From migration to innovation: 3 ways to level up internal comms after Workplace

Migration can mean more than just maintaining the status quo

If you’re one of the many organizations preparing to transition from Workplace from Meta, you may be looking for platform alternatives that help you keep business as usual.

But what if you could achieve business as better?

This worldwide shift away from Workplace is a rare opportunity to reimagine how your internal communications operate altogether. Rather than focusing solely on like-for-like functionality, you can use this transition to raise the bar.

A great alternative doesn’t just ensure business continuity with the Workplace features you know and love — it also empowers your teams, streamlines communication, and can help take your internal communications strategy from good to great.

Before you pick a platform and migrate from Workplace, consider not just what you need in your new platform — but which new features you want.

Here are the three of the biggest ways to raise your internal comms game.

3 ways to upgrade your post-Workplace internal communications

#1. Calm potential comms chaos with chat controls

Two-way communication brings employees into the company conversation. As opposed to top-down comms, two-way engagement turns your employees from recipients into participants, giving them a voice in your digital workspace.

But two-way communication isn’t always easy to get right. Too much of a good thing can still be too much. Without the right guardrails in place, excess communications can lead to content overload and a noisy news feed. It’s harder to ensure critical messages cut through. And comms leaders can struggle to bring order to the wild west of workplace messaging.

When choosing a new internal communications platform, look for solutions that support two-way communication with the balance you need.

The best Workplace from Meta alternatives allow you to manage the types of content employees can post — and the audience they’re able to post it to — with the help of controls and segmentation.

For example, perhaps senior leaders have free rein to publish company-wide posts, but team manager posts are visible to only their team members. Maybe employees have the freedom to comment on posts or contribute to their group chats, or maybe it suits your organization more to have a pre-approval process with posts from specific titles or levels.

By selecting a tool that includes easy controls and audience segmentation, you can encourage interaction and engagement while preventing comms overload. This doesn’t just keep your platform useful and relevant — it creates a better employee experience.

#2. Take your intranet from outdated to outstanding

An effective intranet is an important pillar of your internal communications. It’s a place to share company policies, support staff training, and ensure compliance.

But intranets often feel like a relic of the past — and, sometimes, entirely irrelevant.

With complicated storage systems and poor search functions, it can be hard for employees to find the information they’re looking for. And even when they do find it, they can’t be sure they have access to the latest version of that particular resource.

A curated and interactive content hub makes a welcome alternative. If your intranet is a sore spot you’re looking to improve, this is a great chance to prioritize it. A modern resource library supports a variety of engaging content types, including documents, videos, images, and interactive media. It should also be able to house forms, making it easy for employees to report incidents, request time off, and more.

For comms teams, a modern content hub doesn’t just make it easy to publish and update content — it shows how this content performs. Powerful analytics provide you the insight you need to achieve long-term intranet success and improvement.

Personalization can go a long way here, too: Employees can easily hyper-relevant content to them in a user-friendly, highly personalized interface.

{{from-workplace-to-blink-migration-made-easy}}

#3. Include frontline workers from the get go

If you’ve struggled to get frontline workers onto your employee communications platform, this transition is the perfect moment in time to right that wrong.

Many workplace comms tools overlook deskless, hourly, and temporary workers, with a one-platform-fits-all approach that leaves behind those without a company email address.

In an attempt to reach their frontline, most organizations either 1) use paper memos or shadow IT to try to fill the gaps or 2) spend extra time and money on a third-party vendor to add frontline-friendly functionality onto their primary intranet tool.

Neither solution is ideal. And with more than half of frontline workers feeling overlooked and undervalued, it’s an issue that any organization with a deskless workforce should be keen to rectify.

As you search for the right Workplace alternative, keep the frontline in mind. For starters, look at solutions that offer a mobile-first user experience, use single sign-on technology, and don’t require an employee email address.

Frontline workers may have been notoriously difficult to reach with Workplace. But with your new platform, you can show these employees that they’re just as important to your organization as your desk-based staff.

Winning your Workplace migration

We know that finding an alternative to Workplace from Meta is a hassle. But with migration comes a pivotal opportunity for your employee communications.

Finding like-for-like functionalities is important — but this is a chance for you to think bigger. How can you go from like-to-love with your internal comms platform?

Look for a solution that improves on what you’ve already got, including:

• Appropriate controls for posting rights and audience segmentation
• A curated content hub with a personalized dashboard
• Equal engagement and access for both desk-based and deskless workers

If your new platform can tick these boxes, your employees will still have access to the resources, tools, and colleagues they need — plus a more compelling employee experience.