Introducing segmented messaging with WorkStep Inform

We are incredibly excited to announce the launch of Inform as a part of WorkStep’s ACT package. Inform is a 1:many segmented messaging tool which allows site leadership to build impactful relationships with their teams by opening up a brand new line of contact.

Inform gives managers the tools they need to close the loop with segmented populations in their workforce, reaching employees across sentiment score, location, role type, tenure, shift, etcetera. Whether that be to any forklift operators who need training on a new machine, a group of employees asking for more seats in the breakroom, or a company-wide celebration– Inform ensures you can reach the right people with a resonate message at the time they are most likely to read it. Put simply, Inform makes it easy to communicate with your workforce and drive meaningful change.

Employee communication needs an industry-wide update

Many mass communication tools in the market today simply do not support the targeting of specific employee segments, leaving organizations to struggle with a home-brewed solution. Announcements don’t always need to be company-wide and there is a fervent need for managers to close the loop with segments of employees so that they feel like their feedback was heard, acted upon, and is welcome in the future. Antiquated bulletin boards or posters simply can not serve this need and our competition has overlooked leadership’s desire to send segmented messaging via SMS or email to their workforce – WorkStep hasn’t.

Inform is an answer to that call, a way to provide bi-directional feedback to populations of your workforce that raised an alarm, or asked for additional support, without making any one individual feel singled out. It’s about building a great employee experience and a culture where feedback is encouraged from both sides so that an organization can grow in a collective effort.

Gathering feedback is just a small step toward building a successful employee engagement strategy. Creating a culture where those employees not only feel heard, but can see new plans be put into action is a giant leap toward retaining and encouraging frontline workers to do their best work. Inform gives managers the space to publicly praise their star-performers, create awareness around programs the organization has recently invested in, or even do something as simple as sending a company-wide holiday message.

Where traditional employee communication fails

A great relationship with your employees is all about a little give and take. While frequent check-ins are welcome and appreciated, we have found that many frontline workers are still looking for their leaders to close the loop with personalized feedback about the updates most relevant to them. Employees want to know that their feedback matters and they appreciate it when managers show the extra effort to let them know their voice is not only heard, but valued. Many companies rely on information to trickle-down the organizational hierarchy, a reality that simply does not work. Like an elementary-school game of “telephone,” there is a lot of key information that gets lost in translation, is never delivered, or becomes inconsistent across teams. As a result, leaders have an increasingly difficult time figuring out what messages were actually delivered.

When employees are quitting because of an issue they are unaware has been solved, their departure highlights flaws in an organization’s communication. Let’s face it – shift stand-ups don’t always have everyone’s full attention or attendance, employees who are busy working may not have noticed the new poster tacked to the bulletin board, and it would be a full-time job for a manager to follow-up with employees individually. These solutions simply aren’t sustainable at scale nor do they provide a world-class employee experience.

Some employees may go to work and keep their head down for a paycheck without asking for much, but the vast majority of employees want their wins to be celebrated, they want a positive relationship with their manager, and they want to feel as if their opinions matter when it comes to making decisions that affect their daily life. For many frontline workers, something as simple as having their manager send a notice advising them to take an alternate route to work because of construction goes a long way toward building a relationship that directly translates into effort. Current communication tools would have a manager send that message as an email to live forever as “unread” in the employee’s inbox.

How WorkStep Inform improves employee communication

Inform provides HR and Ops leaders with dedicated channels to announce news, celebrate key promotions or awards, solicit feedback, and even share timely site-specific information about inclement weather precautions or production issues. Furthermore, Inform equips managers with the means to communicate workplace improvements in areas of low favorability at critical moments when attrition may be high despite a solution having already been put in place.

Segment employees based on company attributes and sentiment data, allowing your leaders to send multi-channel mass messages to quickly and easily close the loop on feedback, increase awareness and manager interaction. Take advantage of SMS or email correspondence so that employees stay informed with the latest developments in the workplace, boosting engagement and satisfaction. Save your Human Resources and Operations leaders valuable time by allowing them to communicate with employees at-scale, since Inform removes the need to follow up on an individual case-by-case basis.

Inform is backed by powerful analytics, giving your leaders key insights into the effectiveness of their communications and opening up windows for improvement. What’s more, your organization is backed by the white-glove support WorkStep offers to help design, implement, and guide your employee engagement strategies. Contact one of our representatives today to see how we can equip your HR leaders with the communication tools they need to drive retention and provide bi-direction feedback to your workforce at scale.