What is an internal communication tool?

Do you know what internal communication is?

Internal communication is one measure for deepening relationships between employees and promoting smooth corporate activities.

However, communication between employees is not easy.

There are many obstacles that hinder communication between employees, such as uneven age groups, gender imbalances, and team composition that is divided into a wide range.

“Internal communication tools” eliminate such barriers.

This time, we will introduce the benefits of introduction, selection points, and recommended internal communication tools from an overview of internal communication tools.

What is an internal communication tool?

Internal communication tools are tools for communicating and exchanging information between employees online.

In-house communication tools can share information more easily and quickly than conventional communication tools such as telephone and email.

In addition to facilitating daily work communication and schedule management, it also allows employees to have chats that are not directly related to work, deepening relationships between employees and enhancing corporate competitiveness.

Sharing skills and knowledge can also improve productivity across the organization.

Small conversations and skill sharing strengthen the connections between employees and create a comfortable workplace.

Why you need internal communication

Internal communication plays an important role in supporting corporate activities, but on the other hand, many companies do not know how to activate communication.

According to the results of a questionnaire survey on “internal communication” conducted by HR Research Institute, 95% of companies answered that “lack of communication is a hindrance to work.”

In this way, most responding companies recognize that lack of communication among employees is a hindrance to their work.

Behind the need for internal communication is the realization of a company-wide productivity improvement and a comfortable working environment.

If employees communicate actively, they can prevent miscommunication and share skills and knowledge, resulting in increased productivity of the company.

In addition, internal communication increases exchanges between employees and facilitates human relationships, creating a comfortable workplace.

In this way, internal communication improves the productivity of the entire company while improving the atmosphere of the workplace and realizing an environment that is easy to work in.

However, while understanding the important role of internal communication, many companies recognize that there are issues with internal communication.

In response to the question, “Do you have any issues with internal communication in your company?”, 76% of the companies answered that they “have issues.”

The tool to solve this situation is an internal communication tool.

The in-house communication tool allows you to send information from anywhere with a mobile phone or computer, so you can easily deepen the connection between employees.

There are various measures for internal communication, such as drinking parties and employee cafeterias, but due to the expansion of teleworking at companies, it is not possible to interact directly with employees.

However, if you introduce an in-house communication tool, you can hold web conferences and share information online, so you can maintain stable communication even when you cannot meet in person.

Advantages of introducing internal communication tools

Business efficiency

The main benefit of internal communication tools is operational efficiency.

According to the “Business Email Survey 2020” by the Japan Business Email Association, the number one communication method used at work is “email” (99.1%).
According to the same study, it takes an average of 5 minutes and 54 seconds to compose an email.

Conventional business e-mails must be written according to the format and without typos and omissions, which takes time to convey information.

However, if you use the chat function of the in-house communication tool, you can communicate lightly regardless of the format.

Also, if you set up a group within a department, multiple people can grasp the progress of work.

You can check not only the progress of the project but also the contents of the discussion, so you can support each other when necessary.

Improve corporate performance

Internal communication tools also improve corporate performance.

By sharing the knowledge of excellent employees with other employees through internal communication tools, it is possible to improve overall skills.

If the knowledge of excellent employees is not shared with other employees, the knowledge will be biased to some employees, which will not lead to skill improvement of all employees and corporate performance will not improve.

Knowledge sharing using internal communication tools is also important for improving the performance of the entire company.

Internal communication tool selection points

ease of use

Ease of use is important for employees to communicate easily.

In addition, communication between employees is necessary to prevent the introduction of internal communication tools from failing.

However, if a tool with complicated operation is introduced, employees will not actively use it and communication will not be active.

Encourage communication among employees by choosing an easy-to-use internal communication tool.

Functionality suitable for problem solving

Before you consider introducing an internal communication tool, clarify your company’s challenges.

This is because the original functionality of the tool will be wasted if the function is not suitable for the business problem.

If you choose a tool only because it is cheap, it may not be equipped with functions suitable for your company’s problem, and it may not lead to problem solving.

Whether you want to strengthen knowledge sharing between employees or smooth progress understanding between employees, clarify your company’s issues and consider introducing an internal communication tool.

Introduction of recommended in-house communication tools

NotePM

It is an information sharing tool that centrally manages various knowledge information such as internal manuals, business know-how, product design documents, and meeting minutes to improve organizational performance.

Like Wikipedia, employees can write and accumulate various information, and can easily check what they want to know about the company by editing, searching, and browsing.

Depending on the size of your company, you can flexibly set the scope of sharing among specific members. Guest and read-only permissions are also supported, making it convenient for sharing with external members.

function

• making document
• Search/Organize
• collaboration
• access restrictions
• API , data output, external linkage
• In addition, it is equipped with abundant functions such as smartphone / tablet compatibility

price

• Starter: ¥ 1,000/month (tax included)
• Basic: ¥ 3,600/month (tax included)
• Standard: ¥ 5,700/month (tax included)
• Plus: ¥ 9,500/month (tax included)
• Pro: ¥ 17,500/month (tax included)
• Premium: Varies by number of users

Talknote

It is a culture management tool that activates communication, converts all information within the company into assets, and promotes the penetration of philosophy and the cultivation of culture.

The “Organizational Activity Score”, which can quantify communication for each company or department, visualizes the degree of cultural penetration as a high level of psychological safety, making it possible to understand the condition of the organization at a glance.

Also, by analyzing and quantifying the communication aggregated in Talknote, you can understand the problems of organizations and people.

function

• Groups: Depending on what information you want to convey, you can share it with relevant members. Such accumulated information becomes the intellectual assets of the organization.
• Message: Compared to e-mail, exchanges can be overwhelmingly speedy, enabling communication as if you were having a face-to-face conversation. Stamps can also be used to express subtle nuances that cannot be expressed with text alone.
• Task management: A function to manage work requests, deadlines, etc.
• In addition, abundant functions such as post templates, scheduled posts, and email linkage are installed.

price

• Inquiry required

flou

It is an online workspace that aggregates information and documents scattered within the company and realizes efficiency of team work.
With simple operability, anyone can use it easily.

Simultaneous real-time editing and the ability to create shareable documents.
There are many functions that are optimal for efficiency, such as the ability to register frequently used sentences as templates.

function

• Ability to create documents that can be edited and shared simultaneously in real time
• Template registration function for frequently used documents
• File attachment function
• Real-time chat function for each document
• slack, chatwork linkage function
• Detailed public permission setting function
• Diverse document management functions such as directory management and label management
• Full-text search function that can search across documents, comments, and files
• In addition, abundant functions such as browsing requests are installed

price

• Basic fee
  per user ¥500/ 30 days

Chatwork

It is a business chat that has been introduced to more than 290,000 companies and makes communication necessary for work such as e-mail, telephone, meetings and visits more efficient.
We will revitalize communication inside and outside the company and improve work efficiency.

If you are a Chatwork user, you can immediately exchange messages.
Information can be shared smoothly not only for internal use but also for work involving external members.

In addition, we are striving for safe information management with a security level that can be introduced by large companies and government agencies.

function

• group chat
• task management
• File management
• In addition, abundant functions such as video / voice call

price

• Free: ¥0 per user
• Personal: ¥400 per user
• Business: ¥500 per user
• Enterprise: ¥800 per user

summary

This time, we introduced an internal communication tool.

If you introduce an internal communication tool, communication between employees will be activated, which will lead to an improvement in the productivity of the entire company.