Vary your communications to reach non-wired employees

What are the topics everyone is talking about in corporate communications right now? Intranet! Social media! Online groups! Enterprise video! Video conferencing! And all those things are great, unless you have to reach employees who don’t sit at a computer all day.

Even those workers who do some work online probably won’t be on all day, so it’s a good idea to provide other ways for them to get information, communicators say.

“You have to assume the role of the typical employee, and then think about how best to reach that employee,” says Army public affairs specialist and former employee communications manager

Bruce Henrickson. “That requires thinking outside the box of electronic-only media.”

Signage

The first place to look outside that box? The bathroom, Henrickson says.

“About 10 years ago at Maryland Public Television, we used bathroom door signs to increase participation in our United Way campaign, both in terms of making contributions and participating in campaign meetings,” he says. “Along with e-mails, intranet messaging and word-of-mouth, we increased United Way giving to more than 90 percent, from nearly 300 employees.”