We recently hosted our first UK customer event, 'Inside Oak', where Oak users from across the UK came together in person to learn from one another, share their own best practice and have useful discussions around the triumphs and challenges of internal comms.
During our customer event, we hosted a series of insightful roundtable discussions aimed at addressing common challenges and sharing best practices in internal communications. We’ve rounded up the key takeaways from each session here.
Our roundtables explored four key aspects of internal comms and how they can improve engagement, from leadership buy-in and gamification to the role of AI and analytics in refining content for your audience.
Following the roundtables, we asked each group to feedback their main discussion points, which are outlined below.
Topic 1: How leadership can use the intranet to communicate transparently and regularly with employees, building trust and alignment
- Interaction is a quick win: One of the simplest ways to increase leadership presence on the intranet is to encourage them to engage with content. A few minutes each month spent commenting on posts and sharing a quick ‘well done’ can create a more approachable, human side to leadership and enable them to get involved in the company culture.
- Visibility of leaders using video: Short video profiles of leaders help employees put a face to a name and get to know the person behind the title. If they get on video and give a quick introduction to themselves and what they manage within the business, maybe a short Q&A, it can help open up clearer lines of communication and instil trust from colleagues across the business.
- Choosing the right channel: Sometimes the intranet isn’t the best leadership channel but it can be used to drive people to other leadership channels, such as town halls and events.
Topic 2: How gamification elements can make an intranet more engaging
- Personalised journeys - Often even with smaller companies, there are still mountains of content to wade through, so when someone gets stuck on content that doesn’t interest them, they may zone out altogether. Bringing in gamification can enable users to go directly to updates that interest them. By tailoring content based on individual interests, employees can bypass irrelevant information, leading to greater engagement and retention on the intranet.
- Hubs provide an opportunity to create different communities that can replicate ‘water cooler’ moments. With many employees working remotely, recreating the spontaneous social interactions that happen around the office is key, and using intranet hubs and communities can facilitate this kind of informal interaction.
It requires so much more effort to reach out to someone over Teams and start a chit chatty conversation because people are expecting it to be a request - Communities or hubs would help to bring back or enhance that social aspect.
Emma, K2 Corporate Mobility
- Awards and recognition: Gamification can also be used to channel pride and highlight company values, making them more tangible. Every company has values but could anyone recite all of their company values? Whether through small acts of kindness or larger company-wide awards, gamification can bring company values to life in a tangible way, whether it’s looking after each other or being a team player.
Topic 3: Using AI for content creation in internal communications
- Enhancing efficiency: AI can make us better at our job with automated data analysis. Being able to have AI look through data and give you a top-line overview of performance with recommendations for changes to make, saves time for teams to focus on strategic tasks rather than manual data crunching.
- Remembering the human element: While AI can streamline content creation, it’s important to retain the human voice. Rather than using AI to generate content outright, it can be used for tasks like editing audio or refining drafts, ensuring that the final product remains authentic and engaging.
[When using AI to write content], you’ll always get something that’s a bit too corporate. It feels a little bit soulless…you need to have that human element in there, so use AI to assist in creation, rather than just as a tool of creation itself.
Dale Brodie, Comms Manager and Creative at Five Guys
- Policies and best practices: With AI becoming ever-more integrated into content creation, editing and planning, you should ensure you have clear policies and guidelines in place. For example, making sure you’re not putting company-sensitive data into public AIs and being sensible with what data is shared with such tools.
Topic 4: How data and analytics can help tailor content and engagement strategies
- Diverse usage of analytics among participants: Different companies involved in the roundtable are using Oak’s analytics tools in varied ways based on available resources and business needs. Some are intending to make use of AI reporting which will provide actionable insights, saving time for their teams.
- Numbers vs. behavioural change: Rather than just tracking statistical data like views or clicks, the real value of analytics lies in measuring behavioural change. For example, if engagement increases from 80% to 90% after a specific content rollout, the actual change in behaviour is more important than the numbers themselves.
- Alignment with objectives: Companies are increasingly linking their communications and content strategies to broader business goals and company values, and if it’s not aligned, it won’t go out. While analytics can provide insight, the true measurement is the sentiment or behavioural change. Regular surveys and employee feedback combined with quantitative metrics offer a more comprehensive view of the overall impact of employee communications.
How can Oak help improve your employee engagement?
If you’re ready to build an engaging employee experience on an award-winning platform, we’re here to show you how.
To see how we can transform internal comms and tailor it to suit your company goals, values and operational efficiency, get in touch to arrange a demo of Oak and find out how to level up your internal comms and engagement with ease.
