Consistent and strong communication is at the heart of every successful company. And, while the benefits of face-to-face communication cannot be ignored, it’s tough to scale, automate, and streamline your efforts without technology. But old habits die hard. Despite the emergence of modern communications, old-school methods like emails and phone calls still make up 75 percent of all interoffice communications. So, how can you bring your employee communication up to speed?
For starters, take a look at your go-to business tools and technologies. Often there are communication-friendly capabilities that you don’t even realize are there. Take Orbit Solutions for example. There are at least six must-try features you may have missed!
1. Notifications
Whether you only use Orbit Payroll or you leverage our entire suite of human capital management (HCM) solutions, Notifications will hands down make your life easier. Notifications allow you to automate communications based on a specific action or trigger. For example, if you want to notify employees when their pay statements are available, you don’t need to email them one by one. Rather, you can set up a Notification that automatically triggers an email or Orbit inbox communication based on payment dates or other parameters. You can also tie Notifications to more complex workflows to improve communication at various points in a multi-step process. For instance, you can set up Notifications to alert different managers when it’s their turn to complete a performance review or let employees know when reviews are finalized.
2. Tags
Personalizing your communications helps employees feel like they are more than a number. But, when you’re automating messages or sending emails at scale, it’s more challenging to give employees that reassuring one-to-one feeling. Tags, a helpful neighbor to Notifications, allows you to insert recipient- or situation-specific information into communications. By selecting from a list of preset Tags, you can quickly automate the inclusion of custom information, such as dates, gender pronouns (he versus she), name, employee ids, cost center and more. And, although personalization goes well beyond inserting a name or location, Tags are an easy, automated way to pop a little customization into automated messages.
3. Announcements
Sometimes you need to get the word out. Announcements allow you to broadcast free-form communications to an intended audience. Want to announce the release of a new employee handbook? It’s as simple as customizing a message, filtering who it’s visible to, attaching your handbook, and scheduling your Announcement. From here, qualified employees will see your Announcement in multiple locations – on their Orbit Solutions dashboard, as a pop-up at login, and within the navigation menu (Our Company > Announcements). Get creative with how you use Announcements. We’ve seen companies communicate everything from timesheet reminders to wacky office days, trainings and more.
4. Events
Similar to Announcements, the Events feature in Orbit Solutions helps you communicate important happenings to an intended group of users. However, Announcements and Events are not one in the same. Unlike Announcements, Events do not have native broadcast capabilities like pop-up and dashboard reminders. Rather, Events provide employees with a one-stop location within Orbit Solutions to access a company calendar with the activities, trainings and date-specific affairs that apply to them. With this said, you can always put a little rocket fuel behind your Events by tying them to Notifications or asking employees to add an Events widget to their dashboard.
5. Checklist
If you use Orbit Human Resources, you have access to Checklists. Checklists allow you to create to-do lists and assign them to employees. This feature not only helps you communicate action items, but also track if requests are in-progress, completed or overdue. This feature is a dream come true for managers that need an organized tool to manage projects and employee accountability. You can make Checklists as simple or complex as you want. Send a one-time checklist to track that employees download and complete a training material. Or, build out comprehensive onboarding Checklists to ensure that new hires complete each and every task that’s needed to hit the ground running.
6. Mobile App
With the ever-increasing number of people using mobile devices on a daily basis, it’s more important than ever for businesses to prioritize mobile-friendly technologies. Our mobile app, HCMToGo, provides managers and employees with on-demand access to Orbit Solutions. Not only can users accomplish key payroll, HR and timekeeping tasks right from the convenience of their mobile device, they can communicate wherever and whenever. Want on-the-go employees to complete a questionnaire? Just schedule your Announcement instructing employees to do so, and they can conveniently complete your request right from their mobile device. Employees can even set their mobile notification preferences to receive updates like shift-swap requests and important manager approvals.
We are here to help!
Powerful technologies and tools, like Orbit Solutions, help you automate, scale, and streamline time-consuming communications. It takes care of the tedious and repetitive communications, so you have more time to engage and collaborate with the people that move your business forward. If you have questions about how to take advantage of these six Orbit Solutions features or need more great communication tips, we are here to help. Contact your Client Service Representative or send us a note today!
