How an internal communications app can help companies encourage and motivate front line workers amidst a crisis
- What is crisis?
- What is an organizational crisis?
- Crisis Communications: Essential to prevent workplace chaos
- Internal communications app: A smart way for handling crisis communications
What is crisis?
Crisis can be defined as any event, leading to an unpredictable and hazardous situation that negatively impacts an individual, group, community or the whole society. Put simply, crisis is a critical event when not handled in a timely or appropriate manner could turn into a calamity or a widespread disaster.
What is an organizational crisis?
Organization crisis is nothing but an unforeseen event that creates complete unrest among the employees at the workplace. It could also be described as any emergency situation that perturbs the individuals in an organization and leads to imbalance in the company.
At one time or another, every company will have to handle a real crisis on a massive scale. Natural disaster, pandemic, media scandal, security breach, an act of terrorism – well, the crisis could come in different forms.
The issue is you’ll not know what it is unless the event unfolds. That’s exactly why you need to watch out for trouble in advance and be prepared for any kind of adverse situation.
That’s where crisis communications come into the picture.
Crisis Communications: Essential to prevent workplace chaos
Crisis communications are methods adapted by the internal communications team to share information and circulate ideas among the employees affected. Proper and appropriate communication is vital to keep people relaxed, organized and safe. The way a crisis is handled will have a great effect on the employees and the company – for better or for worse.
When crisis strikes, a company’s communication methods are one of the key factors in deciding how quickly and effectively the situation can be brought under control.
We need to see if a company’s internal communication methods make it easy for fast response, decisive action and real-time updates. We also need to ensure that the communication method is adaptive to the way your company and your employees function on a daily basis.
That’s where an internal communications app comes into play.
Internal communications app: A smart way for handling crisis communications
To help in crisis communications, mobile apps can be of utmost help.Because research shows that Americans check their phones upto 80 times a day. On average, Americans check their phone once every 12 minutes. The average American spends 5.4 hours a day on their phone.So whether you want to make a crucial announcement to your employees, enhance employee engagement, or simply keep them motivated, an internal communication app is a brilliant choice to stay connected and keep your employees informed in trying times.
Here are 13 ways an internal communications app can help companies encourage and motivate front line workers amidst a crisis.
- Sharing verified news.
- Addressing employee queries.
- Creating an easily available key employee directory for emergencies.
- Recognizing past efforts of key employees
- Announcing company wide information and tailor them as per employee roles.
- Encourage employee to share their WFH stories so that it encourages peers
- Imparting crisis management trainings to key players
- Sharing basic educational videos with employees
- Encouraging employees to share critical & verified information with peers.
- Virtual onboarding of new employees.
- Feedback surveys
- Sending daily reminders
- Updating Company Policies
1. Sharing verified news.
Organizational crisis could make the workplace chaotic.
Instead of focusing on the work at hand, employees will be more inclined to discover how the crisis started or what impact it would have on their jobs.
So it is the duty of the organization to keep employees informed with facts and the truth.
An internal communications app will effortlessly do this task of keeping the employees updated. The app could serve as the go-to source for getting verified information.
Unless the information is shared on the app, every other information circulated could be brushed off as rumors.
When we have an app, and when employees are allowed to share information, the company will be aware of all the information that is going rounds. With the app, when information is in circuthe company may be aware of the rumours.
That’s how the company will be able to identify the rumors and red alert them to their employees. Because the management will be able to differentiate what is true and what is not.
Sharing verified news via the internal communications app will put an end to two main issues:
- Employees getting worried and confused.
- Employees spreading false/unauthentic information.
2. Addressing employee queries
In times of crisis, if the communication is not well-planned and adequate, it will give rise to confusions, misunderstanding, assumptions, rumors and worries.
When employees are confused and worried, they will be more desperate to get information related to the crisis.
The employees will have numerous questions. Most employees will have the same kind of questions in their mind.
If the employees have to call a HR person to seek answers, the HR person will have to repeat the same answers to numerous employees.
The HR persons have to listen keenly, empathize with the employees, treat the employees with respect, have facts at their fingertips and explain the decisions candidly. Besides, the employees too will expect immediate answers for their queries.
So this could be tiresome and time-consuming for the authorized persons in charge of addressing employee queries.
Whereas, with an internal communications app, the employees can raise the question in a common platform and their queries can be addressed publicly.
This will save two things:
- Employees repeating questions
- HR person repeating answers
3. Creating an easily available key employee directory for emergencies.
It is not normal for companies to look out for crisis. But when a crisis arises, it is important for companies to be prepared. You must have a set of contacts that you can depend on during emergencies.
Trying times can make people forget even the basic information about their own business. So it’s important to have the name of your business, address of your office, landmarks nearby, and phone number listed at the top of your emergency contact list.
Facility manager’s contact information must be one of the top most priorities in the emergency contact list. Any emergency pertaining to the building cannot be handled in a better way by anyone other than the facility manager.
Just in case you don’t have a facility manager, you need to keep your building owner/landlord’s number handy. As they will know the in and out of the building and therefore they will be able to reverse any emergency situation with ease.
Contacting employees during emergencies is crucial. Only then you can protect your employees from any danger the crisis will bring in.
If you have more than 10 employees, you should be clear about the order in which you can call your employees.
If the situation is about a particular employee then keeping their families’ and friends’ contact information is vital. Medical information about an employee can help save the employee during a medical emergency.Besides 911, you should also readily have other service numbers such as animal control, poison control, alarm company, and utility companies like gas, electricity, and water service providers. Utility companies can help minimize damages in case of gas leaks, pipe bursts, and circuit issues.An internal communications app designed to handle crisis or emergency situations will not only keep you easily informed, but also ensure all the key emergency contact lists are available at your fingertips.
4. Recognizing past efforts of key employees
During a crisis, reminding employees of their past achievement can help employees get motivated or encouraged to handle the current situation. It will make them realize that the company appreciates their work. It can create a sense of ownership in the employees.Not just past achievements, current efforts that shine during a crisis must also be recognized and honored.In a crisis, the managers who are supposed to appreciate the frontline workers might be busily engaged in handling the crisis. At such a time, an app can come handy to appreciate and recognize frontline workers, keeping their past achievements in memory.
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5. Announcing company wide information and tailoring them as per employee roles
Not all information will be relevant to all employees. Therefore, it will be appropriate to share the right information to the right person. As per the particular employee’s role and need, information can be classified and circulated with an internal communications app.
A crisis may require sudden and significant shift change announcements. Having an internal communication app will enable you to send real time shift change notifications to the concerned employees.
6. Encourage employee to share their Work From Home(WFH) stories so that it encourages peers
The best thing about an internal communication app is, it could serve as an interactive platform encouraging two way communication.
With two way communication enabled, the senior staff could share their success stories, WFH stories and experiences that would motivate their peers as well as newcomers.
Thanks to the mobile app, instead of the management trying to motivate the workers, the employees themselves will keep their co-workers motivated.
We can have a look at a real time WFH story. Meg Tweed, a recruitment resourcing consultant in the UK, also plays a daily game with her colleagues. “We have a short meeting/update every morning and have begun to bring in an element of fun to them by doing a ‘treasure hunt’, where we have an item each week and whoever brings the best one wins. This week is an embarrassing photo of us as a child!”
7. Imparting crisis management trainings to key players
An organization might encounter different types of crisis. Some of them include behavioral crisis, natural disaster, pandemic, project crisis, technology crisis, workplace accident, and workplace violence, amongst others.
Each of these crises requires different types of crisis management training and preparedness among employees. If a crisis occurs in a workplace, employers need to take the onus of training employees.
For instance, when a natural disaster occurs the employees must be trained about first aid, emergency exits, fire extinguisher and so on. In case of a pandemic like Covid-19, employees must be educated about personal hygiene, and Corona Virus do’s and don’ts. Plus, the company should take measures for pandemic planning like internal communication, external communication, illness in the office, and business continuity.
In an organization, the levels of interest in crisis preparedness among employees will vary dramatically. Some will be proactive and some will be least concerned. But training must be imparted in an effective manner for everyone.
Traditionally, imparting training and crisis preparedness was done in a conference room. This demands more resources, time, and money.
But now with the advancements of technology, an internal communications app can do the job for you. Even at the very last minute, you can impart training to the key players in your organization and ensure everyone is well prepared for the crisis.
8. Sharing basic educational videos with employees
Gone are the days when people had to gather in a conference room to view a video. With mobile phones in hand, videos can be shared using apps.
When a video is shared using apps the employees can watch it anytime when they are free. They need not gather in a conference hall wasting productive time.
So, making employees watch basic educational videos is a lot easier with an internal communication app at hand.
For instance during Covid-19 emergency, employees can be shown a video of how to maintain self-hygiene, how to wash their hands for twenty seconds, how not to touch things unnecessarily and how to avoid touching, eyes, nose, and face.
9. Encouraging employees to share critical & verified information with peers.
With an internal communication app at hand, employees can be encouraged to share critical and verified information with peers.
Besides, with an internal communications app, the management can monitor all the information that is shared. So only authentic information will be in circulation.
Recently during the Covid-19 emergency, Americans suffered a lot not knowing where they could buy groceries and other essential stuff. If there had been an app where information could be crowdsourced, this issue would have been resolved with ease.
10. Virtual onboarding of new employees.
During a crisis, the virtual onboarding of new employees can be easily done with an internal communications app. This would show the company’s commitment towards their staff and help them be prepared for uncertain times as well. By leveraging internal communication apps, welcome introductions can be as easy as they would be in person. The app would allow new recruits to virtually mingle with their teammates and managers in an effortless manner.
11. Feedback surveys
By having an internal communication app we could perform regular employee feedback surveys. We could also integrate constructive feedback into the app.You could easily capture staff satisfaction, opinions, and engagement. You could try to know how likely your staff would recommend your products or services to their friends during a crisis. You could run a poll to get the pulse of your employees. You could encourage your staff to brainstorm and submit ideas for overall improvement and to handle crisis. You could check employee availability for upcoming shifts, or if their plans are affected by severe weather. You could run fun surveys to improve employee mood and work culture. Well, with an internal communication app, the possibilities are simply endless.
12. Sending daily reminders
There would be a lot of things a company may want the employees to do on a daily basis. For example, during Covid19 pandemic, employees need to wash their hands on a regular basis.To remind employees, daily notifications can be sent through an internal communications app.Similarly, depending on the crisis, employees can be reminded of regular daily activities with an app.
13. Updating Company Policies
During a crisis, there could be adverse changes in the company policies. And these change of policies need to be intimated to the employees ASAP. By having an internal communication app, the changes in the company policies can be intimated easily. For frontline employees, it is important to have the company’s updated policies at their fingertips. An internal communications app makes this effortlessly possible.
Conclusion:
With the advancement of technology, mobile phones have become a sixth finger on everybody’s hands. And mobile apps have become an inevitable part of today’s business. Mobile apps certainly increase the ease with which an organization can efficiently perform. In today’s era, an internal communication app will be the right choice for enhanced communication during a crisis.
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