Spend a little time with your employees as part of an HR department, and you’ll realize quickly that one of the keys to being effective is keeping everyone informed and engaged in a company.
At its root, the so-called “rank and file” workers at companies – the ones who aren’t attending the big decision-making meetings – just want to know what’s going on. They want to feel engaged and be a part of something bigger. They want their work to have meaning, and to be appreciated and recognized.
Up to date. Live. Engaging Content.
Engaged employees work with passion and feel a profound connection to their company.
For managers, they want and need that interest and passion – for productivity and retention. It’s rarely good news when a high-performer leaves an organization because they’re unhappy.
The old ways – bulletin boards in break rooms, company newsletters and emails – don’t work very well in workplaces that are increasingly populated and dominated by digital savvy millennials. That’s why digital signage is increasingly being used in a wide variety of working environments to improve communications.
The biggest reason: screens get noticed. Emails have a big problem with open rates (company email blasts get ignored by often high percentages of recipients). Newsletters are old before they even get distributed (and there’s that same problem with how many people read them). Stuffing notices in pay envelopes is antiquated in a time of automatic deposits and online HR systems. And posters taped to walls and stuck to corkboards and fridges is a tactic from another era.
Use digital displays around a workplace – whether that’s an office or a production facility – and people see them. They’re always on. Always there. Always in view. And the content can be changed be scheduled to go up and come down on a schedule, and planned hours, days, even months in advance.
Here are a few ways contemporary workplaces are using digital signage:
Employee recognition – Business communicators have tied digital displays to popular workplace communication and collaboration tools like Slack. Workers getting high praise on Slack for jobs well done see that pop up on screens around the workspace. Managers and supervisors can single and celebrate great work by individuals and teams, that same day, by posting messages to screens.
Performance dashboards – Companies are using data from management systems to show live-charting on screens in worker areas. In a sales department, that might be real-time bar charts and bubble graphics on the sales opportunity pipeline. On a production floor, it might be showing how teams are performing against goals, and historical averages.
Meeting rooms – Digital signs at meeting room doors are putting an end to the timeless problem of confusion and conflict over available meeting room spaces. With small screens at the entry to each meeting room, tied to company calendars, workers can instantly see if a room really is free to use, and if not, use that touchscreen to find one that is free and book a time.
Alerts – Digital signage screens are tied into building management systems to perform a variety of functions, with content served or triggered from other systems. On an ongoing basis, that might be things like dashboards that show how the building is doing on energy and water conservation goals. But it can also be tied in to alert systems, like fire or security, and instantly, automatically flash notifications and instructions on screens around a complex or in specific affected areas.
Corporate communications has quickly become one of the hottest application in the digital signage industry. That’s happened, simply, because the benefits are obvious and the return on investment easily worked out.
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