What is an Employee Communications Application

Let's talk about Employee Communications Applications 

...or ECAs as we have been referring to them.  To better understand them, we'll start with a definition.  According to Gartner, a leading consulting firm, as ECA market is "technology (that) enables 'communicators' (employees in roles where they are responsible for managing internal communications) to plan, create, coordinate, customize, distribute and execute communication campaigns."  The description continues to indicate that "ECA technology also analyzes internal communications (IC) effectiveness across channels, media, communication types, business impact and employee experience." (https://www.gartner.com/reviews/market/employee-communications-applications)

Haiilo, a vendor of ECAs, reports in a blog post that reasons a company might want an ECA include:

1. Ability to reach front line workers
2. Help curb information overload
3. Single solution to reach all workers
4. Ability to measure the impact of communications

 (Source:  https://blog.smarp.com/emerging-market-for-employee-communications-applications

In practical terms, this could mean, imagine Facebook or LinkedIn specific for your workplace.  Imagine your internal company landing page providing links to commonly used tools, official communications, and communities and articles of specific interest to you.  This could allow you to communicate with those who you might never see do to work location or hours.  Imagine nurses is a cancer unit discussing best practices among them selves, IT professionals discussing upcoming projects, or a video replay of the CEO's town hall event that people couldn't get to - available for all, right their at their workstation, regardless of where that workstation is or what time it is.  All with the metrics to understand what is or isn't working in its ability to reach and engage employees.

The Employee Experience Factor

According to the Society for Human Resource Management, employee experience has become more than just human resources strategy but is becoming a larger component of overall business strategy.  Supporting this means that technology has to support the employee experience and much of that is in HR's domain.  For this to happen, "Technology has to create benefits across an organization, whether it's through increasing access to data, upskilling talent to work beyond traditional boundaries, or providing enhanced learning and development opportunities."  (https://www.shrm.org/resourcesandtools/hr-topics/technology/pages/2023-hr-technology-trends.aspx)  As such, technology also has the ability to drive and support a company's culture, values, and business objectives. 

• Crowdsourcing to harvest ideas and feedback from employees.
• Gamification to encourage employees to complete certain tasks.
• Analytics, as referenced above, to capture the "mood" of the organization
  

(https://www.shrm.org/resourcesandtools/hr-topics/technology/pages/work-based-social-media-platforms-may-help-boost-employee-connection.aspx)

The Shift to Hybrid Work

Many organization experienced a transition to hybrid work during the pandemic.  This has proven quite popular among employees but had created new challenges for businesses as old methods of doing things don't work quite as well in a hybrid environment.  Communicating with employees in diverse locations, regardless of it being a company location or the employee's choice of location, is difficult.  Technology can assist in the execution of key communications and help to ensure that people are receiving the message.   (https://www.shrm.org/resourcesandtools/hr-topics/technology/pages/work-based-social-media-platforms-may-help-boost-employee-connection.aspx)

But it's not right for all employers

As with any form of social media or, for that matter, social interactions.  There are positives and negatives.  Cyber bullying and threats can occur on corporate social media just as it can on public social media or in the general public. This is no different than a public social media post becoming a workplace issue.  (https://www.shrm.org/resourcesandtools/hr-topics/technology/pages/what-hr-can-do-about-cyberbullying-in-the-workplace.aspx)  Employers need to understand their workforce and weigh the pros and cons in the context of how it will work for their organization. (https://www.shrm.org/resourcesandtools/hr-topics/technology/pages/work-based-social-media-platforms-may-help-boost-employee-connection.aspx )