Communicating in the digital workplace is an essential part of any modern organization. Since the COVID-19 situation, many of us work remotely. It is taken on even greater significance, with most of the communication between employees happening digitally.

Ineffective communication can cost companies an average of $420,000 per year. Thus, effective communication is crucial for the success of a company.

Digital communication solutions power both internal and external activities, from team collaboration to sales strategies.

As per a survey by McKinsey & Company, more organizations are integrating new communications tools into the way they conduct business each day.

87% of CIOs say that digitally empowering their employees can drive at least 5% additional revenue growth over three years.

Here is the list of new digital communication solutions for the modern workplace:

1- Ticketing Issue Tracking Tools

A ticketing issue tracking software allows a company to record and follow the progress of every employee ticket or issue in your inbox until the problem is resolved. It centralizes employees’ support queries and keeps track of any open issues.

It enables employees to submit a support ticket and assign it to the right employee or team to have it checked and resolved in time.

The issue tracking cycle starts when employees tell about their questions and ends when they leave feedback on the support they received. This software ensures that the process goes smoothly, stays error-free, and makes employee service easy for everyone involved.

The best ticketing issue tracking tools include Zendesk and Vision Helpdesk.

2- Chat and Messaging Solutions

Collaborative technology that provides chat and messaging functions is one of the best business communication software to keep teams working together. Instant messaging or chatting makes team discussion much easier.

In fact, live chat plugins reduce email volume and improve productivity by enabling employees to communicate in real-time.

This technology is especially helpful for employees working remotely and when a company has different geographic locations.

Here are a few features of messaging software are:

• Communicate instantly
• Communicate with remote workers
• Screen sharing with remote desktop
• Offer video and audio chat
• Provide universal search with a filtering feature

The best team chat tools are Slack, MS Teams, and Google Chat.

3- Project Management Software

Project management technology allows companies to have a central hub of data that everyone can reference from wherever they want.

It makes it simple to track projects, see updates, and document comments in one easily accessible place.

Good project management technology that allows teams to centralize documents, work on schedules and budgets, and tag each other in updates and requests.

Some of the features of a project or workflow management software are:

• Store data and create backups
• Track the time spent on each project
• Keep up with the deadlines

Some of the best project management tools are Zoho Project, and Basecamp.

4- Blogs, Videos, and Audios Software

Internal blogs, videos, and audio are good options for sharing ideas and experiences fast and in an informal style.

Software for internal blogs, videos, or audios helps a company to share articles, events, updates, goals, holiday schedules, or policy changes on the main site of your digital workplace.

It also allows you to keep the information secure by adjusting permission levels to designate specific users or departments. Permitting them to edit the site enables them to add or delete posts to the website.

You can check site stats to see the interaction level of the employees. These stats can be displayed as a percentage or as detailed as down to the specific user.

Some benefits of an internal blog, video, and audio include:

• Broadcasting and highlighting an employee’s knowledge about a certain topic.
• Creating a searchable and permanent archive of knowledge base articles, videos, and audios. All the uploaded and published files on an internal blog stays there unless deleted manually.
• It promotes collaboration among the employees.
• It connects employees across teams and departments.
• It keeps employees up-to-date on important information and company updates.

Some of the tools your business can use to create websites, videos, and audios are Invideo and Adobe Audition.

5- Discussion Forum Tools

Another indispensable software is discussion forums.

It provides a platform for employees to discuss topics of interest as they relate to the workplace. Discussion forums bring together the management and employees for an open discussion on any topic.

It is a means of reducing the number of meetings or long email chains. It is also effective in archiving organizational knowledge that can be used by anyone as a reference.

Companies can integrate discussion forums with enterprise searches to make forum information discoverable by employees who need it. Thus, no time will be wasted answering the same questions again and again.

The best discussion forum platforms are Discourse, phpBB, and Simple Machines Forum.

Final Thoughts

Improving digital communication in the workplace is an important task, but the outcome outweighs the challenges. Once your business is set up to communicate efficiently, employees will stay more engaged, and productivity will increase. The company needs to start searching for different technology available and pick whichever is right for the business.

Remember, you do not need to settle for one tool. Start by choosing a tool that can become the base for your communication. For example, many companies use an intranet platform for their internal communication as it allows the company to set up team workspaces, easily find information including areas of expertise, deliver customized news and information to different employees, set up secure access to ensure the right information is read by employees with the right access levels and more. Companies also integrate other tools into their platforms, such as Skype for Business, Facebook, YouTube, and many more. This enables organizations to offer a centralized communication and information ecosystem for their employees.