We have met with hundreds of companies and executive leadership teams, and they all tell us the same thing … “Internal communication is a BIG challenge. It’s even more complicated because we have thousands of employees spread out everywhere.”
The more a company grows in both employees and locations, the less connected everyone becomes. Why? Because employees are not connected on a single, unified communication platform – such as an employee communication app.
Communication is scattered, fragmented, and inconsistent at best. While some employees have access to @company.com email, the lion’s share of an enterprise’s workforce has never been digitally connected to the organization.
So, why not give every employee a corporate email address?
Great question. While email access for all may seem like a simple quick fix, there are five key reasons why it won’t work for your entire enterprise.
#1 Cost
Typically @company.com email starts at $5/user/month (such as Microsoft Office 365 and Google Apps for Work) and the cost increases with functionality. Providing company email for all employees at a smaller organization may be a minimal “cost of doing business” expense, but it becomes a huge budgetary challenge with 1,000 or 10,000 or 100,000+ employees. For large enterprises, it is simply not economical to provide company email access to every employee.
#2 Focus
Email is a necessary evil in your corporate workforce. Your desktop workers use email on a daily basis for external and internal communication with clients, prospects, suppliers, co-workers, and more. Additionally, a company email address provides access to intranets and portals, and it provides the login key to nearly all enterprise designed productivity and collaboration tools.
But, therein lies the problem for internal communication. Work email has become an aggregate for everything and has resulted in a dilution of attention and focus (if everything is important, nothing is a priority). This email overload has created a plethora of noise and encouraged an industry of spam.
Internal business-critical messages are most effective when distributed through an employee communication app. Without the noise of email, your messages receive the focused attention they require.
#3 Accountability
“Well, I sent it to them. Not sure if they got it though. Maybe it got stuck in their spam because I never heard back.”
How can you really know if your employees are getting your messages? Clicking the “send” button on a mass email never guarantees delivery. Additionally, the sender never knows if and when critical messages have been read.
Corporate leadership and operations teams have a strong desire for accountability. The best way to achieve this accountability is to give the “sender” assurance that every business message is delivered and know exactly when recipients have read messages. The corporate email channel will never provide the communication accountability that internal communication demands.
#4 Behavior
Your hourly workforce is a mobile-first workforce. These employees do not sit at a desk all day, and they require an entirely different approach for communicating and connecting. They do not want to login to an intranet portal on their mobile device and do not need collaboration platforms that desktop workers have become accustomed to using.
Hourly workers’ primary need is simple messaging and quick access to documents on a mobile device. Many of these workers have resorted to personal group texts (SMS) or Facebook groups for internal communication because they have not been given a better tool.
#5 Turnover
Creating and canceling email accounts in an organization with a high employee turnover rate will bankrupt an IT department’s time and resources.
Another significant hurdle with providing company email to ALL employees is dealing with the 100+% turnover rate among the hourly workforce. The new retail sales associate, fast food team member, and part-time service employee all have something in common … the corporate office doesn’t know if they will stay employed for a week, a month, or a year.
