Enhancing Employee Engagement and Internal Communication with Mobile Apps

The way we communicate with and engage employees has changed drastically over the past decade. Companies are finding that email is no longer a viable option for all communication. 

With many people using smartphones or tablets as their primary computing device, communication and engagement need to be convenient, timely, and personalized through mobile apps. 

Do you need help with your employee engagement and internal communication process? Do you want to improve your employees’ communication and how they’re staying informed about what’s happening at work? Mobile apps can be an excellent solution for both of these.

This article will show you how a custom app can help your business build better internal communications and employee engagement by providing an overview of the possibilities. From company announcements to safety monitoring, compliance, and more, this post will make you rethink your current process. Let’s dive in!

1. Company Culture

A custom app can help build company culture by providing an exclusive space for employees to communicate and collaborate for their day-to-day lives at work. It also provides the opportunity of sharing important announcements or milestones with your team in real-time through push notifications right on mobile phones without having them waiting until everyone is back together again.

The modern workforce prioritizes happiness and lifestyle in the workplace much more than prior generations. If companies can’t create a culture that aligns with their employees’ values, those businesses will struggle to retain top-level talent.

Apps give that opportunity to do so. A custom app is a chance for human resources and leadership teams in your company to have conversations with remote employees, field service workers—even other use cases like managing their safety or compliance issues on the job site while they continue working. It’s also an awesome way of building up loyalty among current staff by showing them you care about what matters most— them! This translates into happier, more engaged people who will be eager to share good vibes around the office.

According to a recent study, company culture is the largest predictor of employee satisfaction in the United States.

You want top-level talent? Apps are how we keep people happy and loyal. Creating an internal apps is one of the easiest ways to improve the employee experience. 

Practice what you preach and lead by example. Employee benefits, training, and team-building events are just a few ways to establish your company culture. All of this can be managed and improved with a mobile app.

2. Remote Work

Work from home has become the new normal. Even before a global pandemic turned the world upside down, remote work was trending upwards. More and more employees are working from remote locations, but they’re not as engaged because of isolation. Employees need a way to feel connected. Remote workers also want the tools at their fingertips to help them be more productive.

Remote work does have its benefits, like more flexibility, less time commuting (and saving gas money), improved quality of life by being closer with family and friends, and so much more. But remote work still creates problems.

People don’t have colleagues around them, and there’s no water cooler talk happening in the break room or at lunchtime with friends on their team because they work from home instead of an office building like everyone else does (or did). Employees need a way for coworkers not working remotely but still within your company network to stay connected as well—and it has nothing to do with staying safe during those pandemic days.

According to Buffer’s State of Remote Work report, collaboration and communication are the biggest struggles for remote employees.

It goes beyond keeping employees in the communication loop–it’s also about uniting them with your company culture (as mentioned in our last point).

A custom mobile app for effective employee communication will connect you with deskless workers and people working from home, as well as contractors and freelancers supporting your team.

3. Speed

Instant communication is a must-have in the modern workplace. 

It’s not enough for HR to simply provide a way of communicating with remote employees, field service workers, and others. Those same people need the ability to communicate quickly—and asynchronously if necessary without relying on email or phone calls alone (which is so outdated). With mobile apps and communication channels like Slack in place that allow instant messaging from one device directly to another, it becomes clear why these intranet communicators have become immensely popular during periods when everyone wants answers now. 

Some questions are more urgent than others, and can’t wait until tomorrow morning. Most employees prefer quick chats versus talking at all times on the phone or responding to lengthy emails. 

Plus, employees are so accustomed to this type of communication in their personal lives that the idea is just second nature. 

Users have grown increasingly more comfortable with using mobile devices for work, especially when it comes to time-saving tools on a smartphone compared to relying solely upon email and traditional phone calls as before (which was oftentimes slow). Mobile apps help people get things done faster since they can do everything from one screen on their preferred devices.

4. Peer-to-Peer Communication

In addition to using mobile devices for work, employees are also increasingly turning towards peer-to person communication. Sending messages through an app is actually faster and more convenient than ever before. Companies can create their own custom apps that offer features such as instant messaging. These IMs allow users access from any location with an Internet or Wi-Fi connection—which means no matter where you’re at in your office setting, there will be a way of communicating. No need to have someone come out into common areas like lunchrooms every time they need something done quickly or always being tethered by email replies sent back and forth inside company emails.

Internal communication between peers can be more productive than communication from top-down management. Employees can get their day-to work much done much faster with the help of these messages—and even when they’re away, it’s easy to communicate using IMs.

There are many other benefits that come from communication apps for businesses too. Announcements will be seen as soon as possible and onboarding new employees becomes easier, and so much more.

This two-way communication also helps strengthen employee relationships, which improves your company culture (as we discussed earlier).

5. Gamification

Implementing a game-based learning process is a fun and creative way to train your employees.

Gamification is a technique that has been used successfully for years by companies like McDonald’s, Walmart, and Starbucks to motivate employees. The benefits of gamifying employee training programs are directly related to engagement.

Check out these eye-popping <a href="https://startkiwi.com/blog/gamification-in-the-workplace-tactics-for-restau

Gamification is ideal for the onboarding process, as it provides more incentive for employees to watch training videos and go through compliance-related tasks. Apps can also keep track of the tasks that employees have completed with a progress bar to show them what they’ve accomplished. 

In addition to new hires, you can use gamification on a daily basis for work-related tasks. This type of feature can create some friendly competition amongst your staff as well. They’ll be trying to win different competitions and climb the leaderboards, which will keep them more engaged and ultimately make them work harder.

Aspect	Onboarding Process	Daily Work-Related Tasks
Purpose	Incentivizes watching training videos and completing compliance tasks	Creates friendly competition and engagement
Features	Progress bar to track task completion	Competitions and leaderboards
Outcome	Shows accomplishments	Increases work effort and engagement

The best part is, gamification doesn’t require any additional training for your team. It’s something easy and fun you could start doing today.

4. Video Engagement