Sometimes Christmas comes early for folks who are passionate about mobile employee communications and internal comms (like we are). Recently, Gartner, the leading research and advisory company for enterprise business leaders, released their annual Market Guide for Employee Communications Applications.
The purpose of this guide is to help in-house champions of the digital workplace better plan their investments in this rapidly evolving market. Essentially, it does a couple things.
- Analyzes the current state of the employee communications applications marketplace
- Presents key findings and recommendations regarding the direction of the digital workplace
- Compares top internal communication solutions available on the market
In the report, Beekeeper was featured along with other available SaaS communication platforms. The report highlighted Beekeeper’s operational communication features and innovative use cases.
Here’s a little snippet of Gartner’s evaluation of Beekeeper from their report,
“An innovative use of its ECA involves workers communicating regarding repairs, workarounds and task resolution by sharing photos of items and commenting. This use case is supported by Beekeeper forms and checklists capabilities, along with lessons learned related to service repairs, product issues and knowledge transfer from senior to junior staff.
– Gartner Market Guide for Employee Communications Applications, 2019
Key Report Findings on the Future of Internal Communications
Improve Employee Communications, Improve Basically Everything
The Gartner report found that businesses are ramping up their employee communications to achieve a number of business goals. These goals include improving the employee experience, employee engagement, community building, and promoting a more inclusive company culture. Essentially, employee communications applications are at the heart of optimizing the employee experience.
Email and Intranets Are No Longer Enough
While many companies still use email communications and intranets to connect with their employees, these outdated communication channels result in subpar employee communications. Companies need a more modern approach to their internal communications.
Which brings us to our next takeaway. . .
Mobile-First Communication Applications Are Taking Off
Not surprisingly to us here at Beekeeper, mobile-first communication solutions are gaining more interest among companies than ever before. This is especially true in cases where employers need a way to reach their frontline workforces more effectively. Although the benefits of mobile-first communication are clear, many organizations have still been slow to actually make this transition.
Giving Employees What They Want Makes Them More Engaged
The report shows that offering employees communication via their preferred channels (aka their cell phone) is becoming more common. Doing so also drives better employee agility and engagement.
Give employees a way to communicate that’s actually convenient and easy for them, and they actually start communicating. Amazing!
Recommended Technical Capabilities of an Employee Communications App
In addition to outlining key trends in employee communications, the Gartner report also identified technical capabilities that companies usually look for in the ideal operational communications platform.
Here’s what companies want in an employee communications application.
Operational Features
Companies look for communication tools that offer support for content management, campaign scheduling, task management, workflow approvals, and delegation of roles. These features can either be offered natively through the app itself, or available through an integration.
Advanced Admin Permissions
The ability to easily manage group and individual admins is also a desired technical feature companies crave. Admin management extends to policy, access controls, security, and compliance permissions. Customers also look for administration management at the system, application, channel, content, and employee levels.
Multimedia Support
Specifically video streaming. Fun fact: Beekeeper allows users to upload videos, images, and even gifs! Soon Beekeeper will also offer a fully functional documents library right within the app. Secure file sharing has never been easier.
Integration with HR Systems
Companies tend to look for an employee communications application that plays well with their existing HR tech stack. This means that their communication platform has to integrate with their HR’s workforce management systems as well as content and collaboration tools (including digital signage).
Advanced Analytics
Measuring employee engagement is a must-have feature of any operational communications platform. The Gartner study shows that companies look for analytics capabilities that can report on overall usage trends and activity by audience, channel, and content type.
Versatile Interaction Models
Companies want their employees to have a smörgåsbord of ways to interact with their communication platform. This means it should have the following functionalities.
- The ability to discover other users and information through profiles, search, and content suggestions
- Advanced messaging features: push notifications, content personalization, and read receipts
- Social features: comments, likes, sharing, tagging, polls/surveys
- App customization through integrations and APIs
The Need for Operational Communication Is Growing
As the Gartner report shows, more and more companies are recognizing the benefits of a well-informed, engaged workforce. The most direct, efficient way to engage employees is through an easy-to-use, yet comprehensive operational communications platform like Beekeeper.
Discover how the Budd Group streamlines operations with their Beekeeper team app!
Looking for innovate ways to improve communication in your organization? Download “Your Guide to Internal Communication for Frontline Industries.”
Most Frequently Asked Questions
Mobile solutions, such as a team app like Beekeeper, enable companies to streamline their internal and crisis communication processes and improve employee productivity.
