An effective employee communications and engagement platform can help you make sure your employees are happier, more engaged, recognized, rewarded, and more productive.

As an HR professional, how can you make sure remote employees (or any worker) are happy, engaged, and aligned with your company’s objectives?

It’s an important question. Today’s employees want rewarding work and to feel valued and appreciated for their efforts. They also want to be connected to your company, especially when they’re not in the office, so they know they’re still an important part of the team and contributing to a common goal.

Communication is key. In fact, effective communication should be the cornerstone of any successful employee-engagement strategy. Yet in today’s workplace, “more” is not necessarily better. For example, many employees are already overwhelmed by the amount of emails they receive each day. This means sending important information by email may only add to the clutter and could miss the mark.

The same result is true for other tools and platforms, such as instant messaging, wiki pages, portals, or more. Employees may lose track of whereto find critical information or become frustrated by how many steps it takes to find what they’re looking for. These challenges only become exacerbated when employees are out of the office.

All of this adds up to an important question: What can you do to improve employee communications, especially with remote employees or field workers who may not even have access to a laptop?

The Value of Workmates

An Employee Communications and Engagement Platform: The Right Tool for the Right Results.

There is an answer. Innovative new employee communications and engagement platforms use mobile apps to improve the way you communicate, collaborate, and engage with remote employees and your entire workforce.

This blog will take a closer look at the traditional challenges companies face when trying to communicate and engage with remote employees or field workers. It will also introduce Workmates, HR Cloud’s powerful employee communications and engagement platform. You’ll see how Workmates is changing the way we all think about employee communication and recognition, and in doing so, helps drive productivity, engagement, and advocacy to new highs.Most importantly, we’ll connect the dots by demonstrating how an employee communications and engagement platform such as Workmates delivers very real, and very significant, business benefits.

A Remote Workforce Requires New Communication Strategies

Today, more than 63% of companies rely on a remote workforce of some kind, whether it’s employees working at home; mobile or field-based workers; or just about any other employee who doesn’t come into the office on a regular basis.

For most companies, giving employees the opportunity to work remotely helps attract and retain top talent while also serving as a tangible perk to promote work-life balance, drive productivity, and enhance employees’ job satisfaction.

Workplace flexibility, and the option to work at home, has become increasingly important to the entire workforce, especially as employees become more tech-savvy and productive.  Whether they’re looking to eliminate commutes, work outside of traditional 9-to-5 schedules, better manage childcare, or just generally gain more favorable work-life balance, working remotely delivers these benefits and more.

The concept of a remote workforce is here to stay and enables employees to continue to be valuable resources for their employers while gaining the flexibility and balance they crave. Yet many companies need to develop new communication strategies to make sure these employees consistently feel informed, valued, recognized, rewarded, and part of the larger team.

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Even if Employees Are Out of the Office, Keep them Close to Heart

According to the same research, a majority of companies (57%) report that they do not currently have an official remote work policy in place.

Without clear policies and effective tools, companies could face communication and collaboration issues that could even snowball into larger challenges. Currently 60% of employees admit to not knowing their company’s strategic vision.

This makes it difficult for traditional remote employees who may have a hard time staying up to date on new announcements or policies, but even more challenging for field-based workers who may only have access to a mobile device.

All of this points to a growing gap. On one hand, in order to recruit and retain top talent, employers should continue to offer the perk of remote work flexibility to increase productivity, encourage employee advocacy, and reduce costs. Yet if they’re not careful, or don’t embrace proven communications, engagement, and recognition tools—they run the very real risk of disengaging valuable employees.

Employee Engagement is a Valuable Advantage

Why should you care about disengaged employees? For starters, you could be in danger of losing top performers if they’re not engaged and motivated in their current role.

Yet to look at it another way, employee engagement can become a powerful competitive advantage.

According to research from Aon Hewitt, those companies with high levels of engagement (65% or greater) outperform the stock market, posting total shareholder returns 22% more than the average. On the other hand, companies with low engagement (45% or less) had total shareholder returns that were 28% lower than average. Additionally, from 2002-2012, the Top 40 Best Companies to Work for in the U.S. enjoyed nearly 4x better financial returns than the S&P 500.

Clearly companies with higher levels of employee communication and engagement are proven to achieve higher growth rates, productivity, and financial success.

HR Cloud’s Workmates: Effective Employee Communications and Engagement Starts Now

Now there is an extremely effective way to improve the way you communicate and collaborate with remote employees.

HR Cloud’s Workmates solution is a powerful, proven employee communications and engagement platform that can help any company overcome common issues related to managing a remote workforce.

Workmates is so effective because it puts communication directly in employees’ hands. Say goodbye to trying to force cumbersome new processes on busy employees. Instead, Workmates becomes a tool they want to use since it naturally facilitates information sharing to keep employees in sync and improve overall performance.

With Workmates, employee communication and recognition becomes easy and fun and encourages mobile collaboration with any employee, no matter where they happen to work.

Happy Employees = Engaged Employees

With Workmates, we have designed and delivered everything you need to foster an ongoing culture of communication. Workmates includes real-time social feeds, company announcements, an employee directory, direct messaging, surveying, and more—all to get teams talking. Employees can post light-hearted messages or animated GIFs on the feed. Share a company announcement for an upcoming team meeting. Or even give a shout-out to a fellow to recognize a specific accomplishment. With Workmates, employee engagement feels like fun, not work.

Keep Employees Motivated

Praise and recognition are extremely effective ways to keep the workforce motivated, productive, and aligned with your company’s goals.

Workmates now helps your company improve the overall employee recognition experience and keep the workforce as motivated as possible. Now a manager (or any team member) can recognize any employee’s accomplishment or contribution with a well-timed “kudos,” thank-you gift, prize, or other rewards. It all becomes the digital equivalent of a high five and will help drive employee engagement to new highs. Workmates offers customizable badges and other options to reward employees, share accomplishments, and celebrate milestones and successes with the entire team.

Workmates Fosters Communication, Collaboration, and Better Business Results

Managers and HR professionals simply can’t meet with employees individually to keep them informed and up to date on the latest company news. This is especially true when employees are not in the office. Workmates now overcomes this issue and enables all team members to communicate effectively in the way they prefer to get the information they need when they need it. This comprehensive employee communications and engagement platform delivers many advantages and benefits:

• Streamlines communications

Personalize employees’ content experience and give them access to the latest company information on a variety of channels.

• Promotes real-time messaging and feedback

Deliver critical information to the right employee in the right moment as constructive feedback, not after the fact, or worse, not at all.

• Recognizes employees and says thanks

Workmates lets any employee reward a peer for any contribution or achievement. Highlighting exemplary behavior becomes fun and encourage future recognition and effort.

• Increases employee advocacy

Happy, engaged employees will now become company advocates, willing and able to embody your company’s best interests, promote your products or services, and contribute to a stronger culture.

A Closer Look at All that Workmates Has to Offer

• Company’s media hub:

Spread company culture and share information with pictures, GIFs, videos, and polls.

• New hire announcements:

Automated email reminders help admins, IT, and the rest of your team welcome new employees.

• Employee engagement surveys:

Whether they’re in another office or working remotely, keep a pulse on your team’s engagement levels.

• Kudos and rewards:

Recognize employee accomplishments and motivate more with instant feedback and recognition.

• Automated birthday and anniversary announcements:

Show your team appreciation and never forget to buy cake again.

• Like, comment, and discuss capabilities:

Get information to employees quickly through a single, streamlined source, direct from the company.

• Share knowledge with a team approach:

Connect teams and groups to the information they need to get the job done with personalized portals on desktop or mobile apps.

• Easy customized integrations and reporting:

Integrating with and reporting on other applications is easy through HR Cloud Custom Objects™.

Workmates in Action: Real Companies, Real Results

A Leading Management Consulting Firm Improves Employee Engagement and Transforms Its Company Culture with Workmates

A mid-sized healthcare management company recently determined it needed a better way to communicate, collaborate, and engage with all employees. This was important because the company has hundreds of employees in multiple offices in four different states as well as a large remote workforce constantly out of the office serving clients.

The company’s HR Director remembers what led the company to consider an employee communications and engagement platform. “First, we definitely wanted to improve the way we shared information with our entire workforce, even when employees weren’t in the office to make sure they were happy, informed, and fully aligned with our goals,” she says.

The firm also wanted an employee engagement solution that could begin to transform the culture. HR envisioned a  new platform that would go vira throughout the company and let employees post pictures, celebrate achievements, and have fun posting pictures, GIFs, surveys, polls, and more.

To learn even more about improving the employee experience and increasing your competitve advantage while providing a fast return on investment, download our ebook now.

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Summary and Conclusion

Improved Employee Engagement Starts Now

Companies of all sizes need a better way to communicate with remote employees, field-based workers, or any employee looking to feel more connected. This idea is much more than a “nice to have” improvement on HR’s wish list. Instead, improving communication with remote employees is proven to increase engagement, retention, productivity, and financial performance.

HR Cloud’s Workmates platform helps promote and foster employee communications and engagement. With Workmates, employees communicate and collaborate more effectively, positioning your entire company to achieve results that matter most.

About Author: This article is written by a marketing team member at HR Cloud. HR Cloud is a leading provider of proven HR solutions, including recruiting, onboarding, employee communications & engagement, and rewards & recognition. Our user-friendly software  increases employee productivity, delivers time and cost savings, and minimizes compliance risk.

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