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Product overview Modern social Employee engagement Internal communications Digital access Analytics Employee app Modern intranet
Employee retention Employee experience Employee communications AI for frontline work
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[Manager-led activation\ [News feed\ [Recognition\ [Chat\ [Single sign-on\ [Surveys\ [Integrations\ Voice and video calling
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A single source of truth for your workforce.
Reach every employee instantly.
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Real-time messaging that keeps your entire team safely connected.
High-quality calling built specifically for your workplace colleagues.
Broadcast all-hands and town halls directly to every mobile device.
Your AI co-pilot for drafting posts and summarizing complex updates.
Modern, social-first updates that make company news feel engaging.
Celebrate wins with public awards and peer-to-peer "thank yous."
Build belonging with discoverable, interest-based social groups.
Automate key milestones from day-one onboarding to work anniversaries.
Replace paper trails with mobile-friendly forms and instant data.
Connect your tech stack to automate workflows and sync user data.
Empower local leaders to drive fast and effective app adoption.
Capture real-time employee sentiment through pulse checks and deep-dives.
...
Explore how Blink can work for your company and role
Explore how Blink can work for your company and role
A single soExplore how Blink can work for your company and roleurce of truth for your workforce.
Explore how Blink can work for your company and role
Employee communication
5 min read
The new rules of employee messaging
new-rules-employee-messaging
Jess DeVore
Published:
March 5, 2026
Last updated:
March 5, 2026
What we'll cover
Employee messaging is broken — but it’s not because people “don’t engage.”
The new rules of employee messaging
How do you build an employee messaging playbook?
Upgrade employee messaging with Blink
The new rules of employee messaging
Employee messaging is broken — but it’s not because people “don’t engage.”
It’s because most workplace messages are slow, noisy, and buried in channels employees never asked for. Email is where urgent notifications go to disappear. Unofficial tools like WhatsApp create risk and chaos. And legacy intranets were never built for real-time conversation — especially for frontline teams.
Meanwhile, employees are used to fast, visual, social communication everywhere else in their lives. If your internal messaging doesn’t meet that bar, it’s not being ignored — it’s being outcompeted.
The good news? Employee messaging isn’t doomed. But it does need new rules.
Let’s break them down.
The new rules of employee messaging
Rule #1: Messaging should mirror how people already communicate
Away from work, employees are chatting over WhatsApp and TikTok. They’re sending short, visual, highly engaging messages in real-time. This is their norm.
To grab their attention, internal communications has to match that energy. So, for chat tools, think beyond text.
Voice notes, GIFs, emojis, attachments, and the option to hop on a video call straight from the chat thread keep conversations flowing naturally — just like they do on personal apps.
Rule #2: Keep it safe, centralized, and compliant
Struggling to follow rule #1 because you don’t have modern comms tools?
Unofficial employee communication channels, like WhatsApp, are a tempting alternative. This is especially true if you have frontline employees who cannot access desktop-based communication channels.
But shadow IT like this poses a risk to your business. Beyond the sheen of convenience, there are issues with data privacy and device security. Your comms team has zero oversight and no analytics, so it’s hard to use employee messaging to build company culture.
In contrast, a dedicated messaging tool like Blink is secure. It offers end-to-end encryption, admin controls, and content moderation tools.
Centralized identity management comes as standard. So you can automatically end platform access when someone leaves your company — and get new hires onboarded with ease.
\ \ How Childen's of Alabama replaced unauthorized apps with a new employee messaging platform\ \ La la \ \ Read more:](/content/customers/childrens-of-alabama/index.html)
Rule #3: Everyone sees only what they need
It’s hard to surface relevant details in a flood of information. So if you want employee messaging to cut through, people should be able to find the messages that matter to them, in an instant.
For this, you need targeted channels that reduce noise and prevent notification fatigue. That means role, location, and interest-based groups. It also means giving employees control with searchable chat, pinned messages, and notification settings.
With Blink, you get all the above, plus the added benefit of employee journeys. This feature lets you deliver personalized content pathways, ensuring the right content reaches the right person at the right time. It’s perfect for onboarding, training, and other key touchpoints within the employee life cycle.
Rule #4: Make your feed worth scrolling
Messaging tools + company news feed = the magic combo. Employees can chat with their team over communication tools, then head over to the news feed for company-wide connection and insight.
So, how do you make your news feed successful? Remember: To stand out in a crowded digital landscape, your feed has to compete with employees’ personal mobile apps.
Think photos, short-form video stories, and infographics. Messages that ditch the corporate tone. Employee recognition, celebrations, behind-the-scenes peeks, and quick-fire polls.
A scroll-worthy feed does more than entertain. It amplifies big company messages, strengthens culture, and keeps employees engaged, productive, and feeling part of something bigger.
Rule #5: Measure everything
You know you’re sticking to the new rules of employee messaging when the stats back you up.
So track what lands, what gets ignored, and which teams are engaged. Use these data to tweak content formats, timing, and style (and educate other content creators within the company), so messages land better every time.
With BlinkIQ, you can track read rates, workforce engagement trends, and even employee sentiment to get a full picture of your internal comms performance. You get the insight you need to make meaningful changes to comms and the wider employee experience.
How do you build an employee messaging playbook?
If you’re keen to give your workplace communication strategy a glow-up, you’ll get the best results by following this playbook.
Establish your purpose and principles
First, get the fundamentals straight.
Why is employee messaging important to your organization? Perhaps it supports speedy communication, connection, alignment, or frontline access to comms.
What are your guiding principles? Is it clear, informal, transparent, and useful?
And how does messaging fit within the broader comms ecosystem? What types of employee communication belong on your team chat app, and which are better suited to your news feed or content hub?
Decide on your tools
These days, traditional intranet platforms, email, and shadow IT aren’t up to the task of effective employee messaging. You need a tool that mimics the experience of text and social apps, while offering next-level security features.
If you don’t currently have this kind of tech on your team, it’s time to gather cross-functional consensus on what your messaging tool should look like. Draw up a shortlist of tools that meet your requirements. Demo these tools and decide on the best fit.
Organize your channels
To keep things shipshape in your messaging tool, you need to decide the following:
- Naming conventions for channels or groups (so they’re easy to search)
- When to create a new channel
- Who is permitted to create a new channel
You may then want to create (at a minimum) channels for specific departments, locations, and teams.
Create chat guidelines and governance
Create guidelines on the kind of content that people can share over company messaging channels. Establish emoji, GIF, and reaction etiquette.
Also, decide who’s responsible for governance — your IC team, HR, managers, or designated channel moderators? In the unlikely case that someone posts something inappropriate, moderators can then flag and remove the content.
Create training materials
Teach employees how to get the most out of chat functions by offering step-by-step instructions for new employees and top tips for existing ones.
Let them know how to manage their notifications, how to share their location, how to set their status, and how to favorite a message.
Go further by training managers in good messaging practices. Offer advice on how to keep the digital conversation flowing, how to use AI assistance, and how to ensure their comms are accessible, engaging, and inclusive of all employees.
Decide on your success metrics
What does good look like when it comes to your employee messaging channels? Decide what metrics you want to track, and benchmark performance to see what impact any improvements make.
You might like to track:
- Read rates
- Message reactions
- Employee sentiment
- Operational efficiency
- Compliance rate
Then, segment data by team or chat channel to find out where additional IC support may be needed.
\ \ Less is more: The art of writing internal comms that stick\ \ A practical guide to cutting through the noise and making your messages matter\ \ Download guide](/content/guides/less-is-more-the-art-of-writing-internal-comms-that-stick/index.html)
Upgrade employee messaging with Blink
Playing by the new rules of employee messaging doesn’t just improve workplace communication. It powers knowledge sharing, team building, and productivity across your organization.
To achieve this, you need a modern messaging tool that meets the expectations of employees and the needs of your organization.
Blink is a secure, mobile-first messaging platform. It delivers consumer-grade chat and a personalized news feed, perfect for information sharing and co-worker connection.
But Blink doesn’t stop there. It offers a content hub, analytics, and deep integrations with other software you use. It is a complete solution for internal communications, employee experience, and employee engagement.
Frequently asked questions
#1. What is employee messaging?
Employee messaging is the exchange of information between employees, co-workers, and managers over a dedicated chat channel. Messaging can take place over 1-to-1 or group threads — and tools can be used to send urgent company updates, engage the workforce, and facilitate easy two-way conversations in real time.
#2. Why is effective employee messaging important?
Effective employee messaging is important for sharing information and emergency alerts. It also supports teamwork and a sense of belonging. Mobile-first employee messaging channels are especially important for frontline teams. Accessed via smartphone, they bring group chats into every employee workflow.
#3. What do the best employee messaging tools have in common?
The best employee messaging tools offer a consumer-grade experience. They’re easy and intuitive to use with features like emojis, GIFs, voice notes, video calling, and the option to add attachments. A dedicated employee messaging tool — designed around the needs of your organization — provides a fast, secure, and engaging way for team members to stay in touch.
#4. How do you move from email to mobile-first messaging?
To move from email to mobile-first messaging, you first need to find the right employee messaging tool. Consumer apps aren’t secure enough for business use. So you should look to apps like Blink that are designed to bring consumer-grade employee messaging to a company setting.
Blink. And turn employee messaging into a business advantage .
The new rules of employee messaging
Employee messaging is broken — but it’s not because people “don’t engage.”
The good news? Employee messaging isn’t doomed. But it does need new rules.
Let’s break them down.
The new rules of employee messaging
Rule #1: Messaging should mirror how people already communicate
Away from work, employees are chatting over WhatsApp and TikTok. They’re sending short, visual, highly engaging messages in real-time. This is their norm.
Rule #2: Keep it safe, centralized, and compliant
Struggling to follow rule #1 because you don’t have modern comms tools?
Rule #3: Everyone sees only what they need
Rule #4: Make your feed worth scrolling
Rule #5: Measure everything
You know you’re sticking to the new rules of employee messaging when the stats back you up.
How do you build an employee messaging playbook?
If you’re keen to give your workplace communication strategy a glow-up, you’ll get the best results by following this playbook.
Establish your purpose and principles
First, get the fundamentals straight.
Why is employee messaging important to your organization? Perhaps it supports speedy communication, connection, alignment, or frontline access to comms.
What are your guiding principles? Is it clear, informal, transparent, and useful?
Decide on your tools
Organize your channels
To keep things shipshape in your messaging tool, you need to decide the following:
- Naming conventions for channels or groups (so they’re easy to search)
- When to create a new channel
- Who is permitted to create a new channel
You may then want to create (at a minimum) channels for specific departments, locations, and teams.
Create chat guidelines and governance
Create guidelines on the kind of content that people can share over company messaging channels. Establish emoji, GIF, and reaction etiquette.
Create training materials
Teach employees how to get the most out of chat functions by offering step-by-step instructions for new employees and top tips for existing ones.
Let them know how to manage their notifications, how to share their location, how to set their status, and how to favorite a message.
Decide on your success metrics
You might like to track:
- Read rates
- Message reactions
- Employee sentiment
- Operational efficiency
- Compliance rate
Then, segment data by team or chat channel to find out where additional IC support may be needed.
Upgrade employee messaging with Blink
To achieve this, you need a modern messaging tool that meets the expectations of employees and the needs of your organization.
Frequently asked questions
#1. What is employee messaging?
#2. Why is effective employee messaging important?
#3. What do the best employee messaging tools have in common?
#4. How do you move from email to mobile-first messaging?
Blink. And turn employee messaging into a business advantage .
What we'll cover
Employee messaging is broken — but it’s not because people “don’t engage.”
The new rules of employee messaging
How do you build an employee messaging playbook?
Upgrade employee messaging with Blink
Start your free trial today
See how Blink helps frontline teams stay connected, informed, and engaged.
What to read next?
\ 18 Employee Engagement Activities for Deskless Teams](/content/intelligence/employee-engagement-activities/index.html)
\ A new dawn for digital employee experience](/content/intelligence/a-new-dawn-for-digital-employee-experience/index.html)
\ Meet Tom King](/content/intelligence/tom-king/index.html)
Related Blogs
The frontline industry is currently facing more challenges than most when it comes to empowering staff.
The Great Resignation, toxic leadership and the rise of “Quiet Quitting” led to a frontline feeling overworked and undervalued. Today, frontline employees need to feel more supported, confident and empowered in their roles.
And there is hope. Slowly but surely, companies are beginning to realize the importance of empowering their frontline employees. And as more organizations come to see the value of Diversity & Inclusion (DE&I), the frontline sector is starting to transform. Workers are beginning to feel appreciated again, and they are finally able to do their jobs with pride.
But only if their leaders take charge.
So, how can you better empower frontline employees? What does employee empowerment even mean, anyway? And how does this affect your frontline workers specifically?
Read on to learn everything you need to know about empowering your frontline team, from what frontline empowerment really is, to why it matters and how you can implement it. With the right tools and empowerment strategies in place, your frontline can be more engaged, productive, and empowered than ever before!
Key challenges faced by frontline employees
80% of the global workforce already performs physical or deskless work.In order to keep things running smoothly for the majority of the global workforce, those on the frontline need to be able to rely on a few things.
Unfortunately, many of them are currently facing challenges that are making their jobs more difficult than they should be.
- Pay increases have not kept up with inflation: This means that those on the frontline are struggling to make ends meet, and it can be hard to keep morale high when you're not being rewarded for your hard work.
- The frontline are often passed over for opportunities their desked peers are given: This can make it harder for them to advance in their careers and stay motivated or productive on the job, which has led to frustration, disillusionment, and the rise of the Great Resignation.
- If treated like desk-based workers, the frontline can't succeed: Deskless employees need to be given the necessary tools and training to perform their jobs well, as well as access to technology that improves communication and collaboration. Without it, companies will continue to see a lack of productivity and engagement among their workforce.
- Lack of leadership enablement: Leadership needs to let go and resist the urge to try and fix all problems themselves. They need to trust that mid-level managers have the ability to train and support the frontline. When a problem occurs, leaders need to equip managers with the right tools to overcome frontline challenges.
- Lack of frontline engagement: Without two-way communications, it is more difficult for leaders to make the frontline want to engage. As such, they are struggling to build trust and confidence with their teams. The truth is, if you're good to the frontline, they'll be good to your bottom line. You need to show your frontline you care to earn their engagement.
- No ambassadors: Without frontline ambassadors, there's no way to drive good will, reputation and sales. Frontline employees are the face of your company. If they love their jobs, they'll naturally want to spread the word about what you do.
Because of these industry challenges, many frontline employees have been left unhappy, unmotivated, and leaving companies faster than you can say quiet-quitting.
Today , leaders are facing a limited workforce. Because of this labor shortage, they are looking for more effective ways to reach higher levels of productivity, employee retention and ultimately, success.
What does frontline empowerment mean?
So what actually is frontline empowerment? What's the substance behind the hype?
At its core, frontline empowerment is about giving your frontline workers the freedom and authority to make decisions and take valuable action on their own. This means providing them with all the resources, information, training, and tools they need to succeed at their jobs.
Of course, empowering your frontline won't happen overnight - it takes time and effort. But by introducing the notion of ' doing more with less', using effective employee tools to drive change and productivity, and committing to ongoing communication and training, you can create a successful and sustainable culture of empowerment that will benefit everyone involved.
Why empowering the frontline is so important
Did you know that almost all ( 90% of) organizations say success depends on empowering frontline employees to make decisions in the moment?
With a culture of empowerment in place, those on the frontline can bridge the gap between management and the rank-and-file, allowing them to collaborate more effectively and achieve higher levels of engagement. This in turn boosts engagement across your entire workforce, creating a culture where everyone feels valued and motivated to succeed.
Additionally, there's no lack of research to back the frontline empowerment trend. A 2020 Harvard Business Review Analytic Services survey gathered the insights of 464 business executives across an array of industries.The findings were clear: organizations empowering their frontline employees are seeing an array of benefits, and those who are not are falling behind.
Here are a few reasons why frontline empowerment is vital to your corporate culture and overall company success:
1. Cultivating a sense of belonging to retain the best talent
"The vast majority of deskless workers ( 97% ) report that they would stay in their current roles if their conditions improved. Such conditions go beyond a pay rise, meaning that HR needs to offer deskless workers the same opportunities as their deskbound counterparts."
This means prioritizing your team's mental health, giving them the right technology and resources they need to thrive and investing in their engagement and empowerment to create a true sense of belonging. In order to retain the best talent and build a strong, engaged workforce, empowering your frontline is essential.
It helps to create a collaborative culture where everyone feels like an integral part of the team. This kind of environment reduces turnover rates and builds up a strong sense of camaraderie that drives long-term success for your organization.
2. Improving frontline engagement and morale
Empowered frontline employees are engaged frontline employees. An engaged frontline workforce means better employee morale and cohesion between your frontline teams.
By empowering the frontline, you are also giving them the authority to make decisions on their own and take action in real-time - something that is vital when dealing with fast-paced, dynamic business environments. In turn, this continuous flow of engagement not only keeps everyone motivated and engaged, but it also creates more transparency and trust between management and those on the frontline.
With engagement as a natural part of your organizational culture, you can also expect to see improved productivity, performance and results from your frontline teams. On top of this, a disengaged employee costs around 34% of their annual salary, meaning that strong engagement can actually have a direct positive impact on your bottom line.
3. Satisfied staff leads to satisfied customers
Frontline workers are the first point of call between your organization and your customers, yet they remain an afterthought in many digital workplaces. This causes a lack of motivation in workers and a disconnect from the wider workforce – and their customers.
Simply put: when you empower frontline staff, you improve customer satisfaction.
Customer feedback, whether positive or negative, is extremely valuable to any business. And in order to get that feedback, you need your frontline employees, who are interacting with customers on a daily basis, to feel empowered and engaged to take action.
By giving the right tools and resources to your frontline teams, as well as giving them autonomy over how they do their jobs, you can facilitate better interactions with customers and improve overall customer satisfaction levels.
How to introduce, implement and sustain frontline empowerment
While HR trends state a range of strategies on the horizon for the frontline in 2023, including implementing mobile-first self-service enterprise software, increasing career opportunities and improving working conditions, one thing is clear. HR will drastically increase investment in its deskless workers over the coming months and years.
So how can you keep up with the trend? How can you introduce, implement and sustain frontline empowerment within your organization? Here are our eight top tips:
1. Start a frontline management flywheel to drive success
As leaders looking to empower their frontline, it's vital to define the standard you want to achieve. Defining this level of performance will help you set a standard to aspire to. A frontline management flywheel - defined by small management wins that accumulate over time to drive overall business growth - can help you map out how to start, implement and sustain successful empowerment initiatives.
Some core components of a frontline management flywheel include setting clear goals, aligning the right resources behind those goals, measuring progress and scaling success as you go.
2. Provide the right training for each level of worker
Ongoing and engaging training is key when it comes to empowering the frontline. This means making sure that your deskless workers have access to the right training programs and resources to be successful in their jobs, as well as investing in regular management training for those at the top of your organization.
For deskless workers, this means providing virtual or on-the-job training, as well as investing in coaching and mentoring programs that can help them to grow. For management-level employees, this means providing opportunities for professional development or leadership training.
3. Give them decision making abilities
In order for frontline empowerment initiatives to be successful, it's important that your frontline workers are equipped to make important decisions on the spot. Providing them with the right tools, resources and training can help them lead effectively, and empower them to make quick decisions when needed.
Equipping frontline managers to lead, make important decisions with confidence and empower their teams to do the same will help to drive better results for your organization as a whole.
One great example of this is Salutem's SELF initiatives - giving employees opportunities to be part of important decisions by empowering them with a Salutem Employee Listening Forum facilitated by the Blink employee app – an intuitive, two-way, all-in-one solution to employee communications.
4. Provide the right tools and technology
With 52% of frontline workers claiming they would leave their job over tech tools, it’s clear to see the impact that the right employee technology and digital employee experience can have on a company.
Empowering the frontline is not just about giving them more autonomy in their roles – it's also about giving them the right tools, training and resources they need to be successful in these roles.
By investing in key employee technology platforms, you can equip your frontline teams with what they need to do their jobs more efficiently and effectively, to reach better performance and results.
This might include employee scheduling software, communication and collaboration tools, or even data analytics software that can help deskless workers make more informed decisions on their own.
5. Get and give regular feedback
As with any other important initiative in your organization, empowering the frontline requires a commitment from leadership. This means that as a leader, it's important to get regular feedback on how these initiatives are going, as well as giving your frontline managers and employees the opportunity to provide their own feedback about how you can continue to grow and improve their employee experience.
By making a commitment to getting and giving regular feedback, you can stay on top of the changes and challenges that come with empowering your frontline team, and continue to make meaningful improvements along the way.
6. Have a thorough onboarding process
At Blink, we recently held a five-day hackathon where our conversations highlighted that onboarding processes are not only key to a successful retention strategy at our company but also for many of the large organizations that we work with.
Your onboarding process is where your employees get their first impression of what it's like to work at your organization. And so, it's important that this experience is a positive one, and that your deskless workers are set up for success right from the start. Unfortunately, only 12% of employees feel strongly that their organization does a great job onboarding new people.
This might include providing ongoing training and support during onboarding, or making sure that all of the necessary tools, including employee experience tools, and resources are available, accessible and set up from day one.
Blink's Hub - a centralized and secure frontline environment where digital forms, policies, safety guidelines and other relevant documents are stored - allows frontline organizations to store private and secure information that are shareable by teams. These allow frontline workers to access relevant documentation (training, e-learning materials, videos) to accelerate their onboarding process.
Blink's Directory also allows users to know who's doing what and in what team, making onboarding a whole lot smoother for leadership, too.
7. Recognize and reward hard work
To empower your frontline team and create a sense of autonomy and ownership, it's essential to recognize their hard work and reward them accordingly. You can think about offering the right mix of rewards, recognition and incentives that can motivate them.
Why? Well, 36% of employees say lack of recognition is the top reason to leave their job, while
more than 40% of employees feel that being recognized often means they put more energy into their work.
Addressing this will require regular performance reviews, incentive programs or even creative rewards such as Kudos, personalized gift cards or experiences that can motivate your frontline team to continue doing their best work.
How Blink can help you empower your frontline
Employee Surveys
With Blink's Employee Surveys, you can regularly pulse check your frontline to get a consistent sense of what's going on for your workforce. By gathering reliable, real-time data you can ensure you're doing what's right before it's too late. By maximizing the right initiatives, HR leaders are able to encourage getting and giving regular feedback.
Feed
Create a sense of belonging using Blink's Feed. The Feed opens up multi-directional conversations allowing the frontline to share thoughts and feedback through polls, sentiment through reactions, likes and comments. With Feed, you're able to create a culture of constant improvement, and encourage your frontline to continue putting their feedback forward.
Employee Recognition
Blink's Recognition feature allows anyone in the company to recognize hard work and achievements, as well as spread positive word of mouth about their team members. By giving your frontline team the opportunity to recognize each other's work, and by providing regular recognition programs and incentives, you will empower your employees.
Blink Champions
Without team members championing your empowerment initiatives, it can be hard to get them off the ground. As such, Blink Champions are the cornerstone of a successful launch for your next frontline empowerment initiative. The role of a Blink Champions includes:
- Working with other Champions to ensure the launch is a success
- Raising awareness of Blink and encouraging others to use the app
- Being active in the Feed
- Educating teams on how to use the app
- Being an advocate for Blink.
Hear from Brittany Schlacter, Communications Specialist and Blink Champion at The Rapid:
https://www.youtube.com/embed/pbi0QDbucpY
Final Thoughts
The race is on for frontline leaders to empower their workers. And fortunately, frontline leaders know this is needed and are ready to take the necessary steps to make it happen.
We've highlighted some of the ways that you can empower your frontline team, including investing in your digital transformation efforts, recognising and rewarding hard work, and using Employee Surveys to gather and act on feedback.
By implementing some of these initiatives, you can create a sense of autonomy and ownership among your employees, driving productivity and growth in your organization.
To unlock frontline empowerment to its highest potential, consider investing in the Blink employee app. With tools like Employee Recognition, Hub, Feed and a dedicated champion team, you'll be able to empower your frontline employees in no time!
At first glance, it seems that internal communications and external communications couldn’t be more different.
External communication is all about sharing your brand and its messaging with people outside of your organization. This includes customers, stakeholders, and investors.
Internal communication is focused on sharing key company developments with people inside your organization. It gives employees the information they need to do their jobs effectively.
Because of this primary difference between internal and external communication, many companies treat these two forms of corporate comms as separate entities. They fail to see how their approach to external comms can inspire a better kind of internal communication.
Here, we challenge that thinking. We look at the similarities and differences between internal and external comms — and share some ideas for improving internal communication at your organization.
Similarities between internal and external communications
Let’s start by looking at all the things internal and external business communication have in common.
Strategic importance
Both external and internal communications are important to the success of your business.
External communication is how you share your brand with customers and stakeholders. It’s how you convince people to trust in your brand and buy your products or services — and it has a clear impact on your bottom line.
Internal communication is aimed at your employees. It supports day-to-day operations and helps you build a strong company culture. The link may not be as obvious but internal communication also has a big impact on your company’s profitability.
That’s because, when you communicate effectively with employees, you stand to improve productivity, the customer experience, employee engagement, and employee retention, all of which affect company profits.
Therefore, both types of communication are essential to an organization — and both require a detailed schedule and strategy.
Selling the brand and what it stands for
You can use external and internal communication to sell your brand to respective audiences.
To your external audience, you sell your external brand image. You show customers and collaborators what makes your brand unique — and why they should pick you over your competitors.
To your internal communications audience, you sell your employer brand and company culture. You remind employees why your company is such a great place to work.
Comms content differs depending on your audience. But there’s a guiding principle to bear in mind. Selling your brand is easier when you create an emotional connection between your organization and your audience.
To do this, creative visuals and persuasive copy can do a lot of the heavy lifting. But you should also communicate a brand purpose that goes beyond increasing profits. You should highlight your company’s social purpose to both internal and external audiences.
You can take things further with your internal comms. Clearly communicate your purpose, values, and strategy to employees. This helps your staff find meaning in their work — and understand how their efforts contribute to business goals — which means better motivation.
To align employees with your purpose, values, and strategy, focus some of your internal communications plan on the following:
Making your senior execs accessible and accountable. Holding monthly Q&As is a great way to align your on-the-ground team with long-term strategy goals. It’s also much easier for employees to relate to the humans behind your company than to a faceless corporation.
Highlighting how your company has made a difference in the world. Showcase positive customer case studies to show how your company is making a difference in people’s lives. Also, share any company activities that support people or the planet.
Featuring employee perspectives. Interview people from different departments and ask them what they do and what they like about their job. This helps people to build a bigger picture of their workplace and understand how everything fits together.
Two-way conversations
In both external and internal communications, communication used to travel one way. A brand and its leaders would speak. Customers and employees would listen.
But social media changed things dramatically. It’s now easy for customers to interact with brands, comment on their social posts, ask questions, and post their online reviews.
This shift from one-way conversations in external communication has changed expectations around workplace communications — and many organizations are now adopting a two-way approach as part of their internal comms strategy.
Companies are involving employees in the company conversation — whether they work in the office, at home, or on the frontlines of the organization. They’re giving them a voice with the help of employee surveys, two-way communication channels, and meetings where their contributions are encouraged.
Of course, making the decision to embrace two-way conversations can be a big deal for brands. They have to be prepared to respond to questions and criticism — from customers or employees. So why do it?
Involving customers and employees in your communications is good for engagement. It helps to boost trust and loyalty, which benefits both employee and customer attraction and retention.
For employees, two-way communication makes them feel valued and respected by your organization. This means they’re more likely to offer their valuable insights and perspectives — and they’re more likely to do their best work.
The need for engagement
Another similarity between internal and external communication is the need for engaging content.
This is a given in external communication. Marketing and PR teams are tasked with making a brand stand out from the competition. They employ eye-catching visuals and interactive content to grab and hold customer attention.
Typically, internal communication has lagged behind. But with the "Tiktokification" of internal communications, dry, corporate comms are becoming a thing of the past.
Just like customers, employees are more likely to engage with your content when it’s creative, interactive, and visually appealing. This is why many organizations are now posting social-media-style internal content to user-friendly, mobile-first communication channels.
The need for targeting
You maximize the impact of internal and external communications when you personalize content to your audience.
Send the same external or internal information to everyone and your recipients will start to switch off from your comms. They assume that your messages are irrelevant to them and stop reading or watching them.
So you need to segment your audiences. Then, create targeted content relevant to each group of customers or employees.
For internal communications, you can segment employees by role, location, department, tenure, and team to ensure each employee only receives information relevant to them.
Of course, there are some messages that all employees need to hear. But with proper segmentation, you don’t give retail staff an in-depth update on your work-from-home policy — or tell office-based staff about the next driver training session. Instead, all comms are appropriate and engaging.
Measuring success
Measurement is another important element of both external and internal communications. If you don’t set and track metrics, you can’t be sure that your communications are effective.
So, just as you measure the impact of your external communication campaigns, you can set internal communication metrics and KPIs. You can identify your best content and assess levels of engagement, finding ways to hone your comms going forward.
Also, in the same way that you’d conduct market research and seek customer reviews, seek feedback from employees. Use surveys to ask them about their employee experience. Find out what they think about your internal communications. Then, make informed improvements.
Differences between internal and external communications
Internal and external comms clearly have a lot in common — and there are lots of external communication principles that you can apply to your internal messaging.
However, there are some key differences between internal and external communication that you should bear in mind.
Your audience
Internal and external communications have different audiences:
- Your external communication audience includes customers, stakeholders, business partners, investors, and the media.
- Your internal communication audience includes your organization’s C-suite, managers, and employees.
There is, however, some overlap. You need to share external messages with frontline employees so they can relay a consistent message to customers.
Your communications team
Usually, different teams are responsible for external and internal communications.
External comms is often run by your PR or marketing teams. You may rely on agency or in-house staff.
To communicate effectively with your employees, you need an internal communications team. This is usually an in-house team that has regular contact with:
- The leadership team
- Marketing and PR
- Operations
- HR
Your internal comms team will work with partners throughout the organization to ensure key messages are communicated consistently and employees have access to the information they need.
Content
The content you share with internal and external audiences is very different.
External communication is all about marketing messages, customer support, and building a brand reputation. Examples of external communication content include:
- A press release discussing the latest company news
- Customer emails detailing a discount
- An industry research report
- An advertising campaign for a new product
Via your internal communication channels, you’ll tend to share business updates, strategy details, operational information, and company culture. Examples of internal communication content include:
- Rota changes
- Health and safety updates
- Details of your next company social
- Recognition for employee success
The content you serve to your internal and external audiences may differ. But there are still some fundamentals that apply to both.
Comms that demonstrate honesty and authenticity are better at building brand trust. So try to communicate openly across both internal and external communication channels.
In internal communications, this means being transparent about company goals and challenges. And it means welcoming questions and ideas from employees.
Communication goals
The goal of external communication is to promote the company. You’re aiming to:
- enhance the company’s reputation
- generate sales and leads
- build relationships with customers and stakeholders
Goals for internal communications are different. Across internal comms channels, you’ll share practical and operational information to ensure the smooth running of your organization.
But effective internal communication does more than convey essential, day-to-day guidance for employees. You can use your internal communications to:
- share company values, goals, and purpose
- strengthen co-worker relationships
- recognize and motivate employees
- facilitate collaboration
Done well, internal communications helps you to build a company culture employees are excited to be part of. This is particularly important for remote, hybrid, and frontline teams.
These employees miss out on the camaraderie of the office. It’s easy for them to feel disconnected from the organization and, as a result, less engaged in their work. Internal communications — and co-worker communication channels — provide a vital link to the organization.
So use internal communications to improve the employee experience, boost employee engagement, and reduce employee turnover. Build these goals into your internal communications strategy and you’ll create a happier, more motivated, and more cohesive organization.
Communication channels
You can use some communication channels to speak to external and internal audiences. You might use emails, webinars, conferences, and newsletters to reach employees, customers — and other company stakeholders.
However, in general, you use different communication channels for each group.
Your external audience gets updates via press releases, your company website, media news, and your social media accounts. You can also grab their attention with marketing campaigns and product launches.
Internal communication takes place over internal channels. Offline channels include company meetings and notice boards. But the best internal communications strategies make the most of digital communication tools.
Modern intranets and employee apps are a one-stop shop. They consolidate your internal communications and give internal comms teams all the tools they need to communicate with staff.
Pick a mobile-first solution and employees can access your company comms from their smartphones, which is ideal for frontline and remote workers.
You can also find internal communication platforms that provide social-media-style tools. They allow you to post interactive content on the company news feed and give employees the chance to like and comment.
Whether your comms team wants to post a company-wide update, send out a survey, celebrate team success, or provide self-serve HR functions, it’s all possible with the right comms platform.
Finding the right tool to support your internal communications strategy
There are lots of similarities between internal and external communications — and lots of ways external comms can inspire more effective and engaging internal messaging.
So segment your audience, measure success, embrace two-way conversations, and create interactive, visual content.
Don’t underestimate the benefits better internal communications can bring to your organization. It has the power to improve employee engagement, customer experience, company culture, and employee retention.
Also, remember that embracing the principles of external communication for your internal comms strategy is easier when you use mobile-first, social-media-style, digital communication tools.
Blink is an employee super-app, with all the tools you need to deliver relevant and engaging comms to employees. With Blink you can:
- Create engaging, two-way communication with news feed and instant messaging channels
- Segment your audience so they only receive relevant communications
- Launch a content and HR hub, giving employees everything they need to do their jobs well
- Measure the success of your internal comms with analytics and employee surveys
Improve internal communications at your organization. Request a Blink demo to get started today.
When it comes to intranets vs. employee experience platforms, what’s the real difference?
It’s getting harder and harder to tell. Here’s why.
There’s been a revolution in the type of tech tools we use in the modern workplace. For a long time now, we’ve been moving away from static communication tools — like the traditional employee intranet — toward dynamic, engagement-centric platforms.
Intranet software is still the backbone of internal communication and collaboration in many organizations. But employee experience platforms (EXPs) play an ever-expanding role in the workplace ecosystem.
These user-friendly platforms are changing our expectations of what the employee intranet should be. They’re bringing together various digital workspace tools — for communication, collaboration, learning, wellbeing, and performance management.
Ultimately, they’re providing HR teams with an easy way to perform employee experience management — and much more besides. They’re having a big impact on company culture, employee engagement, and employee retention.
So is the intranet still relevant in a world of integrated EXPs? Let’s look at how the lines between these two types of workplace tech have blurred — and what this means for your organization.
The showdown: Intranets vs. employee experience platforms
Intranets 101: The old guard of workplace tech
An intranet is a private network that facilitates the sharing of information across an organization. It’s a hub for workplace resources, news, and tools.
Traditionally, the employee intranet has supported limited interactivity. It’s a tool for top-down employee communications — where leaders speak and employees listen.
Intranet platforms are often designed for office-based employees. Workers without a desktop computer or a company email address may struggle to access the tools and resources housed on the intranet.
EXPs explained: The future of employee engagement
An employee experience platform is a dynamic ecosystem. It integrates employee communication, engagement, and collaboration tools.
EXPs place a firm focus on employees and their experience in the workplace. They provide tools for recognition and co-worker connection. They support two-way internal communication, with essential features like employee surveys — and a news feed where employees can share user-generated, relevant content.
EXPs are often available via desktop and smartphone apps. So they allow HR and comms leaders to promote company culture and share vital information across the whole organization. Everyone — including your company’s frontline workers — can access EXP resources.
Blurred lines: When intranets meet EXPs
With the advent of EXPs, modern intranet software tends to go beyond the static experience of old. Intranet providers are incorporating more and more EXP features into their offering.
So why is this change taking place? Why are the lines between the employee intranet and employee experience platforms blurring? We put this shift down to three key factors.
#1. Tech trends that are changing the game
Technology has moved on drastically since the days of the traditional employee intranet. And modern intranet solutions are taking inspiration from EXPs.
Some now come with real-time communication tools that support fast and effective teamwork. Some have user-friendly interfaces that mimic the experience employees get on their favorite social media apps.
AI integration is another popular trend. It’s helping communications teams to create compelling messages. It’s also helping comms and HR teams make sense of the employee landscape, by turning complex employee data into actionable insights.
#2. Employees are demanding better tech
Using tech tools in their personal lives, employees enjoy seamless experience. They get personalized recommendations. They can access tools from their smartphones. It’s quick and convenient for users to find the information and tools they need.
As a result, their expectations of workplace tech have become more exacting.
Old and clunky workplace tech creates a poor digital employee experience (DEX). It creates friction and frustration in the work day. This impacts employee productivity, satisfaction, and retention.
With this in mind, intranet software is evolving to meet the needs of today’s employees. Increasingly, you’ll find solutions that offer mobile-first, real-time, and personalized experiences.
#3. Building a business case for better tools
1 in 3 workers says workplace technologies are not being used effectively — and employers are wasting money on unused licenses. Employees would prefer fewer but more effective tools to help them do their jobs.
Unified platforms reduce tool fatigue. The right platform also improves ROI because you pay for a single software solution, designed to help you meet a range of business objectives.
According to Gartner research, top business priorities for 2025 include:
- Change management
- Strategic workplace planning
- Building a strong organizational culture
- Leader and manager development
A comprehensive platform can help with all the above. You can use it to drive productivity, efficiency, employee engagement, wellbeing, and retention.
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Intranets vs. EXPs: What still sets them apart?
Intranet software providers are adopting many EXP features in a bid to improve their offering. But there remain some key differences between most intranets and employee experience platforms. These are:
Content vs. experience: Intranet software prioritizes static content. It’s focused on providing employees with the resources they need to do their jobs. EXPs focus on experience and engagement, powered by interactive social features. They have a positive impact on the employee experience and company culture.
One-way vs. two-way communication: Intranet solutions allow leaders to share information with employees. EXPs facilitate a dialogue. They give employees the tools they need to speak up and leave feedback — and for leaders to respond, showing they value the input of their workforce.
User experience: Traditional intranet platforms are often legacy systems that have been updated, bit by bit, to meet modern workforce needs. EXPs, however, have been built with today’s workforce (and their expectations) in mind. They are consumer-grade, intuitive solutions that employees enjoy using.
These differences pose a problem. In platforms where these differences are more pronounced, you’ll struggle to meet diverse organizational needs with just one tool.
You may be able to share and store company resources but struggle to promote two-way interaction. You may be able to launch beautiful employee surveys while sharing company feedback remains a challenge. Document sharing may be easy, but knowledge sharing or facilitating collaboration with project management tools may be nearly impossible.
As we’ve already seen, using more than one platform causes frustration for employees and increases your software costs. So there’s a strong case for finding workplace tech that ticks all the boxes.
Why integrated platforms are the future
We may be a bit biased — but we believe that unified platforms are the future. Powered by seamless integration, they provide employees with the corporate communication, tools, and resources they need to thrive in their roles.
For example, an integrated platform can provide key features such as:
- An integrated social feed where employees can get relevant, engaging, and up-to-the-minute company news
- Task management features that bring all tasks together in one easy-to-understand dashboard
- Personalized employee journeys, with the platform delivering resources to workers as and when they need them
- An exceptional digital experience across all devices, so you can roll the platform out to your entire workforce
- Robust analytics, that help you gauge what content is getting good engagement — and where there’s room for improvement
Of course, when bringing all of your workplace tools into one super platform, there are considerations you need to bear in mind.
You need to balance rich features with simplicity to avoid overwhelming users. You also need to personalize the platform experience to each employee to prevent information overload. Platform usage will drop if employees find your solution too complicated or irrelevant.
A good intranet software provider will help you overcome these challenges and maximize the benefits of a unified platform. Key benefits include:
- Streamlined workflows. Employees don’t waste time switching between different workplace software. From Google Workspace and ServiceNow, to Workday and ADP, and everything in between, any tool they need is easily and quickly at their fingertips. This means better efficiency and productivity across your workforce.
- Improved engagement. An integrated platform takes the best bits of the intranet and places them all in one intuitive interface. It then builds in other engagement features — like recognition, learning, and instant messaging with coworkers — to create a thoroughly engaging platform and digital workplace.
- Data-driven insights. With everything in one place, it’s easier to make sense of platform data. Your team can track employee experience and engagement metrics, viewing them alongside key business data relating to retention and productivity. With enhanced reporting tools, you can get a better sense of organizational performance and have the insight you need to make targeted improvements.
Why choose? Get the best of both worlds
The distinctions between an intranet and an EXP are getting harder to spot. The lines between the two platforms are increasingly blurred and these software solutions often provide many of the same features.
So, when deciding on the right tech for your organization, it’s best to take a holistic view. It’s about creating the right ecosystem for your workforce that offers a single source of truth for internal comms and links to the tools and features you need to ensure productivity, engagement, and employee satisfaction.
You may choose to use an EXP to fill the employee engagement gaps left by your intranet software solution. You can also find EXPs that fulfill both roles — that of an employee intranet and an employee experience platform.
Either way, the right EXP will integrate with the other workplace software you use — including HRIS, learning and development, and wellbeing tools — to give employees everything they need in a single application.
Blink. And discover how an employee experience platform can enhance your existing employee intranet.
.png)](/content/intelligence/quarterly-unlock-may-2026/index.html)News\ \ May 27, 2026\ \ Quarterly Unlock: a smarter Hub, frontline-first communication, and a more configurable Blink \ Scheduled publishing, voice and video calling, live streaming from mobile, and more configurable feeds — see what's new in our May 2026 release.\ \ \ \ Aislinn Logan\ \ 4 min read
Missed our last Quarterly Unlock release? Catch up on the details here !
Welcome to the May 2026 edition of the Quarterly Unlock — your inside look at what’s new in Blink and how it helps teams communicate more clearly, connect more easily, and get more done.
This release is built around a simple idea:
As organizations grow, they need more control — over when content goes live, how their teams connect, and how their employee experience looks and feels. Blink should be the platform that makes all of that easier, not harder.
Here’s what’s new.
#1. Hub as the command center
Your Hub is only as useful as the content inside it. This quarter, we’re giving teams more control over how that content is created, scheduled, and surfaced.
Scheduled publishing
Timing is everything in internal comms. With scheduled publishing, teams can now set exactly when Hub content goes live — and when it expires.
- Plan campaigns and seasonal updates in advance
- Publish and archive content automatically
- Remove the need for manual intervention on time-sensitive updates
- Keep your Hub current without extra admin overhead
Whether it’s a benefits enrollment reminder, a policy update, or a seasonal campaign, scheduled publishing means the right content is always live at the right time.
Draft pages
Teams can now prepare Hub content in draft before it’s ready to publish — building in a review step without rushing to get things live. Multi-editor support is coming soon, making it possible for teams to collaborate on pages in real time.
Featured content and Hub content carousel
New features including collapsible sections, featured content, and a Hub content carousel in the Feed give admins more flexibility to organize and showcase content — making it easier for employees to find what matters and harder for important updates to get lost.
#2. Frontline-first communication
Frontline teams can’t always stop what they’re doing to type a message. This quarter, we're making it faster and easier to connect — in the moment, wherever work happens.
Voice and video calling
Blink now fully supports native voice and video calling across mobile and web. Teams can move from message to conversation without switching apps or using shadow IT like Whatsapp to connect.
- One-to-one and group calls, all within Blink
- No need for third-party tools
- Works on mobile and web
- Protects employee privacy by keeping calls inside the platform
For frontline workers who rely on their phones to stay connected, this is a direct line — without the personal number.
Mobile live streaming
Leaders and frontline managers can now start and run live streams directly from their phone. No studio. No production team. Just a fast, native way to reach distributed teams in the moment.
- Stream from anywhere, on any device
- Bring announcements, updates, and leadership moments closer to where work happens
- Keep frontline teams informed in real time
SAP SuccessFactors notifications
SAP SuccessFactors notifications are now deep-linked, taking employees directly from a notification to the task that needs their attention — no extra navigation required. This brings enterprise investments to the frontline with simple, mobile-first access so they can take action without relying on their manager every time.
#3. A more configurable Blink
Every organization is different. This quarter, we’re giving customers more control over how Blink looks, works, and fits into employees' daily workflows.
Feed and Hub widgets
New and enhanced widgets — including a Feed carousel, Hub carousel, and featured Hub content — give customers more control over the Blink experience. Whether you want to surface key content, spotlight important updates, or create a more polished home screen, the tools are there.
Featured post improvements
Featured posts now support carousel options, improved image handling, livestream and VOD content, and better treatment for text-only posts. The result is a more flexible, more engaging way to put critical content front and center.
Save Feed posts for later
Employees can now save Feed posts to come back to when they have time — no screenshots, no endless scrolling. Saved posts are easy to find, easy to act on, and help reinforce Blink as the single destination for everything work-related.
Custom taglines
Organizations can now add a custom tagline to employee mini profiles — a simple but meaningful way to personalize the experience and reflect how your organization works. More details coming soon.
Account claim process
Getting every employee into Blink just got easier. The new account claim process lets employees verify their identity and claim their Blink account using a few pieces of information — no email address or existing contact details required. It’s designed for hard-to-reach workers who’ve historically been difficult to onboard, and gives organizations a more flexible, more inclusive path to full activation. More details coming soon.
New post settings
Making sure the right message lands in the right way just got simpler. The new Importance picker replaces a confusing mix of Priority, Pin, Feature, and Important toggles with one clear choice when creating a post — so the most-prominent placement in the Feed always matches the most-urgent intent. Admins spend less time second-guessing which setting does what, and employees see a Feed where the prominent posts are genuinely the urgent ones. More details coming soon.
What this Unlock means for your team
For employees
- More relevant, timely content in the Hub
- A faster, easier way to connect with colleagues
- More control over how they engage with the Feed
For leaders and comms teams
- Scheduled publishing takes the pressure off manual timing
- Live streaming puts leadership communication in everyone's pocket
- Featured content tools that actually do the work
For IT and operations
- Deeper SAP SuccessFactors integration
- A more configurable platform that fits how your organization works
- Native calling that keeps employee data private
If you're a customer, reach out to your customer success manager to discuss participation and enablement options.
If you're exploring Blink, book a demo to see how the May 2026 Unlock brings communication, connection, and action into one place.
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Employee engagement is a critical focus for People teams— or any other business leader. Learn what it is, why it’s important, and how to improve it in our complete guide.
Employee engagement is the difference between soaring productivity rates and a sense of stagnation. It’s fifty people applying for a single vacancy, rather than fifty vacancies and one applicant.
Yet for all its importance, companies frequently misunderstand what employee engagement is and what it looks like. That's why we’re here to help.
Whether you're looking to better understand the definition and importance of employee engagement, drive employee engagement in your organization, or simply understand examples of employee engagement, this complete guide to employee engagement has something for you.
What is employee engagement? A simple definition
Employee engagement is the ongoing process of ensuring your workforce feels satisfied with their job, aligned with your organization’s values, and supported enough to give 100% during work hours.
Research by SHRM defines the term employee engagement as relating to the level of an employee's commitment and connection to an organization, while Investopedia defines employee engagement as describing the level of enthusiasm and dedication a worker feels toward their job.
At Blink, we believe true employee engagement is a combination of two equally important parts:
- Attitude - the commitment a worker feels toward the company
- Behavior - the effort that an employee is willing to invest in their job
Whichever way you look at it, maintaining employee engagement is a key factor in determining how successful an organization will be. It also provides key insights into employee satisfaction and sentiment, which can help identify areas that may need improvement.
To better illustrate what employee engagement looks like, here are some of the key attitudes and behaviors of engaged vs disengaged employees:
What is employee engagement for employers?
HR is all about people. So it makes sense that, if that is your role, you want the best for your co-workers.
Still, there’s more to it than that.
Employee engagement is important because it affects the performance of your company. Think back to a job you’ve not enjoyed in the past — did you give as much to that role as you did to the ones you loved?
Now extrapolate this out across an entire company of unhappy, unmotivated workers. In toxic environments, productivity nosedives. Depending on the type of organization you work for, this could mean a lower output rate, poor customer service, an increase in safety incidents, reduced patient satisfaction, missed deadlines, or any other number of issues.
What is employee engagement for employees?
For employees themselves, engagement isn't so much a daily activity they schedule time for. It's a natural byproduct of a strong employee experience.
Engagement is directly correlated to a positive work environment; when people feel respected, appreciated, and valued for their work, they are more likely to be an engaged employee. It's about being part of something bigger than just your job title — it’s that sense of satisfaction and fulfillment when you know you are making a difference.
Different groups of employees have different engagement expectations — and when those expectations match the day-to-day experiences of their roles, employees are more likely to be engaged.
Whether it’s your dispersed, frontline teams or your first-line managers, it’s worth getting to know what your employees expect from their engagement experience.
Why is employee engagement important?
Employee engagement efforts don’t need to be expensive, but they do need to be intentional. Issues created by poor employee engagement practices can cost your company thousands.
These include:
- Reduced productivity: people don’t work well when they’re unhappy. If teams are consistently falling short of productivity targets you know to be reasonable, there’s a good chance they’re unhappy at work
- Absenteeism: unhappy employees stay at home and use more sick days and mental health days than those employees who enjoy their jobs and work environments
- Presenteeism: Between May 2021 and November 2022 alone presenteeism rose by 18%. As the cost of presenteeism has historically been found to significantly outweigh the cost of absenteeism, this is one common challenge for engagement leaders to tackle.
- High employee turnover: if someone is disengaged, it makes them more likely to leave. Replacing employees is super expensive (think six to nine months’ salary, plus up to 213% of the total annual salary depending on the seniority of the position). Along with being a cost drain, the extra workload will put pressure on your other, potentially unhappy, employees while you find a replacement
- Employer brand damage: a stream of employees leaving your organization won’t do your reputation any good. Not only will you end up with a large list of vacancies, but you’ll also struggle to find people to fill them. With more job seekers than ever using online review sites, such as Glassdoor, to screen companies before they apply, a poor reputation for employee engagement has never been so damaging
This creates a cycle that your organization doesn’t want to slip into. Breaking it, or making sure that your company doesn’t start to slip down it, is an essential task that requires time and dedication to tracking — and improving key metrics.
3 core benefits of employee engagement
Gallup provides interesting insights on the benefits of employee engagement. Organizations with highly engaged employees experience:
As you can see in the employee engagement statistics above, there is a vast array of benefits to be gained from increased employee engagement. In the below sections, we’ve found some of the most compelling evidence for three core benefits of employee engagement:
- Greater discretionary effort
- Improved job satisfaction
- Increased employee retention
Greater discretionary effort
Source : Discretionary Effort In The Workplace
Improved discretionary effort offered by engaged individuals is one huge benefit of employee engagement initiatives.
Those with high engagement levels often perform above expectations and develop meaningful relationships with their peers, contributing to improved outcomes for everyone involved. These efforts are what is known as ‘ Discretionary Effort’.
The discretionary effort your employees put in directly impacts the success of your business outcomes, whether it’s your overall employee output rates, your patient safety outcomes and satisfaction levels, or a direct increase to your bottom line.
Improved job satisfaction
Employee engagement has the dual benefit of improving both organizational success and job satisfaction on a personal level.
This is because engagement initiatives themselves provide employees with more development opportunities, better recognition for good work, and better prospects for career growth. When employees reap these benefits offered to them by engagement strategies, they feel like they make a real impact on the success of an organization, and that what they are doing is meaningful.
Don’t underestimate the historic power of meaningful work on your employee satisfaction levels — nine out of ten employees would take a lower salary for more meaningful work.
Increased employee retention
Employees are more likely to stay with the organization when they are more satisfied and engaged.
Research by the IJECM (International Journal of Economics, Commerce & Management) found that job satisfaction is a reliable and relevant predictor of employee retention. Highly engaged employees develop a greater sense of attachment to the organization and become more loyal, resulting in up to a 43% difference in employee turnover according to further employee engagement research.
How to improve employee engagement
There are a number of ways to improve employee engagement, but, at Blink, we like to think of engagement efforts as being split into three key categories:
- Delivering on the 10 key drivers of employee engagement
- Identifying the employee engagement strategies and tactics that work for your employees
- Ensuring the best employee engagement tools and software
Key drivers of employee engagement
In order to improve employee engagement, you must understand what drives it, and focus your efforts there. What core experiences and tools do you need to provide to your workforce in order to boost the overall employee experience and drive engagement?
Key drivers of employee engagement include but aren’t limited to:
- Safe, dedicated working environment
- Tools and processes
- Feeling valued and involved
- Psychological safety
- Fairness
- Ownership
- Autonomy
- Progression
- Leadership
- Work-life balance.
By focusing engagement efforts on enabling these core engagement drivers, you will be much more likely to see significant engagement improvements.
Employee engagement strategies and tactics
An employee engagement strategy is the plan of action you take to bring about an increase in employee engagement levels. On the other hand, tactics are the individual steps and actions that will get you there. In the context of an employee engagement strategy, this means the tactics are the specific engagement actions your teams take to implement the initiatives outlined in the strategy.
Employee engagement strategies combine a number of tactics, such as the use of team-building exercises, offering career growth opportunities, providing more effective recognition for good work and positive behavior changes, or improving your internal communication processes.
In order to effectively craft an engagement strategy, it’s important to have a clear vision of what you want to accomplish, and how you plan to get there.
By having a clearly defined strategy, it is much easier to measure the success or failure of any engagement tactic you try. When you identify which tactics work and which don’t, you can adjust your future strategy accordingly.
Employee engagement tools
Employee engagement tools are products and tech solutions that enable companies to measure, manage, and improve employee engagement levels.
Employee engagement software comes in many forms, from survey software used to collect employee feedback and communication platforms providing a channel for discussion between teams.Engagement analysis tools can also provide insight into how your engagement efforts are faring.
However, if your staff are juggling a number of platforms and tools for different parts of their work, it will be inconvenient and you're not likely to see great engagement results. That's why an all-through-one engagement super-app is the best choice for any business wanting to consolidate engagement efforts.
A super-app brings together all of your employee communications, engagement surveys, recognition programs, and employee rewards into one, central platform.
This will not only make your life easier but will also ensure a more consistent experience for employees while enabling you to get an aggregated view of their engagement levels with just a few clicks.
Examples of employee engagement in action
How Go North West achieved 96% monthly active engagement app users
The challenge
Like many frontline organizations facing a digital inclusion gap, Go North West faced challenges when it came to digitizing processes and communications in their organization. Historically, their internal comms were split across various channels, such as emails, mail to drivers' home addresses, depot noticeboards, and unregulated social media platforms.
With so many paper-based operational processes, Go North West faced high levels of non-adherence and inefficiency. On top of this, they were also facing an industry-wise staff shortage in the wake of the Great Resignation and COVID-19, which made growth for the company more difficult to achieve.
The solution
The first solution to the engagement challenges faced by Go North West lay in using Blink’s Hub — the super-app’s central portal for accessing processes, documents, and tools. Go North West could now use this to share duties,schedule, and running boards for easy access and updating.
After this, the company had to ensure critical information such as route diversions could reach all members of staff quickly and efficiently. This was where the team used the Blink Feed — a company-wide, mobile-first communications channel, supplemented with the use of Chats to fulfill shift swaps and fills and ensure smooth service delivery.
The team at Go North West also needed to streamline how they provided drivers and other members of staff access to critical processes and resources. This was where Blink’s Digital Forms and Custom Apps stepped in to revolutionize how the organization worked.
By moving to digital processes from outdated paper-based processes, drivers were able to:
- Request annual leave with a few taps from the app, made easier with functionality such as auto-population and validation
- Access their schedules through one-click access to DAS-Web
- Submit near-miss reports via a custom app on Blink, allowing them to log incidents quickly and easily, increasing the number of submissions to drive process improvement
The outcome
The outcome of this engagement tech overhaul was a resounding success. Engagement levels, retention, and digitization efforts were all improved.
What did this look like in terms of engagement? Well, alongside achieving 96% monthly active app users, Go North West also saw:
- 30,000 opens of DAS-Web per month
- 6,000 Chat messages per month
- 98,000 opens of Hub content
- 17 daily app opens per user
- 186 monthly app opens per user
What a result! Widespread success across the operation, with Go North West achieving its goal of higher engagement.
The use of Blink’s engagement super-app has enabled the team to move into a digital-first future and deliver an efficient service that allows them to better serve their employees — and customers. A win-win for everyone.
Want engagement results like these? Book a free Blink demo today.
How to measure employee engagement
Measuring employee engagement should be a continuous process.
It’s not just something you need to focus on when employee morale is down and stop as soon as it reaches manageable levels… it should be a central part of the HR or People team’s day-to-day activities.
So, before implementing any of the below, ask yourself:
- How much time should we dedicate to this a week?
- Who should be in charge of this area?
- Who can manage the on-the-ground responsibilities associated with this?
- Are there any tools (e.g. a new employee super-app) that could help us manage this workload?
In terms of exactly what to measure and how to measure it, there are two key areas you need to focus on:
- The data that already exists in your company
- Data that you actively go out and collect.
Measuring employee engagement using existing data
This is data that your HR team won’t have to set up any new processes for; it (should) already be monitored by various departments. The key here is collating it, as there’s a good chance that inter-departmental silos mean that you won’t necessarily be able to access it right away, let alone see the big picture.
We’re talking about:
- Absence rates
- Employee turnover
- Number of complaints to line managers
- Number of complaints to HR
- eNPS scores
- Customer reviews
- Customer retention
- Sales
- Turnover
- Social media engagement
There could be a myriad of reasons why customer satisfaction has dipped, so take a look at it alongside some of the other metrics listed, over an extended period of time.
For example, do eNPS scores dip when employee turnover is highest? Do customers write poorer reviews when absence rates are particularly high? Start to compare ‘result’ metrics (like sales, turnover, customer satisfaction, and customer retention) with employee wellness to see whether you notice any patterns.
From there, measure, measure, measure! Set up dashboards with all your chosen metrics so that you can track and compare them at a glance. You can then monitor employee engagement via its direct consequences — absence rates going down and productivity going up is a sure sign that your efforts are working.
To assess your current data, an engagement analytics tool can help. It will look at the data you already have (like those mentioned above) to identify how engaged your people really are and provide real-time insights into what might need improvement.
All of the above help to paint a picture of where you are with employee engagement, but they aren’t the only weapon in your arsenal. So, once you’ve got those dashboards up and running, move onto…
Measuring employee engagement by collecting new data
What’s the best, most efficient way of understanding your employee engagement levels?
Just ask them.
Regular, anonymous employee engagement surveys are the most efficient way of doing this. You might see these referred to as “pulse” surveys, and they are so much better for measuring engagement than the traditional annual long-answer survey for the following reasons:
Response rates tend to be higher. It’s much easier to encourage employees to complete three quick “rate on a scale” questions with an optional “any further comments” box than three pages of long-answer questions that they don’t have time to do.
You can keep them focused on one single issue each time. This gives your HR team a much better chance of addressing feedback successfully and sharing what they’ve done to address their co-workers’ concerns.
They encourage constructive feedback. The issue with running an annual survey is that employees see it as their single opportunity to get everything off their chests.
It’s difficult to respond to 12 months of input from an entire company in any meaningful way, particularly if the topics covered range from disagreement with the company’s strategic direction or low staff retention to dissatisfaction with the options offered in the cafeteria.
How to use your employee engagement data
Whether you’ve noticed that your absence rates are soaring way above your industry average or carried out a highly targeted pulse survey, you need to take action from this data. Understanding exactly how to use your employee engagement data is therefore crucial.
Align key stakeholders with a plan of action
First, sit down with all relevant stakeholders and agree on a workable course of action. Involving stakeholders here keeps things grounded — it’s tempting to offer your workforce the moon on a stick when they’re unhappy, but this isn’t realistic. Avoid promising things you can’t deliver on — broken promises won’t be taken well by your employees, no matter how ambitious they are.
If, for example, your employees have stated they want better quality break rooms or equipment, it’s wise to take the time to align with the leadership suite on whether they have the resources to help with this before you promise a tech overhaul or new break room to your workforce.
Track improvements in data with KPIs
Second , it’s super important to track these improvements against realistic employee engagement KPIs. Change in organizations is gradual, so make sure your targets reflect this and avoid the temptation to try and go from 0 to 100 in three months.
If none of your employees are having regular one-to-one contact with their line managers, an example target structure could look like this:
- 3 months in: 20% of all employees having regular catch-ups
- 6 months in: 40% of employees
- 9 months in: 60% of employees
- 12 months in: 80% of employees
You could also consider how you roll this out. It’s much easier to coordinate regular catch-ups for office-based positions, so you could focus on getting a full 100% in the first three months for office-based teams as a quick win. Whilst you do this, you can sort out the infrastructure for deskless and dispersed teams to be able to do this further down the line.
Consider new tech
Finally, think about any tools that might help you meet these targets and/or address employees’ concerns.
There’s now plenty of workplace tech to help with a range of issues, like employee apps to help communication, productivity software to help meet targets, and advanced CRM features that make meeting customer needs much easier for frontline employees.
Check with your leadership team to see what sort of support they could offer here. They’ll be looking for a solid return on investment and plan before giving the green light, so make sure that if you’re making a direct request for new software, you build a solid business case about why you need it.
Download: the essential guide to executive buy-in for frontline employee experience
Communicate your plan of action
The golden rule: never assume that your workforce will notice your efforts to improve things without you communicating it.
Your workforce is busy, and meaningful change takes time — so you’re not going to make everything perfect right away. To really show your employees that you’ve taken their feedback on board, you’ll need to be explicit.
Include announcements about your planned improvements into your internal communications strategy. If you’ve conducted a pulse survey, share the results. This is a gesture of transparency that people will really appreciate—and emphasizes that you’re taking employee feedback seriously.
When announcing any improvement plans, consider:
- The channel that would work best: would more people see it via email, on a noticeboard, or via a mobile-first employee app?
- The frequency of your communication: how frequently should you update your employees on the progress you’re making towards these goals
You could also consider providing updates in person at company meetings, as this adds a welcome personal touch.
Remember the small things alongside big things
Big, organizational changes take time, but there are smaller things you can do for your workforce in the meantime.
Reworking the employee journey so there are more obvious routes for internal promotion takes time. Easier things like upgrading the coffee machine, setting up a couple of lunchtime clubs, or getting a pool table for the break room does not.
Implementing a couple of easy-to-manage changes (either that your workforce has specifically asked for, or just off your own back) emphasizes your commitment to improvement while you’re working towards the more structural stuff. It’s not a substitute, but it is a good reminder to your workforce about what you’re trying to do.
Blink. And your employee engagement strategy takes shape.
Blink is the all-through-one engagement super-app that your business needs to make sure employee engagement isn’t an extra task on your list, but part of a holistic approach to people management.
Our platform includes all the tools you need for effective employee engagement, from surveys and feedback loops to recognition programs and rewards. We also provide comprehensive reporting dashboards and insights to monitor progress, track performance, identify problem areas and create actionable plans.
When it comes to employee engagement, Blink is the perfect solution for businesses of all sizes.
No matter where you are in your engagement journey, we’re here to help you create the best possible experience for your employees and drive maximum success for your business.
Get started with Blink today.
Inbox zero has always been the dream. But maybe it’s time to dream bigger.
It once defined workplace comms. But today, email is slow, unengaging, and clunky — as anyone lost in a “reply all” chain will tell you. It’s fallen so far out of favor that, for an increasing number of employees, an inbox isn’t even part of the job anymore.
A new generation of employee experience platforms is rewriting internal communication rules. They’re making inbox zero the default — not because people are managing email better, but because they don’t need email at all.
These platforms are introducing faster, more interactive, and more human channels of communication. And they’re transforming how organizations reach their people. Here’s why email can’t carry your internal comms strategy anymore — and the benefits of building a workplace that thrives without an inbox.
The pitfalls of email for internal communication
So why has email fallen behind the times? Because email communication comes with some serious drawbacks.
It’s overwhelming
The reason people dream of inbox zero? Because their email account is overflowing with messages. Employees receive hundreds of emails every day.
What’s more, there’s no clear message hierarchy. Meeting invites, newsletters, urgent safety updates. They all compete for space in the same inbox. It’s hard for employees to see what’s most important at a glance, so critical messages get lost in the noise.
It’s unengaging
Scroll through a social media feed and you’ll see videos, polls, and interactive content designed to grab and hold your attention. Now think about the last email you read. Did it land with the same impact? Probably not.
In a world of TikTok, WhatsApp, and Instagram, static text feels flat. Emails are competing with these highly visual, highly engaging formats — and they just can’t keep up with audience expectations.
It’s hard to measure
Unless you send all emails via an email platform, it’s impossible to know if employees are actually opening, reading, and acting upon your updates. Are employees skimming? Ignoring? Misunderstanding?
Without robust analytics, it’s impossible to know. It’s then hard to make meaningful improvements to the internal comms experience.
It excludes the frontline
83% of frontline employees don’t have a company email address. Even if they do, logging into a shared portal in the break room is hardly practical.
Email isn’t an effective way to reach frontline teams. So you end up excluding an important segment of your audience — and have to resort to inefficient and unreliable methods of communication, like paper notices and manager phone calls.
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The rise of alternative employee communication channels
Email communication has its limits and alternative internal communication tools are on the rise. These platforms are built to make comms faster, more engaging, and more accessible. And some companies are now ditching email entirely, shifting all workplace communication over to these modern tools.
Today, 70% of comms professionals say they use chat tools and 73% say they use an employee app to communicate as an organization. Here’s what employees at those organizations are experiencing:
A mobile-first platform
The best mobile-first communication and intranet platforms provide the same seamless user experience across all devices, including small smartphone screens. Employees can access updates, resources, and workplace tools wherever they are, without needing a corporate email address.
Notifications + social feed
Instead of digging through their inbox, employees get instant notifications when a critical message lands. They can then head to the platform dashboard to view mandatory reads — or scroll the dynamic social feed, where news is organized and personalized by role, team, or tenure.
Channels for every type of communication
Modern platforms give structure to internal communications. Teams, communities, leadership updates, and company resources all have their own clearly defined channels. So employees know exactly where to go for official memos, knowledge sharing, and details of the latest team social.
Two-way communication
Employees have lots of ways to interact with internal content on a modern comms platform. They can comment on a news feed post, respond to a poll or survey, react with emojis. They can even — depending on the permissions you set — create their own community-building content for your internal channels.
Engaging communications
The best employee intranets borrow from the apps your workers already love. Photos, videos, reels, memes, and visually-rich content make updates short, memorable, and enjoyable to consume. Your messages land — and stick — without adding to inbox overload.
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The productivity + engagement upside of a zero-email comms approach
With modern internal communications software, it’s possible to adopt a zero-email strategy. And the benefits go far beyond clearing inboxes. Here’s what this approach can do for your organization:
Faster information flow. No more waiting for employees to log into a shared workstation to view the latest company email. Critical updates reach everyone through push notifications, ensuring your messages are seen and read quickly.
Clear messaging. The comms experience is personalized to each employee. So people only see what matters to their role, team, or location. This reduces unnecessary noise and helps your messages cut through more effectively.
A stronger sense of belonging. Email wasn’t built for culture-building. But internal communications platforms create shared spaces, where employees can celebrate wins, recognize peers, and feel part of the bigger picture. The result is greater engagement and loyalty across your workforce.
Comms people actually want to read. When comms are visual, bite-sized, and interactive, employees are more likely to read them. They engage with your content and return regularly to your comms platform, so it’s easier to land messages.
Self-service and streamlined workflows. The best internal comms platforms integrate with the other workplace software you already use. Employees can action a message in clicks because all tools and resources are linked.
Equal access across the workforce. Historically, there’s been a divide between frontline and desk-based employees. With a zero-email approach, you bring everyone together. You welcome frontline employees into company culture, strengthening engagement and retention as a result.
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So what does the future of internal communications look like?
In a not-too-distant future, we predict that “inbox zero” will no longer be the dream of employees tackling a never-ending influx of emails. Instead, it will be an organizational norm. And moving beyond email to modern communication platforms will open up a new realm of possibilities for workplace connection.
Comms rethink their playbook
With improved internal communication tools on the table, the comms team can quit their reliance on email. They can meet employees where they are — on their smartphones, scrolling through engaging multi-media content — to create communications that work for every employee.
And, with new communication channels at their disposal, they’ll get creative. Employee-generated content, short-form video, and highly visual posts will become the standard. Comms teams will create Insta-worthy internal comms and find new ways to land messages.
HR and IT invest in an integrated solution
Employee experience isn’t just HR’s job — it’s everyone’s. And, because a single, integrated platform can solve for HR, IT, and comms, this is a setup that more organizations will embrace.
Thanks to deep integrations and single sign-on technology, employees can access everything they need from a single, user-friendly dashboard. Checking up on company news? Requesting a shift swap? Completing the next module of their current training course? It’s all right there, at their fingertips — without juggling multiple tabs and logins.
For IT, that means less firefighting and better ROI from existing tools. For HR, it means higher employee engagement and retention. And for comms, it means a direct line to every member of staff — hard-to-reach frontline workers included.
Teams use platform analytics to take comms even further
The future of comms is data-driven. Teams won’t just hit send and hope for the best. They’ll use platform analytics to see what’s working, what’s not, and where to improve.
That means sharper targeting, smarter campaigns, and data-driven comms strategies that reach the right employees at the right time. Teams can also measure how comms impact big business outcomes, like employee engagement, retention, and customer satisfaction.
Ultimately, analytics give comms a seat at the table. Teams move from being messengers to strategic partners, involved from the start in shaping initiatives and able to demonstrate solid comms ROI.
Stop dreaming of inbox zero. Go beyond email in 2026.
Our vision for the future of internal communications may feel a long way from the comms reality you’re living today. But the truth is, many organizations are already a ways down this path.
They’ve recognized that email is a drain on productivity and engagement. And they’re moving beyond it. No more inbox battles. No more missed messages. Instead, they’re embracing modern, mobile-first internal comms that reach every employee, wherever they are.
They’re making use of multi-media content, notifications, and analytics to ensure all employees get the information and connection they need to succeed in the workplace.
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