How Internal Communication also Works Digitally

Do you remember internal communication before working from home? In the first lockdown, most people behaved like an elephant in a digital room: always muted when there was something to say and with audio when the garbage collection stopped outside the window. We first had to learn how to communicate under these distanced circumstances. In the meantime, we have adapted. We have known every video call provider for a long time. We sit at other people’s desks in the office and have become accustomed to spending our lunch break in our private lives.

The Old Doubt about New Paths

With all this change, however, there is something that some companies are reluctant to address: The skepticism of many tradition-loving managers towards the home office. One argument that many of them use against remote work is that internal communication suffers as a result. Colleagues would no longer bump into each other as often, the famous conversation at the coffee machine would no longer take place and you couldn’t really get to know each other digitally anyway What do we say? The eighties have called, they want their management style back! Anyone who still thinks that team cohesion depends on everyone breathing the same air is wrong. And we can prove that.

Employee Satisfaction also Works Digitally

At Mashup Communications, the team has been one of the strongest assets since the company was founded. Of course, the connection must first be established. But once it is in place, everyone knows that they can rely on each other. And this despite the fact that we only see our colleagues outside of a screen once every two months at most. Then, if our office day happens to overlap, the massages are due or we have planned a happy hour. We have all been working from home for more than two years. And it will stay that way. Why? Because we have realized that neither communication nor cohesion, productivity or loyalty suffer from the fact that we are not in the same building. Admittedly, this doesn’t happen by itself. But with a few structures and routines, the team spirit can be promoted for everyone, even remotely. Today we present our top 3 tips for successful internal communication in times of mobile working.

1. Creating Space for Casualness: The Internal Hotspot

We’ve all been there: just a few minutes ago, you were asked if you had any comments, to which you cheerfully replied no. The video call ends and you can think of ten things you could have said, but for which it wouldn’t be worth writing a whole email. To ensure that every question, comment or idea can be expressed without e-mails or specially scheduled meetings, tools are needed that can also be used for casual communication. We use the messenger Wire in the team for this. Small questions can be answered quickly via the chats and both mishaps and successes in everyday life can be shared.

To lower the inhibition threshold, especially for newcomers, each team has its own chat in addition to the large agency chat. Checking in and out during breaks, in the morning and before finishing work, also reinforces the feeling of not sitting alone in front of the computer. A messenger also offers the opportunity to operate digital office grapevine in a positive sense, which is not unimportant for the flow of internal communication. Above all, however, messengers are a tool that allows everyone to get to know each other better on an everyday level and to find a place for the jokes once shared in the office. Our highlight this summer: creating your own memes and sending them to your colleagues.

2. Keep Information available at all Times: Nothing Remains Secret

Anyone working remotely and agilely with several people on a project or on the same customer needs to know every little detail and keep everyone involved on the same level of information. It is essential to create what is known as “osmotic communication”. The aim is to keep information available and easily visible for everyone at individual times. The term comes from the chemical process of “osmosis”, in which a solvent (information) penetrates a permeable separating layer (physical distance) and mixes with another solution (shared information). Project management tools such as Redbooth, notion or Trello are extremely useful so that everyone can keep track of who is working on what. With the help of these communication channels, everyone can keep up to date, see who is working on which task at what time, what is in progress and what has been completed, and how much time has already been spent on a certain area.

3. Storylistening in the Team Meeting: Internal Communication Deluxe

But what about the things that were only shared by chance in office times? By more or less voluntarily listening in when a colleague apologizes to a customer on the phone, when another jumps for joy because she has achieved her success, or when two colleagues stand in the kitchen laughing tearfully. Many a story has to be artificially evoked in the digital space. However, the stories that are shared are no less lively as a result. When they are shared in a large group, the entire workforce gets an even better feeling for each other and for the work being done by the other teams. At our Monday meetings at the start of the week, we at the agency have therefore long since stopped focusing on our weekly schedule. Based on five points, each team reports on the past week in turn and is given a platform for reflection and appreciation.

Last week’s Success:

What was the one (in numbers: 1) biggest success for your entire team last week? Why does this success mean so much to you? What did you learn from this success or what was the recipe for success?

Learnings from the last week:

What have you learned in the past week, e.g. from a) feedback from a colleague or supervisor, b) from a conversation with a customer or a journalist, c) from a (digital) event, d) through an article or a book or e) for the courageous and authentic heroes among us: through a failure/setback/mistake?

Anecdote from last week:

Was there a situation that made you smile or laugh?

Thanks to the last week:

Who would you like to thank? Special thanks also deserve a reason, e.g. “I thank XY for the vacation replacement because I could rely on the fact that all my customers were well looked after and I was able to switch off completely” or “I thank XY for the delicacy she brought back from the vacation because I think it’s a nice tradition and I had some nice conversations while eating cookies” etc. etc.

Anticipations and Challenges of the current week:

Here you should focus on points where you could still use support from the team, especially to master your challenge. Not only in the form of capacity, but also in the form of additional ideas for offering a particular story more successfully, bringing along a few headlines that we can possibly optimize together or similar.