How internal communication technology affects employee retention

Recent years have shown us that companies that are able to use the full potential of their internal communication technology gain more than quick and easy information exchange with the employees. The research has proven the correlation between internal communication technology and an increase in job satisfaction and employee engagement. Going one step further, we check the impact of internal communication technology on employee retention.

• Employee retention – why is it worth knowing why employees leave and how to keep them?
• How does internal communication technology affect employee retention?

Employee retention – why is it worth knowing why employees leave and how to keep them?

Retention is an indicator showing the organization’s ability to keep its employees. Of course, employee turnover is a natural and even often advisable phenomenon (e.g. due to the influx of fresh ideas) but kept on a high level it becomes a huge challenge for companies.  As Gartner’s research shows, the problem is real – only one in four employees is sure of their career in their current company, and three-quarters of people looking for a new role are interested in external positions. As many as 33% of employees are looking for a job after only half a year. For an organization struggling with a low retention rate, this means:

• Loss of talent
• Extra recruitment and onboarding costs
• Risk of losing explicit and implicit organizational knowledge
• Lower employee productivity during the adaptation (up to 12 months, according to Gallup)
• Disruption of internal symbiosis which manifests itself in the reduced engagement of other employees and lower motivation (e.g. due to broken relationships, constant changes, etc.)

The problem is so serious that many companies (up to 60%, according to WorldatWork) decide to pay key employees a retention bonus. Experts prove that this is only an ad hoc and hardly effective solution in the long run. What matters is a more complex approach and internal communication technology can play here an important role.

How does internal communication technology affect employee retention?

Do you know why employees are leaving your company? The answer to that question is no less important than the answer to the question of why they stay there. A complex system of relationships emerges here, in which employees’ values and needs, the type of work environment, and the level of consistency between them play an important role. Employers have no control over what their employees want but they can go a long way toward meeting those expectations if only they know them.

Internal communication technology works here on two levels:

1. Monitoring of needs and engaging in communication

Current internal communication technology is not just emailing and instant messaging which makes it easier to communicate with employees and facilitate daily collaboration. These are also the tools that make bottom-up communication possible on a larger scale than ever before. Internal communications platforms allow the exchange of opinions on every level of the organization which helps to hear the voice of those that haven’t been heard so far and to survey the needs more often than before (e.g. through pulse check surveys aimed at all or selected employees). This makes employees feel valued and their motivation to stay in the organization increases. Modern technology opens up internal communication, supporting companies in creating an engaging, and positive company culture.

2. Shaping the employee experience

Well-used internal communication technology can greatly help shape positive employee experience, especially digital one. After all, a great deal depends on this experience – including the level of employee engagement, their motivation, and thus the willingness, or lack thereof to stay with the organization for the long term. Thanks to internal communication technology, employees:

• easily communicate with each other, regardless of the place of work,
• have quick access to reliable knowledge resources, so they can get their work done faster,
• share ideas with others,
• feel that they are part of a larger whole, receiving information from across the organization,
• express their dissatisfaction, and opinions or recognize their coworkers – in a secure and quick way,
• have the access to all internal processes in one place (e.g. onboarding or development).

Effective use of internal communication tools opens up opportunities that were previously out of reach for employers – e.g. monitoring of employee sentiment on a large scale in real-time. This is a tremendous resource that can prove crucial in keeping retention at a high level.

Investing in the right tools and using them properly can have a great impact on an organization’s effectiveness, including talent retention. Internal communication technology has the potential to build a positive employee experience by creating the organizational culture the employees want to be a part of and contribute to.