No one deserves to strain their voices, yelling from one office to another to get a message across, or send emails that will almost certainly slip through the cracks. It's simply unproductive.
With a shifting work culture, continuous advancements in technology, and an increasing emphasis on productivity, it might be time for you to rethink your internal comms software to bring your teams and tasks together to improve your bottom line.
What Is an Internal Communication App?
An internal communication app is a tool that allows teams within an organization to exchange ideas, share data, give feedback, and collaborate to achieve organizational goals. These tools provide a wide range of functions, from delivering messages between colleagues to sharing important announcements in real-time with everyone in the organization.
Adopting the right internal communication toolkit can help boost employee engagement and productivity, connect distinct departments in an organization and remote teams across geographical boundaries, and promote rapid response to emergencies.
As you would expect, there are several internal communication tools offering a plethora of features. Although every organization has unique needs, we have listed six easy-to-use digital tools for internal communication that address the most important ones and can provide you with a solid foundation:
1. Slack for Instant Communication
Slack has been a popular choice for instant internal communication in recent years, and deservedly so. It provides its users with a clean and easy-to-use interface that makes its adoption effortless.
Slack also provides some valuable features that make it ideal for remote workers, like the ability to fine-tune your notifications, which is an effective way to deal with an overwhelming number of incoming messages.
You can create channels for group discussions. This feature can come in handy if you are part of a large organization, and you wish to discuss topics that are only relevant to people from a specific department. You can also have one-on-one conversations or create a private group chat with a few colleagues.
Download: Slack for Android | iOS (Free, premium version available)
2. Asana for Project Management
Asana is a simple and effective project management tool that you can use for internal communication and to monitor tasks to keep up productivity.
You can use this digital tool to assign tasks to yourself, or other team members, and set a due date. These features allow you to know the status of each project and who's working on what. You can further boost your productivity by using these Asana Keyboard shortcuts for efficient task management.
Asana allows you to communicate in one space, break down projects, share files, add integrations, and sync information with other platforms like Google calendar.
Download: Asana for Android | iOS (Free, premium version available)
3. BlogIn as an Internal Company Blog
Having an internal company blog is an effective way for organizations to promote internal communication, develop a sense of community, exchange feedback, raise internal conflicts, etc.
But, how is this different from a regular blog?
A regular blog helps you drive traffic to your site and connect with your audience and prospects. Contrary to this, an internal company blog allows you to discuss all internal matters, company news, and sensitive information you wouldn't share with anyone outside the organization. This means that your internal blog is only accessible to employees of your organization.
The easiest way to set up your internal company blog is by using a specialized tool like BlogIn. This digital tool provides you with an excellent solution to keep all your employees on the same page by keeping track of the latest activities—comments, blogs, feedback, news, etc.
4. Zoom for Videoconferencing
3 ImagesIf you are looking for a video conferencing tool to boost your internal communication productivity, you can choose Zoom comfortably.
Zoom has won widespread admiration from its users in recent years, especially with the increase in the popularity of remote work. Due to this, it has become the standard communication tool for videoconferencing in companies around the world.
Zoom is great for small, mid-sized, and large organizations that want to keep their remote teams in sync. It is easy to use, provides HD video and reliable sound quality, allows integrations, screen and content sharing, group meetings, etc. You can also use these features in Zoom to enhance your meetings.
Download: Zoom for Android | iOS (Free, premium version available)
5. Donut to Foster Camaraderie
Developing a sense of community is crucial to boosting your team's productivity. And one of the easiest yet effective ways to accomplish that is by promoting water cooler conversations in the workplace.
But water cooler conversations don't just build company culture; they also help boost employee engagement and retention, collaboration, promote a healthier work environment, connect remote teams, and provide a platform to share ideas and solutions.
So, how do you go about creating bonds between coworkers in your organization?
If you are already using Slack, you can add Donut to your workspace so that it can send conversation topics to your Slack channels to build camaraderie and collaboration. This tool is ideal for hybrid or remote teams as it helps to initiate interactions, welcome new hires, dedicate time for catch-ups, and discover shared interests.
6. Google Drive Cloud Storage and File Sharing
3 ImagesTo level up your company's internal communication, you might need to store and share data easily and securely with employees. You can use a cloud storage and sharing tool like Google Drive to achieve this.
Your team can use Google Drive to access content from your desktop, tablet, or smartphone. You can supercharge your team's productivity by pairing it with Google Workspace as it includes other collaboration apps like Docs, Sheets, and Slides.
Download: Google Drive for Android | iOS (Free, premium version available)
Unlock Your Organization's Full Potential
Introducing the right tools is always a move in the right direction for any business. The tools above will help you achieve purposeful collaboration and improve productivity in your organization, as they provide opportunities for all your teams to communicate effectively.
They are all mobile-friendly and accessible from anywhere, allowing your teams to collaborate with minimal effort.
