Keeping communication flowing to home-based workers
Tuesday, 24 March 2020 / Vaughan Reed
Tuesday, 24 March 2020 / Vaughan Reed
As many businessed the world over find themselves locked down with staff home-isolating, the catch phrase "WFH" is now a common part of our work lexicon. The communication challenge for managers is - how do you keep your people informed, motivated and connected as a team under these extraordinary circumstances?
As workforces have dispersed to home workspaces around the country, it is critical to keep communication flowing, as this is the lifeblood of every organisation and will drive employee behaviour.
The answer lies in having the right tools and also encouraging the culture of the organisation to flow beyond the physical walls of the office.
Here are some ideas to help your employees stay informed and bring your work culture into the home work space...
Most large New Zealand organisations will be well-equipped when it comes to using collaboration tools such as Teams, Workplace, Trello and Facebook Workplace and these will be great to leverage for team collaboration, but when it comes to keeping company-wide communication top of mind and actively putting this in front of your workforce, a more proactive approach to communication is needed. Consider using every digital channel on hand such as the Desktop Screensaver, Login Screen and the Chrome Browser default tab, which show up when you open the browser. These digital channels will actively place your communications in front of your remotely based workers, without them needing to hunt it out.
If you are unsure of how you can leverage these 'at home' digital channels to remotely manage communications, get in touch with the Vibe.fyi team today. We are well-positioned to help businesses that are looking to keep their workforce connected during these uncertain times.
Here’s what The Warehouse Group had to say about the trial they conducted with over 1 200 employees working from home.
Team members stated that the Vibe screens were very useful for ensuring that they were receiving important information remotely.
“Team members stated that the Vibe.fyi screens were very useful for ensuring that they were receiving important information remotely. This included information about how to keep everyone safe during the pandemic, current store communications and promotional videos – all information that team members may have missed through being out of the office. Vibe.fyi screens are the ideal platform for uploading motivational messaging, especially now that all TWG SSO are working from home,” said Melody Currey, Internal Communications Channels Specialist at The Warehouse Group.
So, whatever your organisation’s 'vibe' (pun intended) or culture and however you choose to keep it flowing during uncertain times (such as the pandemic); keep it light, make it fun, stay positive and above all else, ensure people remain connected.
Article By Vaughan Reed [LinkedIn]
Vaughan is the Managing Director @ Vibe.fyi. Making it easy for organisations to communicate business
critical information in a way that will inspire today’s workforce.
I like having the ability to control what content is displayed on each screen with playlists.
We have screens across two different locations with a different audience requirement for each one.
One of our favourite features is the ability to show social media feeds - with Yammer.
Our people can keep their finger on the pulse of what's happening and they don't have to be stuck behind their desks all day.
With uncertain times, we have another communication channel to ensure our business key messages are been seen.
Specifically for those that communicate with our customers.
There was a lot of printing of flyers and posters which is both costly and environmentally unfriendly.
With Vibe's on-screen format it’s easy to make changes instantly on the fly without the need for a reprint. No more excuses from staff not reading internal emails. Messaging is right there, on the screen.
Our people love the wellbeing program content!
Our people are impressed that we are providing them with communication that is timely and will help improve their safety, health and wellbeing.
I'm not an IT person at all, but the Vibe system is super easy to use, requiring minimal input.
The screens are fabulous and have been a great tool for improving the accuracy of information, removing a lot of frustration around the village.
Vibe is a great internal communications tool that is user-friendly and customised to our business.
Their customer service team is friendly and quick to get in touch if you have a query or issue.
Vibe gets cut-through
Vibe is now officially part of our channel mix and is becoming one of our main channels of communication (and has the potential to become the main channel).
We are now able to share general company information and specific site information to large groups of people.
It suits our teams and contractors in different locations, which in the past has been difficult to communicate with.
Being a construction project we also use Vibe to show our office-bound staff what’s happening out on site.
This helps promote a greater understanding of progress and gives a feel of inclusion.
It saves us time, plus it's a very modern solution and it helps engage and inspire our people.
Vibe has worked during COVID-19; and beyond.
As an essential service, needed Vibe in all Distribution Centres during the first lockdown to provide H&S information. It's been the solution we needed to reach all of our staff in a timely manner.
It has helped raise awareness around services we offer.
The screens have not only been a great visual aid for residents, they have also been an excellent marketing and sales tool.
We originally needed a mechanism to push out health and safety information to all of our people.
After a few years, we now use the screens for Health & Safety, general notices, reporting dashboards, news, financial and wellness programs.
It's a really simple and effective way to help communicate key messages to all workers on our construction sites.
Rather than settling for basic posters that don't get updated often, Vibe's moving imagery and fun colors catches the eye.
We can easily share information to staff across New Zealand that isn't always available to them.
The different templates are a bonus - there's always a layout that works with what you want to share.
Vibe provides a way of supporting the key messages around safety, wellbeing, operational updates and employee recognition.
Vibe is a great tool for bringing staff together and sharing news and event footage internally.
Their customer service is exceptional.
From our very first introductory meeting, they have always been on hand to offer information and support. They proactively step-in to find ways to make things work. Friendly, knowledgeable and very responsive!
If we took it away now, there would be a riot!
Being able to set all the screens up differently is fantastic. It provides a real 'feel-good' factor for residents.
We’ve experienced a 20% reduction in volume of emails.
With an obviously more positive, interactive, connected and engaged workforce, who appear a lot happier!
Vibe helps us drive engagement. Definitely a very positive tool!
It has enabled us to display life-saving rules, incentive tracking and information that hasn't been available to non-wired staff previously.
Great way to engage with our team. Different to standard notice boards where the team don't look at it.
Keeps areas noise-free and are able to just have a tv screen with rolling information.
It's very cool and a great way to communicate with and engage my non-wired employees.
The digital templates are extensive and the Vibe team support is outstanding. The feedback I get from my team tells me we're on the right track.
It's transformed our communications for our non-wired staff.
The comm's tools we used previously for our non-wired employees weren’t up to the same level as those for wired.
I haven't seen a solution this powerful before!
Our people absolutely love it and it's helped us transform how we communicate.
The Vibe team are great to work with - super proactive, super helpful.
Infact we haven't needed them too much because it's really easy to use and very simple and effective.
Vibe helps us get internal messaging to staff in a fun, graphic format.
As well as the serious stuff, slideshows of staff events are very popular. Plus, promote our outward-facing social media content inwardly to staff and visitors.
The flexibility of the Vibe.fyi solution impressed our project team
Some screens show events; others display news, weather and quizzes; and others a ‘personal touch’, with birthdays and anniversaries.
We have found Vibe very effective as an implementation model for dashboard content.
It helps us visualise data. It’s a great system and I would definitely recommend it.
We're saving time and increasing team efficiency!
Vibe.fyi has had a positive impact on team meetings – the duration of meetings has reduced by approximately 30% because of not needing to cover the tracking of core services.
You can just have it all on Vibe.
Even when you’re at home, you can have these snackable bits of content you can retain, instead of having to check an email, look at an announcement, go from one platform to another.
Vibe has been a hit from the beginning! Better collaboration, visibility, sharing and accountability.
We’ve also experienced a 60% increase in awareness of upcoming events in the business calendar and were able to celebrate at least five times more staff achievements than we could have using email.
This software has helped stop geographical office separation and team silos.
Meetings are shorter. We get immediate reporting to the whole business on performance without having to send more emails to get the data required.
The results have surpassed our own expectations.
Our key stakeholders have wanted to know how we implemented such a stunning platform. Our CEO has been raving about it!
When choosing a product, Vibe.fyi ticked all the boxes.
Vibe was head and shoulders above the rest, because it offered the best and simplest application.
People love Vibe. I would say using Vibe.fyi has been 100% effective!
Employees stop and look at the screens. Our deskless workforce say they feel more informed, as they saw something before their team leader told them.
Really great for providing snackable and understandable content, it’s visually a great way to communicate.
The impact when people see our big digital wall at reception is great.
This software is amazing!
There are some real cool features on Vibe and it's easy to use.
We started with COVID messages, but by mid-Nov we were communicating other business events on site.
We're using Vibe for EVERYTHING. Facebook groups, café menus, surveys (with a QR code), internal videos, welcoming our summer interns, Christmas messaging from our CEO + more!
Vibe.fyi has helped the team improve resident engagement
The MATV feed is hugely popular with residents who don't have to leave the comfort of their own room to access information about what's going on in the village.
