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Keeping communication flowing
to home-based workers 

Working from home (WFH) is now a widely understood acronym...

As many businessed the world over find themselves locked down with staff home-isolating, the catch phrase "WFH" is now a common part of our work lexicon. The communication challenge for managers is - how do you keep your people informed, motivated and connected as a team under these extraordinary circumstances?

As workforces have dispersed to home workspaces around the country, it is critical to keep communication flowing, as this is the lifeblood of every organisation and will drive employee behaviour.

The answer lies in having the right tools and also encouraging the culture of the organisation to flow beyond the physical walls of the office.

Get creative with how you generate a sense of team outside the office

Here are some ideas to help your employees stay informed and bring your work culture into the home work space...

  • Remember to remind your people about your purpose, vision and values - This will keep everyone aligned and remind them of their sense of purpose.
  • Share team goals and performance metrics regularly - This is hugely important for setting expectations and as with culture, seeing this data will align and motivate your teams.
  • Keep on communicating important company updates - Keeping everyone informed about performance, policies and other topical news remains important even when people are at their remote offices.
  • Make wellbeing a key focus - Some of the key pillars of wellbeing to consider include mental and physical wellbeing, mindfulness, home-office ergonomics and financial wellbeing. Point your people to online, useful sources of information on each of these. 
  • Run a photo gallery competition - Get creative! Get your people to share photos of who has the best or most creatively decorated home work spaces; cutest pets; or best view from their window.
  • Keep an 'event' calendar going despite lockdown - Highlight employee birthdays, celebrations and other milestones that will encourage people to interact.
  • Share quotes of the day and motivational messages - Limit them to a line or two of text and powerful images. Encourage team members to contribute one quote per week.
  • Provide tips and advice on working from home - Share the dos and don'ts that will help team members learn from the experience of others.
  • Involve the kids - For those with kids at home, setup a colouring-in competition, encourage them to post photos of their kids holding up their masterpiece and offer a prize for the winner.


How to get your communications into home offices

Most large New Zealand organisations will be well-equipped when it comes to using collaboration tools such as Teams, Workplace, Trello and Facebook Workplace and these will be great to leverage for team collaboration, but when it comes to keeping company-wide communication top of mind and actively putting this in front of your workforce, a more proactive approach to communication is needed. Consider using every digital channel on hand such as the Desktop Screensaver, Login Screen and the Chrome Browser default tab, which show up when you open the browser. These digital channels will actively place your communications in front of your remotely based workers, without them needing to hunt it out.

If you are unsure of how you can leverage these 'at home' digital channels to remotely manage communications, get in touch with the Vibe.fyi team today. We are well-positioned to help businesses that are looking to keep their workforce connected during these uncertain times.

Here's what The Warehouse Group had to say about the trial they conducted with over 1 200 employees working from home.

Team members stated that the Vibe screens were very useful for ensuring that they were receiving important information remotely.

“Team members stated that the Vibe.fyi screens were very useful for ensuring that they were receiving important information remotely. This included information about how to keep everyone safe during the pandemic, current store communications and promotional videos - all information that team members may have missed through being out of the office. Vibe.fyi screens are the ideal platform for uploading motivational messaging, especially now that all TWG SSO are working from home,” said Melody Currey, Internal Communications Channels Specialist at The Warehouse Group.

So, whatever your organisation's 'vibe' (pun intended) or culture and however you choose to keep it flowing during uncertain times (such as the pandemic); keep it light, make it fun, stay positive and above all else, ensure people remain connected.

Article By Vaughan Reed [LinkedIn]
Vaughan is the Managing Director @ Vibe.fyi. Making it easy for organisations to communicate business critical information in a way that will inspire today's workforce.

Before Vibe there was a lot of 'printed flyers' which is both costly and environmentally unfriendly.

With Vibe's on-screen format it’s easy to make changes instantly on the fly without the need for a reprint. No more excuses from staff not reading internal emails. Messaging is right there, on the screen.

- City Rail Link

We are now able to share general company information and specific site information to large groups of people.

It suits our teams and contractors in different locations, which in the past has been difficult to communicate with.

- Ryman Healthcare

Vibe helps us get internal messaging to staff in a fun, graphic format.

As well as the serious stuff, slideshows of staff events are very popular. Plus, promote our outward-facing social media content inwardly to staff and visitors.

- City Rail Link

This software has helped stop geographical office separation and team silos.

Meetings are shorter. We get immediate reporting to the whole business on performance without having to send more emails to get the data required.

- Marketing Specialist

It's very cool and a great way to communicate with and engage my non-wired employees.

The digital templates are extensive and the Vibe team support is outstanding. The feedback I get from my team tells me we're on the right track.

- Fletcher Steel

We started with COVID messages, but after 6 months, we were communicating other business events on site.

We're using Vibe for EVERYTHING. Facebook groups, café menus, surveys (with a QR code), internal videos, welcoming our summer interns, Christmas messaging from our CEO + more!

- Fisher & Paykel Healthcare

Really great for providing snackable and understandable content, it’s visually a great way to communicate.

The impact when people see our big digital wall at reception is great.

- Zespri International

We easily share information to staff in all locations that isn't always available to them.

The different templates are a bonus - there's always a layout that works.

- DHL Freight Forwarding

We have found Vibe very effective as an implementation model for dashboard content.

It helps us visualise data. It’s a great system and I would definitely recommend it.

- Vulcan

You can just have it all on Vibe.

Even when you’re at home, you can have these snackable bits of content you can retain, instead of having to check an email, look at an announcement, go from one platform to another.

- Silverfin