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Internal Communications are more important than ever, for a very simple reason: employee engagement is lower than ever. The fact of the matter is, the needs and habits of employees in terms of information consumption are changing in the face of new technologies and post-pandemic life, and the requirements to hold their attention and keep them informed—not to mention satisfied at their jobs—are also more demanding than ever. New and innovative company Internal Communication tools are needed to satisfy those demands and keep employees engaged, all of which we will cover here. Following the pandemic, and all the changes in work culture that it created, remote and hybrid work scenarios have become the norm rather than the exception. Flex offices are springing up, work-from-home positions are becoming more common. And working remotely comes with a unique set of challenges, which makes strong Internal Communications all the more important. Essentially, in 2025, technology and digital tools fill in the gaps left by no longer working full time in a physical office. Collectively, they can help your company: Stay connected It’s important to keep your employees connected through effective communication channels and tools. This means organizing daily meetings to stay on track and help the team members stay aligned with the company strategy—as well as the everyday life of the company. But also, it means staying connected with frontline workers who are increasingly demanding when it comes to receiving accurate and timely updates and information. And of course, there is the need for employees to stay connected with their team members, and their fellow co-workers. Engage your employees It helps employees feel that they belong to something bigger than themselves and for which they will fully invest. But for that, they need to understand the value of the company and that the company gives them a source of motivation that matches it. They become more productive and better aligned with the overall strategy. And they, in turn, will be more productive and more involved in company life when they feel these conditions are being met—which of course will raise efficiency and productivity. At the office, you have coffee breaks and multiple micro interactions with your colleagues every day that seem insignificant, but which are actually very important for the well-being of employees. That’s why it’s important to keep those informal interactions going virtually, to maintain strong levels of employee engagement. Show employees you’re listening It’s important to know and understand your employees’ needs and feelings regarding the actions taken by the company and how they use communication tools. When employees feel valued and listened to, they are happier and more productive. Recognize employee contributions Remote workers sometimes don’t feel like they’re part of the team, while in-office counterparts have more formal and informal interactions. It’s important to make employee recognition a priority. Regular recognition from peers and managers helps employees feel connected, appreciated, and valued. Obviously, one of the best ways to demonstrate the new importance of having the best Internal Communication tools is through actual statistics on the topic—research clearly indicates that things are moving in a different direction, and that companies and their employees both need to adapt in order to thrive within the new digital reality. Remote work is becoming the norm, new Internal Communication tools are more popular than ever, and employees are also struggling to find their place in the digital workplace of tomorrow. In short: they need a little extra help. These are the 12 best Internal Communication tools for keeping employees connected: #1: A Branded Mobile App Yes, a mobile app is critical these days, and even more so for organizations with frontline workers who may not have a professional email address or work station. A branded mobile app will create a sense of identity and belonging, and push notifications and alerts will ensure all employees get the information they need. Mobile has largely taken the place of a company intranet, and it’s where your employees get most of their information—so make sure you’re there! For example, Sociabble is a responsive Internal Communication software platform that allows both desktop and mobile access, without any need for content duplication or adaptation—content will be shared effectively and identically on both types of devices, in both form and content, without the need for any intervention across Internal Communications tools on the admin’s part. In this way, you can also improve the connection with frontline workers, who are not equipped with a desktop and are more used to receiving information from their mobile devices, through a dedicated app. So while some businesses still use a company intranet for Internal Communications, a powerful mobile app is probably the way to go when thinking about the future of your communication tools. #2: A Targeted Newsletter Tool Employees want to read updates and articles that are relevant for them because they often don’t have time to read everything that’s sent. This is why a customizable and targeted newsletter communication tool with filtering options is key. Analytics will also ensure you can keep track of what works and what doesn’t, and refine your technique. It’s important to get employees accustomed to a regular delivery of important company news that’s tailored to them. With Sociabble, it’s possible to create an internal newsletter in just a few clicks, and with a visually attractive presentation since it can embed different formats. Newsletters are not only easy to create, but also easy to customize. You can easily generate custom-made internal newsletters according to the audience you are targeting, since you can focus on a specific audience by region, department, or even hierarchical level. In this way, your audience will receive a newsletter that truly interests them, with relevant information and company news tailored for them. Sociabble also comes with a powerful analytics tool so that you can directly monitor the open rate from within the platform, and adjust the various sending parameters (date, time, etc.), as well as the content, depending on the employee engagement rate of your internal newsletter. Also read:Why is communication important in business? #3: An Employee Survey Tool This is probably the best way to get direct feedback from employees and optimize employee engagement, as upward communication gives employees a voice and makes them feel truly part of the organization. Your ideal employee survey tool should be quick, easy to set up, and put the power to create surveys in the hands of top management and local managers alike. A library of templates can make the process easier, and it should have the option of being anonymous, and shareable across your communication tools. It should be GDPR compliant, and a little gamification (i.e. points for participating) can increase the employee engagement level. The right communication platform will empower you to collect this kind of targeted employee feedback with minimal effort. With Sociabble, for example, you can send a survey to a specific audience—for example, team members or a region or a group of people doing the same job—to collect opinions and ideas. Answers can even be anonymous. You can decide the duration of the survey, and whether or not to communicate the results to the targeted audience. Also read:Employee Engagement Surveys: Staying Connected to Your Workforce #4: An Enterprise Chat Feature Among the Internal Communication tools you need, an enterprise chat feature with video conferencing capabilities and instant messaging tools will allow for the kind of spontaneous and individual conversations that occurred around water coolers, during coffee breaks, and across desks. It should have a good user experience, be intuitive so users are not intimidated by it, and incorporate security and privacy features to protect sensitive information. And if you’d like to delve into Internal Communication knowledge, here’s a comprehensive guide to employee communications. Sociabble comes with an integrated chat and video conferencing feature, allowing employees to have the same kinds of formal and informal conversations they used to have at the office, but via an instant messaging tool. This is especially important for frontline workers who might need to share best practices, or simply feel part of a team with video conferencing for visual recognition. Project management tools and communication features that incorporate live chat have been proven to be more effective in generating engagement and encouraging knowledge retention. Secure and GDPR-compliant, Sociabble Chat is a great way to allow employees to not only feel part of a corporate environment, but also to give them a channel to express their thoughts and create connections between each other, and thus enhance team spirit with your communication tools. #5: Newsfeed and Content Aggregation Tools A company newsfeed that allows for the pinning of crucial content, and the ability to segment audience by relevance based on department, office, and region, is indispensable in any Internal Communications strategy. A mix of mandatory and subscription content will also increase the relevance of information provided to each user. The UX should be simple and easy to use, appealing and visual, so that employees can be attracted and thus engaged. And it should not rely solely on an algorithm to dictate order, as this can give artificial importance to posts that are popular but not critical across communication tools. Additionally, content curation can take the legwork out of finding and sharing relevant news that employees can themselves share, and content aggregation to combine content streams. With Sociabble, you can segment the content you publish by theme. Once the content is addressed to a specific audience, posts are categorized in specific Internal Communication channels or flows, so that users can easily find the most relevant information. Specific categories can also be applied for a more sophisticated segmentation for your communication tools. Moreover, it is possible for the platform’s administrators to notify users regarding important content, in order to draw their attention. It can be a simple notification akin to a social network alert, or a must-read function that requires acknowledgment via an action by the reader (like a click on a “read” confirmation). Sociabble is also able to integrate a large number of social media networks, as well as content curation solutions like Feedly and other collaborative platforms. Automated curation on specific keywords is also available, powered by AI, that can be established by administrators. #6: Full Ecosystem Integration The employee journey demands that each worker use many different devices and Internal Communication tools, beginning from their very first day on the job. And it is important that each time a tool is added, it brings real added value to the employee and does not add complexity to an already cluttered digital ecosystem. With that in mind, Sociabble integrates with the entire Microsoft Office 365 environment, including Teams, SharePoint, and Yammer, to provide direct access to the tools the users consult over the course of their day. Sociabble’s technology and architecture are fully based on Microsoft Azure, and it benefits from the latest innovations and internal communications tools associated with the cloud platform. Sociabble can also integrate a large panel of other tools such as Salesforce, Slack, and more. #7: Built-in Reward System This can mean any kind of tool or feature that allows you to reward the actions of employees (sharing content, for example), get them involved and interacting with other employees in a fun and engaging environment, and provide reward and recognition for top performers. A CSR component to your Internal Communications tools can also add meaning to the rewards, such as donations to good causes on behalf of team members. With Sociabble, you can liven up your Internal Communications platform with a number of engaging and playful features such as challenges, competitions, quizzes, badge attribution, points and rewards, and more. Rewarding and recognizing employees is important as it strengthens employee engagement. It can be related to company highlights and successes, all of which can be enhanced through recognition features on Sociabble. Moreover, it is possible for employees to praise their colleagues thanks to the peer-to-peer recognition feature, which empowers them to send kudos and thanks to their co-workers for a job well-done. And it all also strengthens team members’ sense of belonging and team spirit. #8: Onboarding Capabilities Onboarding can be one of the trickiest things to do remotely with your Internal Communications tools, so it’s important to have a good platform and system in place for welcoming new employees in the organization, introducing them to their colleagues, and giving them the training they need. An integration with an e-learning platform can make a big difference, as well as a library of training videos and seminars they can reference as needed. Sociabble can be very effective for both frontline and office onboarding. Especially for frontline workers, as they can have access to the same training as office workers via their mobile devices. Sociabble can connect to existing HR learning platforms at a company, including SSO protocols. All this contributes to smoothing out the onboarding process for HR on one side, and the newcomers on the other. #9: Automatic Translation Feature An effective Internal Communication tool should always have an automatic translation feature. It will help your Internal Communications become globally effective, and ensure that messages are received in any office, anywhere. This will also help employees who are not native English-speakers stay engaged, by receiving information and updates in their own language—which will also increase a sense of belonging within the company. Sociabble offers real-time translation of any kind of content—even video with transcription—for both admins that manage the platform and end-users. Administrators can save time with an automated translation feature built into their Internal Communications tools, and they can adapt translations with a specific glossary that applies to the entire company. Employees can receive the content in the language they understand, and if not, they can translate it with just one click. Also read:Do You Have Control of Your Newsfeed & Employee Content? #10: Live Broadcasts Because remote working can diminish the sense of face-to-face interactions, a live broadcast feature is one of the more important Internal Communications tools. It can fill in the gap left by long-distance communication. This is great for small conversations, but also larger town hall meetings, when it’s important that employees have direct access to top management, including the ability to post questions and comments for discussion. Sociabble can host a live event both on desktop and mobile. You can also promote it with automatic notifications, via scheduling on employees’ calendars, and newsletters. It displays the number of watchers and comments in real-time and allows the automatic management of the replay. It is a very engaging format where employees can react, comment, and tag each other, all with an easy and seamless user experience, without any plug-in or dial-in number. Video can also be directly embedded in Sociabble. Extremely secure compared to mainstream video providers, it offers a smooth and painless experience for end-users. Smart, adaptative streaming, based on bandwidth, screen size, devices used, etc. is the norm. And the resume playback feature means you can resume where you left off, even when changing devices or Internal Communications tools. Automatic transcription creation and translation is also a video option. Advanced video analytics, access to unique view, time spent on each video, and completion % are additional features you can access with Sociabble. #11: AI Tools at Your Command AI is no longer just a trendy topic–it’s a must have when it comes to Internal Communications tools. The advantage in efficiency and productivity it offers means that companies that don’t capitalize on its potential will be left behind. This includes Internal Comms as well. AI can streamline your tasks and allow you to create more and better content. For example, with Sociabble’s Ask AI feature, admins can effortlessly craft important announcements with just a few prompts. With a simple link, communicators can generate social media descriptions in seconds. Additionally, employees can create their own posts with the help of AI. And if you need ideas, Ask AI allows you to engage in direct chat for brainstorming, content editing, and more. You can create AI summaries of content, automatic translations, and transcripts and subtitles in real time. All of which will make your job a whole lot easier. Sociabble’s Ask AI is both compliant and secure, meaning your data is safe and will never be used for other purposes. And more, it’s customizable for each company, according to industry context, vocabulary, and goals. #12: Employee Advocacy Features The best online ambassadors for your brand are your own employees–that’s a fact. And it only makes sense to empower them with the right kind of advocacy features built into your Internal Communications platform, so they can easily access, share, and create content that makes your company shine. Sociabble, for example, comes with a host of advocacy features designed to do all of the above. With Sociabble, you can merge admin-curated, user-generated content and social media feeds in a single intuitive interface. With just a click, employees can share or schedule content, supported by AI for optimal employee engagement. Rewards and badges incentivize employee participation, and thanks to its full analytics package, you can quickly identify high-performing content and key advocates, and revise your Internal Communications and advocacy strategy accordingly. Put each Internal Communication tool into action with Sociabble, your total employee comms solution. Sociabble is an Internal Communication software solution that combines all of these tools into a single digital platform, backed up by full support and consulting services. With industry leaders like Primark, L’Occitane en Provence, and Coca-Cola CCEP as clients, we have years of experience helping global companies refine their business communications and engage their teams. If you’d like to learn more about Sociabble, we’re happy to chat. Just click here for a free demo. Schedule your demo Want to see Sociabble in action? Our experts will answer your questions and guide you through a platform demo. Published on 20 August 2024 Last update on 2 September 2024 On the same topic Client Success Stories ~ 10 min Seris Security: Empowering Field Agents with Digital Communication Client Success Stories ~ 8 min A Redesigned Digital Workplace for the 10,000 Employees of the Pierre Fabre Groupe eBooks Transitioning to Something Better: Sociabble as an Alternative to Workplace from Meta eBooks How to manage a “work from home” scenario