[Note: This special guest post is from G. I. Sanders, Senior Director of Creative Services at Dynamic Signal. Based in Dallas, TX, Sanders specializes in entrepreneurship, digital and social media, design, and marketing.]

Company success happens in many ways. Popular wisdom posits that the best way to do this is to engage with customers and partners. However, there’s also an often-overlooked path to success – focusing internal communication and employee engagement. Improving internal communication should be a top priority for any business. Encouraging a work environment and culture where your employees feel informed and respected is essential to creating a better engaged and more productive workforce.

However, communicating effectively and efficiently can be difficult with today’s workers. Traditional methods such as using a company intranet are falling out of favor with employees. Today, workers are feeling more disengaged than ever and cost companies billions of dollars in lower productivity and employee performance.

So, how do organizations build tighter connections and better engage with employees?

The answer involves improving internal communication. Ensuring that your employees are 100 percent invested in your company and that critical information gets disseminated quickly and efficiently is crucial. A clear line of communication needs to be established and maintained. You can use the following checklist to vastly improve employee engagement.

Set a goal for your internal communication

The first step is always setting goals. Determine what your KPIs [key performance indicators] are going to be, and create a plan to improve upon those. Measureable and achievable goals are essential to determine the success of this project.

Choose the appropriate methods for communicating

Take into consideration the needs of your business and your employees. How do managers want to communicate? How do HR personnel want to communicate? How do your employees want to communicate? With so many different parts of an organization with so many different expectations, it can be hard to optimize your communication methods and channels to best serve everyone.

Different departments have different needs. So it’s important to align how you deliver communication with the way your employees work as not every employee needs to be included on each memo. And not every employee is tied to a desk all day.

This means that not only do you have to make your sure communication is succinct and relevant to employees, but also that they can even receive those messages. You’ll probably find that most employees (especially the ones who are a part of the “Millennial” generation) prefer to get their information on their smartphones, rather than by logging into the company intranet.

Connect with your employees

Give your employees the tools and ability they need to know what is going on in their place of work. Got great news? Encourage them to share it. Want to notify your employees of a significant change? Bring the news to them, do not make them hunt for it.

Engage your workforce with push notifications and immediate feedback through a mobile intranet platform. If they feel they’re “in the know,” they will feel respected and connected to the company.

Engage your employees

If you allow your employees to feel like they have a “voice,” their sense of engagement – and with it their productivity – will improve. Don’t just push out information to staff members. Create a conversation by encouraging feedback and collaboration. Employees should feel like they have an important part to play in the company’s progress and success.

Keep it professional

Staying on message is essential for an organization. So is making sure that the message is professional. A communication platform is not like a social media platform. Make sure your employees understand what is expected and that they need to maintain a high standard of conduct.

Stay focused

Excellent internal communication can lead to a fantastic company culture. However, make sure you don’t overload your employees with an excessive amount of communication. Find the right balance between what they need to know and excessive information. The best way to do this is by allowing your employees to opt into the news and announcements they want to hear or feel is relevant to their jobs.

Follow this checklist to improve your internal communication, the engagement of your employees, and your company’s bottom line. Once employees have the trust and respect of their employers, they go above and beyond for their organization. In today’s rapidly changing technological landscape, improving internal communication with state-of-the-art tools and platforms is no longer a luxury. It is a necessity.

[For related content, please visit Dynamic Signal’s blog. Photo by rawpixel on Unsplash]