Say Goodbye to Duplicative Corporate-Sounding Emails

If you work for a large corporation with siloed functions and communications teams, your employees are drowning in emails and may need a life vest. I cannot tell you how often I have heard employees confess to automatically deleting company emails (unless they come from their direct supervisor or a C-suite executive). However, when you factor in how much email correspondence employees receive from team members, managers, clients, vendors, and other parties, can you really blame them? Do not forget to factor in the massive number of notifications from office chat platforms and collaboration tools!

Here’s an interesting fact:

“A whopping 22% of remote workers want to leave their current job because of the volume of email they receive.” (Superhuman 2021)

This may leave you thinking…what can I do to announce a new digital solution my team created? Or an online video contest for the coolest home office setup? Or, perhaps the new conference room hardware you invested in to optimize brainstorming sessions?

While there is no perfect solution and each organization will need a tailored approach, consider the following tips to maximize engagement:

1. Leave the stuffy tone in 2021. Your employees want to feel like they can relate to you and the organization’s mission. Instead of corporate buzzwords and prim and proper messages, try softening up the language. A skilled copywriter can transform a dry paragraph into an interesting read with a humorous, playful, and user-centric tone.

2. Make it interactive. Do not underestimate the power of a catchy headline. And why not includes a joke, pun cartoon, or meme? Not only will the content be easier to remember, but you may also brighten someone’s day.

3. Combine and streamline messaging. This is so important that I’ll repeat it. Combine messaging in partnership with other functions to decrease the number of emails. If your announcement is regarding hybrid work, and three other groups or functions are working on related efforts, collaborate on a joint change management and communications strategy. Not only will this prevent confusion, but your employees will also learn to expect digital workplace updates from a dedicated source.

4. Bite-sized content always wins. Chances are, your employees are experiencing burnout (52% are, according to Forbes). Do not take up more of their time than necessary. Keep your messaging clear and concise, and do not hesitate to experiment with formats like short videos.

5. Personalize. Does the content apply to your whole department? Function? Company? The more you can define personas and slice, dice, and categorize employee data, the more you can tailor the messaging.

6. Ask your employees. As mentioned in the post, Want to Build a Connected Digital Workplace? Listen to Your Employees? nothing will enable you to succeed as much as leveraging employee polls, focus groups, and studies. Make it a priority to discover how your employees prefer to receive and digest information and tailor your plan accordingly.

7. Track engagement. There is no use repeating the same mistakes if your content, delivery, or format does not successfully capture the audience. Always track engagement metrics to understand what works (and what does not) to save yourself valuable time in the future.

Anna is a Digital Workplace and product strategist passionate about disrupting and questioning the status quo. As a product and program lead at a $50B revenue professional services firm, she spends her day tackling topics like employee experience, product strategy, and digital transformation. All opinions are her own.