With most of their employees now working from home, organisations the world over are doing everything in their power to better integrate their newly dispersed workforce. While online communication and integration among team members in relation to projects has been enhanced to ensure the on time completion of projects, it has not generally been the case in relation to the interpersonal interactions across the organisation as a whole (irrespective of departments or sometimes even location).
The reason why these interpersonal relationships at the workplace are important is because people are social beings at heart and therefore need friends (at the workplace) who they can talk to about things outside of work and who are a source of support for them. The lack of face-to-face interactions of a normal office day affects this aspect (known as intra-networking) of the organisation’s work culture as well. Employees feel disconnected from their colleagues and friends and this lack of peer support has an adverse effect on their motivation and productivity levels. Therefore in addition to maintaining communication within teams it is also essential to maintain communication amongst all the employees of the organisation. Here are a few reasons why it is essential to ensure this internal communication continues unhindered via the online medium.
New Technology Helps Boost Internal Communication
There are numerous internet based collaboration tools which help in ensuring enhanced internal communication, for example:
- Video Conferencing – There are numerous video conferencing tools that can enhance the internal communication process. These tools can be used for large-scale and small-scale organisation wide virtual meetings. Some such tools are Google Hangouts Meet, Zoom, Cisco Jabber, Zoho Meeting etc. These tools can be used to host a wide range of interactions like town hall meetings, seminars, training sessions, new product/ service launches, informal get-togethers etc.
- Intranet – This private network within the organisation ensures secure internal communication and sharing of information. Now social media aspects have also been incorporated into the existing intranet infrastructure thereby enabling liking, sharing, commenting, blogging and numerous other social media features which ease collaboration and communication among employees irrespective of their department or location.
Mentoring
Mentoring programs like one-on-one mentoring or group mentoring can be easily transferred to the online platform thereby enabling sharing of knowledge and expertise. The fact that mentors and mentees hail from different departments spread across numerous locations not only enables the mentees to gain a broader perspective from their mentors but also learn so much from each other. Working together to understand the various concepts helps develop a sense of team spirit and friendship among the mentees due to which they continue to stay in touch even when working on different projects.
Internal Job Postings
When there is excellent communication and interaction between the employees of an organisation, then each of them are aware of the skills and strengths of their peers. So when a job posting in any particular department comes up, those working in that department reach out to their friends/colleagues who have the necessary skill set and interest. This enables career growth within the organisation.
Therefore we can see how important it is to maintain intra-networking (even after shifting to online platforms) in order to ensure the motivation and productivity levels of employees remain high.
