needs to be repeated to determine progress.

Enter Sparrow, a nifty little internal communication mobile app developed by Edmonton-based DevFacto Technologies. Sparrow securely sends targeted messages to personal mobile devices delivering relevant news to employees when they want it and have time to read it.  The technology integrates existing internal communication vehicles like email, intranet and other systems, pooling all of the information into one channel.

Must-read corporate messages are automatically delivered and anchored as priority information. Then personal choice kicks in. Employees self-select the information they need or are interested in knowing. Information overload decreases and productivity increases. Giving the employee audience choices is not only innovative, it is evolutionary, and can change the dynamics of internal communication. But, that’s not the half of it.

Sparrow is a game changer for internal communication.

Sparrow gathers data continually, demonstrating employee awareness and communication engagement. It provides sophisticated analytics that quantify and measure internal communication performance by tracking employee behaviour against everything from reading specific articles to high level awareness. This sophisticated technology provides the data and insights that communication professionals need to inform strategy, improve performance and deliver tangible business results.

Chris Izquierdo, DevFacto CEO, is no stranger to the power of effective internal communication. His commitment to clear, open transparent communication is one of the reasons that DevFacto was named one of Canada’s top 50 small and medium sized companies in 2015. Chris says, “The rapid advancement of smartphone technologies combined with the prevalence of personal devices in the workplace offers an exceptional opportunity to internal communications teams. In working to solve our own communications challenges, we realised that utilising these devices provides a powerful communications experience for employees as well as tremendous information to management teams in all sorts of organisations.”

Equipped with emojis to engage the internal audience and create conversation, enabled for social advocacy that allows employees to share important information across social media platforms, Sparrow is a game changer for internal communication.

Nick Culo, General Manager of Corporate Strategy, Marketing and Communication for Finning Canada thinks so too. He says “As a lot of our workforce spends little time at an office desk it’s always been a challenge to keep people informed through traditional means.  Sparrow provides us the opportunity to deliver information through an easy to use and engaging mobile channel.  Best of all, Finning employees will get to choose the content that is most relevant to them. We’re thrilled to be one of the first organizations using Sparrow as it changes the way we connect and share knowledge across our teams.”

The marriage of internal communication with innovative technology moves the profession ahead by leaps and bounds. Contact DevFacto to learn more.