As Davis & Company’s director of technology, I’m constantly reviewing and evaluating new technology platforms designed to enhance employee communication.
It’s a crowded landscape—you’ll find everything from intranet platforms to email add-ons to crisis communication apps. At times, it can be overwhelming and confusing even for a tech guru like me, so I can only imagine what it’s like for my clients. #thestruggleisreal
But as I’ve helped companies large and small wrestle with choosing the right technology platform to fit their needs, I have found a number of platforms that I consider to be best-in-class solutions.
Here’s my list of the technology platforms I think every communicator should look at:
| BambooHR is HR software made for small and medium businesses and the people who work in them. This software makes it easy to collect, maintain and analyze your people data, improve the way you hire talent, onboard new employees, manage compensation, and develop your company culture. |
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| Bananatag is an email platform built with employee communicators in mind. It offers a simple drag-and-drop interface that integrates with your email client and distribution lists so you can easily create beautiful employee emails. Most importantly, this platform helps you measure email engagement so you can improve your internal communication continuously. You can even get rapid implementation and onboarding with Bananatag’s same-day launch package. |
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| Codesigned’s IntranetPro: Express Communications is a lightweight platform for SharePoint that provides essential tools for executive messaging and company internal communications. Out of the box this solution offers a great suite of capabilities, including easy-to-author news articles, a critical alerting system, commenting platform, quick links, tools and more. Codesigned is providing this platform for free until July 1, 2020 to help with companies' urgent internal communication needs. |
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| Dynamic Signal’s leading employee communication and engagement platform lets you connect and engage with employees by delivering relevant information across any channel or device. Through its mobile and desktop apps—as well as integrations with SharePoint, Teams, Slack and more—Dynamic Signal can help you reach employees, empower advocacy and measure outcomes. |
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“The role that technology plays is integral to getting the message out. But without a thoughtful content strategy, most platforms don’t take off. This can lead to limited user engagement and bad ROI.”
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| Interact’s Rapid Intranet Launch service gets you up and running with the platform and tools needed to bring your remote workforce together—in 10 days or less. From designing and building a homepage, to providing high-level training, Interact will support you in keeping your employees and organization connected. |
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| Social Chorus is one of today’s leading workforce communication platforms. Used by some of the world’s largest employers, this platform can help you achieve your goal of being a reliable and credible source of truth for your employees. Social Chorus offers an accelerated seven-day implementation, as well as no charge for translations or integration with Microsoft Teams. |
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| Staffbase NOW allows you to launch a fully branded employee communication platform in just three days for desktop, and 15 days for mobile. This solution allows you to reach employees via push notifications and locally targeted news. It also provides access to relevant company news and pages on the devices employees use the most—whether mobile or desktop—so they can remain informed and safe while on the job. |
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| Smarp is a leading employee communications platform that delivers timely and targeted information to each employee across all channels. It enables you to reach your entire workforce on mobile, desktop, email, intranet, chat and more with the click of a button. In response to the coronavirus pandemic, Smarp is offering free platform implementation and consulting services until the end of June. |
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| theEMPLOYEEapp enables organizations to reach their employees no matter where they are, giving them access to the information and resources they need to do their jobs. In times of crisis, organizations have to move quickly to bring essential messaging to their employees. Rapid Deployment was introduced to allow companies to get up and running in as little as one day. |
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| Poppulo’s enterprise-grade employee communications platform empowers communicators across your organization to drive change, create connection, and align employees with business goals. More than 1,000 enterprises around the world use Poppulo’s multi-channel platform to reach employees with timely, relevant and engaging communications. Poppulo helps you engage employees everywhere they are – including email, mobile, video, intranet and other channels – while powerfully demonstrating the impact of your communications. |
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The right technology platform can go a long way to revitalize even the most stagnant employee communication program. And you don’t need to do a full-scale launch. Many of the platforms I listed offer affordable solutions that can be implemented within a week to 10 days. Most importantly, these platforms—along with a solid communication plan and content strategy—offer the potential to engage employees like never before.
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