Effective communication is key to running a successful business, and in today’s fast-paced digital world, mobile apps have become an essential tool for keeping employees connected and informed. From messaging platforms to project management tools, there are a plethora of apps available to help businesses communicate with their employees.
However, with so many options, it can be overwhelming to choose the best one. In this article, we will explore some of the top apps for employee communication, highlighting their key features and benefits. Whether you’re managing a small team or a large organization, these apps can help improve collaboration, increase productivity, and keep everyone on the same page.
What is an Employee Communication App?
In today’s fast-paced and interconnected world, the way we communicate has changed drastically. In particular, employee communication has become increasingly important as more and more businesses shift to remote work arrangements. One tool that has become increasingly popular for this purpose is the employee communication app.
An employee communication app is a software application that enables organizations to communicate with their employees via mobile devices, laptops, desktops, or tablets. These apps are designed to improve the flow of information within the organization and enhance employee engagement, productivity, and collaboration.
Employee communication apps typically provide a range of features that enable businesses to share information, collaborate, and manage their workforce effectively. One of the key features of an employee communication app is the ability to send instant messages and alerts to employees.
This feature allows managers and employees to communicate quickly and efficiently, regardless of their location. Additionally, these apps often include the ability to send push notifications, so employees can stay up-to-date with important announcements, even when they are not actively using the app.
Another important feature of employee communication apps is the ability to share documents, files, and media. This can include anything from memos and presentations to photos and videos. These apps often provide a secure platform for sharing sensitive or confidential information, ensuring that employees can access the information they need without compromising security.
Many employee communication apps also provide tools for collaboration and teamwork. These tools may include shared calendars, project management software, and video conferencing capabilities. By enabling employees to work together more effectively, these apps can help businesses to improve productivity and streamline their operations.
In addition to these features, employee communication apps may also provide analytics and reporting tools. These tools can help businesses to track employee engagement and performance, monitor the effectiveness of their communication strategies, and identify areas for improvement.
There are a variety of employee communication apps available on the market today, each with its own unique features and capabilities.
What Are the Best Apps to Communicate With Employees?
Slack
Slack is an incredibly popular and well-designed app for employee communication that offers a range of useful features. Despite facing stiff competition in recent years, Slack remains a top choice for many teams. It supports both text messages and calls and integrates seamlessly with other communication apps like Zoom and Google Meet.
The app’s basic features such as channels, threads, and direct messages provide a solid foundation for team communication, while the hundreds of integrations and bots available in the Slack Integrations directory offer additional functionality to enhance team productivity, project management, and team building activities.
Slack’s built-in search makes it easy to find specific messages or attachments, and its public and private channels allow for flexible and organized communication.
Microsoft Teams
MS Teams has experienced an incredible growth spurt over the last few years, attracting over 270 million users by 2022 and surpassing other employee communication apps as the most popular choice. While its connection to Microsoft’s established enterprise ecosystem has helped fuel its success, MS Teams also offers practical and convenient features of its own.
Much like Slack, MS Teams supports group channels, direct messages, and audio and video calls, with the added benefit of supporting video calls for up to 250 users. The app can be accessed via desktop, mobile, or web, and also integrates with third-party tools and services for managing workflows and automating tasks.
Although Slack has more available integrations, MS Teams has a more flexible pricing model, offering fewer limits on its free plan and generally cheaper paid versions.
Geekbot
Geekbot is an invaluable app for teams using Slack or Microsoft Teams for remote employee communication. Meetings can often be unproductive and time-consuming, especially when team members are in different time zones. Geekbot solves this problem by allowing for asynchronous meetings within the chat platform.
The app sends meeting questions to team members in their own time zone and collects responses in a designated channel for easy analysis and follow-up. With a library of templates and customization options, Geekbot can conduct any type of meeting, including daily stand-ups, retrospectives, polls, and anonymous surveys.
By using Geekbot, team members can avoid waiting for each other to respond and can participate at their own convenience, leading to more productive and focused meetings.
Staffbase
Staffbase is an all-in-one internal communication software that enables companies to communicate and engage with their employees effectively. The platform functions as an intranet and an employee communication platform, allowing companies to distribute content among employees and groups of employees.
With the help of the real-time chat feature, employees can communicate with each other, comment on company posts, and receive instant notifications of new entries via the mobile app. Staffbase offers full customization, allowing companies to build a uniquely branded app for their employees.
The software also supports integrations with popular apps such as Slack, Microsoft 365, Google Suite, and Salesforce. With enterprise-grade security and GDPR compliance, Staffbase provides user management functionality to control employee access and build content hubs for specific user groups, departments, and locations.
Workvivo
Workvivo is a unique social intranet that serves as a centralized hub for employee communication. Employees can share company news, podcasts, videos, and other content that other team members can engage with by leaving comments or reacting. Workvivo’s integration with Slack and MS Teams allows for seamless direct communication between team members.
Additionally, Workvivo serves as an employee directory app that includes contact details and recent posts about colleagues. A personalized employee live feed dashboard displays the latest updates from colleagues, company news, and other relevant information. Spaces act as data hubs of information around common interests or projects.
Workvivo also features a built-in survey and polling system that can be used to conduct employee surveys and measure team morale and engagement levels.
Guru
Guru is a unique knowledge management system that can enhance your team’s existing communication infrastructure. It seamlessly integrates with popular platforms like Slack, MS Teams, Gmail, and Salesforce, allowing you to access the relevant data or context required for any conversation or task.
The Guru browser extension enables you to capture articles or specific sections of text as cards that can be shared during Slack conversations. These cards can be edited, updated, and assigned verifiers who are the subject matter experts responsible for verifying and updating the card’s contents.
Guru’s verifiers ensure that only the most accurate and trustworthy information is shared among team members. This cutting-edge platform can be easily integrated into your existing ecosystem, making it an efficient tool for teams that rely on messaging apps, emails, and intranets to communicate.
Jostle
Jostle provides a comprehensive solution for employee communication, combining the features of an intranet and a messaging app. The dashboard displays the latest company updates, blog posts, and team knowledge entries. An employee directory can be accessed through a menu on the left, which includes information about the person, their contacts, and recent actions.
Group channels, called discussions, are available for team conversations and can be set up to automatically add new employees to channels relevant to their location, department, and team unit. Jostle integrates with Slack and MS Teams for broadcasting new entries and with Google business apps for file management.
It also supports tasks that can be shared with team members, commented on, and supplemented with attachments. Additionally, Jostle offers knowledge management features such as organizing training documents and company guidelines.
Chanty
Chanty is a messaging app that provides similar features to Slack. With Chanty, users can create private and public channels, direct messages, video and audio calls, and more. However, there are some features unique to Chanty that make it stand out. Firstly, every message can be turned into a task, with assignees, priority, and status.
There’s even a Kanban board to manage tasks in an agile way. Secondly, Chanty has a “Team Book” dashboard that shows the latest team mentions, pinned messages, shared files and links, and conversation history. This is especially useful for catching up with conversations after being away.
Lastly, Chanty’s pricing is different from Slack’s. Chanty offers a free version for teams with less than 10 members, without any message history restrictions. On the other hand, Slack only allows access to messages and files from the last 90 days without a limit on the number of team members you can invite. Both platforms limit integrations to 10 on free plans.
SnapComms
SnapComms is a highly versatile communications platform designed to streamline internal messaging across an organization. By utilizing multiple channels such as desktop, mobile, and digital signage screens, SnapComms bypasses the need for email, reducing the risk of messages being overlooked in a cluttered inbox.
The platform offers a wide range of features, including advanced targeting options to send messages to specific employee groups, scheduled delivery times, and recurrence settings to ensure that messages are read and responded to. SnapComms also allows for seamless customization with company colors and logos to maintain branding consistency across all internal messaging.
With its powerful suite of tools and flexibility, SnapComms is a valuable tool for any organization looking to streamline its internal communications.
Beekeeper
Beekeeper is a powerful mobile app that is specifically designed for frontline workers. It provides an effective way for team members to manage their schedules and access important information on the go. In addition to delivering company messages to non-desk workers, Beekeeper also offers a robust chat feature that includes video, surveys, and news streams.
The app’s document library enables quick and easy access to files and information, while the scheduling feature allows employers and staff to view and update work rosters in real-time. Beekeeper’s inline translations make it possible for content to be available in multiple languages, making it an inclusive solution for diverse teams.
With three different pricing plans (Standard, Professional, and Enterprise), Beekeeper can be tailored to meet the specific needs and budgets of different organizations.
Facebook Workplace
Workplace by Facebook is a messaging and video tool that enables employees to stay connected and communicate with each other regardless of their location. It also offers an intranet-style Knowledge Library and an AI-powered news feed that keeps employees informed about the latest news and updates.
The Groups feature of Workplace enables highly targeted messaging, and short polls and surveys can be sent to collect valuable feedback from employees. Workplace’s Insights area provides an easy-to-understand visual representation of communication performance. Workplace’s Core plan is the basic plan, and additional functionality and support levels can be added on as needed.
Simpplr
Simpplr is an innovative intranet platform built for large businesses and enterprises that require a more interactive and personalized way to share company resources and news. Unlike traditional intranets, Simpplr offers a modern and dynamic interface that allows employees to quickly access relevant information and resources.
One of Simpplr’s best features is its ability to personalize content to individual employees, ensuring that each member of the team receives information tailored to their specific needs. Additionally, Simpplr offers an intuitive search function that allows employees to easily find any type of content they need.
The platform also includes SMS notifications that notify employees of important updates and new content. With Simpplr, businesses can streamline communication and collaboration while ensuring their employees have access to the information they need to succeed.
Blink
Blink is a communication app that has been designed to cater to the needs of frontline workers. The app offers various features such as news feeds, intranet, staff directory, and instant messaging. Blink has been developed with a specific focus on industries that require intensive labor such as healthcare, hospitality, and construction.
The intranet dashboard of Blink is a major feature that brings all company-related information together in an easy-to-navigate format. The app’s micro-apps allow for specific information needs to be met, such as requesting time off, viewing payslips, and checking menus.
Blink makes it easy to create dynamic forms and staff surveys, which can be very useful for companies seeking employee feedback. Blink offers four different plans, ranging from the basic Essential plan to the comprehensive Enterprise Plus plan, with pricing information available upon request.
BlogIn
BlogIn is a unique app that provides a dedicated space for company blogging, creating an intimate and personal touch to company news and resources. As a blogging alternative to intranet platforms, BlogIn is straightforward and easy to use, with customizable features to suit any style of content.
The platform provides email and SMS push notifications to ensure staff is alerted to any new content. BlogIn integrates with Slack, which means users can share blog content with colleagues without leaving the messaging platform. Additionally, it offers helpful reporting on the performance of each blog, allowing users to tailor their content strategy to better engage their audience.
RingCentral
RingCentral is a powerful application that offers a comprehensive set of tools for seamless communication. Whether you prefer chat messaging, phone calls, or video conferencing, RingCentral has got you covered across various devices, including mobile, desktop, and conference phones.
This app provides team messaging and video conferencing as its main features, but it also includes a handy document storage facility. Its contact center feature is designed to streamline customer calls and manage agents, ensuring faster and more efficient service.
There are plenty of options available to suit your needs, whether you’re a small team or a large corporation, and you can choose from various products, employee numbers, and billing frequencies. With RingCentral, you can rest assured that your communication needs are fully covered.
Axero
Axero is an exceptional web-based intranet platform that can efficiently collate and manage data from your team’s communication and file management apps, as well as other third-party services. With Axero, it is possible to create fully customizable spaces that can display live-feed information tailored to a team or department’s specific requirements.
While there is a company-wide homepage that provides aggregated information for everyone in the company, each team can also create its own space with a custom layout displaying the relevant content for its members. Axero allows you to access multiple spaces or search throughout the entire intranet using advanced search operators and various filters to refine your search results.
The platform supports multiple content types, including files, tasks, events, articles, videos, and discussions. Additionally, Axero offers team calendars that enable you to monitor scheduled events from different spaces. Moreover, Axero also provides team-building features such as gamification and a recognition system, which can help improve employee motivation and allow teams to celebrate achievements.
Chatter
Chatter is a cutting-edge enterprise social network that is exclusively built into Salesforce, making it only available to teams that are already using Salesforce or planning to integrate it. Essentially, Chatter serves as an intranet solution that enables team members to communicate within a shared space that contains information from Salesforce workspaces.
Users can comment on tasks, create custom actions, post to groups, share files, and even integrate data from third-party systems. Furthermore, Chatter is designed to enhance enterprise engagement by offering score-based incentives that encourage employees to join conversations, personalized endorsements, and badges.
In this way, Chatter is an all-in-one communication platform that promotes collaboration and drives productivity within the Salesforce environment.
Asana
Asana is a project management tool with several unique features that make it an ideal addition to any employee communication system. One of its key strengths is its ability to integrate with all the leading communication apps and messengers, such as Slack, MS Teams, Google Chat, and Zoom, among others.
This integration allows team members to effortlessly reference Asana tasks in Slack discussions or transform MS Teams discussions into tasks. Moreover, Asana itself has powerful communication capabilities: each Asana project or task can serve as a communication hub for team members to post comments and keep track of status changes.
With integrations, team members can automatically receive notifications in their messengers whenever there are any task updates or completions. Additionally, Asana’s live feed enables users to monitor team activity from one centralized location. This feature allows them to observe when someone on their team creates new tasks, posts comments, or performs any actions within the project, effectively turning Asana into an intranet for team project activities.
Zoom
Zoom has become the go-to employee application for video conferencing in recent years due to its ease of use and almost lag-free performance. Its integration with nearly every relevant digital app, including messengers like Slack and Teams, as well as project management tools like Asana and Jira, makes it even more versatile.
Starting Zoom meetings is easy, as users can share a link that other participants can use to join the meeting. Zoom has added numerous features over the years, such as custom backgrounds, an upcoming meetings tab, and team contacts, while always prioritizing performance.
The free Zoom meetings are limited to 40 minutes, but users can restart them back-to-back with the same link if their meeting runs longer. Upgrading to one of the Zoom paid plans allows for longer meeting durations, but even the free plan can accommodate up to 100 meeting participants.
To invite more participants, users must switch to the Zoom Business Plan since Zoom Pro also limits the number of participants to 100.
Conclusion
Effective communication is critical for any successful business operation. The right employee communication tools can improve collaboration, productivity, and morale. From Slack’s project management and communication capabilities to Zoom’s easy-to-use video conferencing and screen sharing, there are many great apps to choose from to enhance employee communication.
With so many options available, businesses can find the best apps to meet their specific employee communication needs and improve overall operations.
