How an AI-powered communication tool lightens the load

Finding the right balance in internal communication is difficult. If you communicate too little, employees may feel that they don't matter, that you're leaving them out of the conversation. According to one survey, 74% of employees feel they miss out on company news. But communicating too much isn't ideal either, because it can overwhelm them. An AI-powered communication tool, however, helps you avoid overloading your employees — neither those who receive the messages, nor those who create the content.

What exactly is an AI-powered communication tool?

These are communication-enabling tools with built-in artificial intelligence. Their purpose is to make conversations between employees and HR professionals easier, faster and even automated. AI-powered communication apps, especially in the corporate world, often function much like chatbots. This lets an employee communicate with the tool itself and get answers to their questions without having to involve another, live person in the conversation. Thanks to the chatbot-like design, for example, employees can easily find the menu button they're looking for — in CHEQ you just type the keyword and the menu appears. They can also find answers to their questions thanks to the uploaded knowledge base. This way they can ask their questions any time and often get an answer immediately.

Lightening the load by avoiding information overload

In one of its articles, the Harvard Business Review mentions a Gartner survey which found that 38% of employees feel they receive too many messages, and 27% of respondents experience this as information overload. In one of its articles, Haiilo cites Workzone data showing that 25% of employees have experienced significant stress and poor health due to information overload. This too confirms that constant information overload is bad for performance. In fact, it can lead to psychological exhaustion, anxiety and weaker performance. That's exactly why it's so important to lighten the load while still ensuring that all the important information reaches the people it concerns. But how is this possible with an AI-powered communication tool?

1. Targeted communication

At first it may seem cumbersome, like extra work, but in the long run it pays off to work with recipient lists. This is one of the best ways to protect your colleagues from information overload. The method ensures that a message reaches only the employees it actually concerns. Why burden your colleagues on the production line with information about product packaging? Or why send every employee the "how to return to work after childbirth" guide when it obviously doesn't concern everyone?

By creating lists you can direct the flow of messages. What's more, if you also involve employees in creating a given communication list, they too feel they can control what messages they receive. If you communicate with employees through CHEQ, for example, you can ask them whether they'd like to receive notifications about changes to the company bus schedule. If they say yes, they'll get these messages; if they say no, they won't. And even if they don't receive the notification, they can check the current schedule in the knowledge base any time they need to, or later indicate that they'd like to receive these notifications after all.

2. Automated messages and reminders

AI can help send automated replies, scheduled messages or reminders. In CHEQ, for example, if someone's driving licence is about to expire, they can receive a reminder as much as 30 days before it lapses. This way they can renew their licence in time and keep working without interruption or disruption. Thanks to the reminder, no one has to keep the expiry date in mind. When an employee joins, you set up the notification in the AI-powered communication tool, and the message is sent automatically when it's due.

And because the CHEQ internal communication tool is also a bit like an HR chatbot, it can give employees preset automated answers depending on what they requested or asked. This automation also helps take the load off HR colleagues.

3. Translation

Thanks to our globalised world, it's increasingly common for people of different nationalities who speak different languages to work together. This certainly brings communication challenges too. However, a well-chosen AI-powered communication tool also helps you clear these language barriers. Within CHEQ, for example, it works like this: you write your message in the language of your choice. Then, with a single tap the app translates it into every language you use within the company. As a result, everyone can read the messages in their own language. And if a foreign employee sends in a message in their own language, the recipient will again read it in the language they themselves use. Translation-AI-powered communication systems use language analysis to recognise and translate messages arriving in different languages, enabling international teams to communicate effectively.

The interpreters and translators working in the office can finally focus in peace on the more complex translations — the management meetings or the contracts — while the foreign employee can also handle their own tasks with the HR department independently.

4. Analytics and performance evaluation

If you keep in touch with employees using an AI-powered communication tool, you can get very quick and easy answers to questions such as

• How many people read/view your messages?
• Which messages do they prefer to receive?
• Which ones get the most feedback?
• When does the feedback come in?

A tool like this helps you measure the effectiveness of your communication, and thereby fine-tune your internal communication strategy. The more clearly you can see who, when, what and how to communicate the company news and other messages that concern them, the less you burden colleagues with unwanted messages. This also ensures your messages will always be viewed. After all, people know you only notify them about things that genuinely matter to them.

5. One channel above all

Lightening the load is also helped when communication happens through a single platform only. In that case everyone knows it's enough to send a message or request once and it will definitely reach its target, without having to constantly monitor several other channels. But how is this possible if you don't make using the given communication channel mandatory for everyone?

Fortunately, an AI-powered communication tool helps with this too.

With CHEQ, for example, it can be arranged that employees who have an email address but haven't subscribed to the channel receive the notification by email. The reverse is also true. With some AI-powered communication tools it's even possible to funnel in messages from various electronic platforms so you can see everything in one place.

If you'd like to learn more about how the CHEQ AI-powered communication tool works, then request a FREE demo.