Employee Engagement
October 7, 2021

Infographic 2021: Best Channels & Ideas To Engage Your Employees

By
Amandine Fernandez
Head of Acquisition
With the rise of telecommuting or as we call it “working from home”, the links between companies and employees are changing. Working from home often means more complex exchanges. So, more than ever, it is crucial, even vital, to get your employees to participate or to get engaged around common values and common projects.
employee engagement statistics

Employee engagement: the impact working from home has on their engagement

  • 43% of employees have teleworked at least partially, mid-April 2021
  • 47% of employees feel isolated
  • 90% of employees do not feel engaged in their work

In this context, developing and maintaining effective internal communication becomes even more crucial than before. If internal communication allows you to pass on the right messages at the right time, it also and above all allows you to engage your employees over time. To get them involved, to develop their sense of belonging to the company and to unite them.

But with the rise of employees working from home, it is becoming majorly difficult to get your employees’ attention.

Which communication channels should be used to cultivate employee engagement?

For communication and marketing professionals, the levers to acquire and retain new customers are well identified. These means are often orchestrated within the framework of a marketing funnel to accompany the customer throughout his life cycle.

But what about channels that are fully dedicated to internal communication? Which ones should be used to capture the attention of employees?

In addition to the online/offline distinction that is currently tending to disappear, these “channels” or touch points can easily be classified into two categories. On the one hand, there are "synchronous" touch points, which enablereal-time interaction; on the other hand, there are "asynchronous" touch points, whichdo not involve a direct response. The first one has a tendency of appearing as an obstacle to employee productivity, while the other offers the opportunity to regain control over one's schedule.

  1. Newsletters It is expected and allows to maintain the link between the employees. But it is a 100% top-down touch point as it does not involve any interaction.
    The + side: Allows to create appointments
    The - side: Top-Down communication
  2. Meetings Whether it takes place physically or digitally, it is irreplaceable, but harder to integrate into a communication plan.
    The + side: Optimal interactivity
    The - side: Synchronous and time consuming

The 1to1 email and the email signature: 2 unsuspected but very powerful touchpoints

Your employees spend an average of 28% of their working day answering and sending emails.

Engage your employees where they spend the most time: in their emails.

Discover how to capitalize on the first communication channel in the company!

  1. The 1to1 email An employee receives an average of 121 emails and sends 40 emails per day. With an open rate of almost 100%, the professional email is a particularly effective touch point.
    The + : Asynchronous and informal
    The - : Can get lost in the flow
  2. The email signatures Here we are talking about a particular section: the professional email signature. The advantage is that this email signature can integrate an internal communication banner. It is present in all emails, and not only in the emails of managers for example.
    The + side: Present in every internal email
    The - side: Not personalized with a non-automated management

If email signatures are more and more used for external communication, their potential to serve internal communication is not less!

A new feature dedicated to internal communication

Although they are not yet 100% democratized, tools to manage and centralize the management of your company's email signatures do exist.

At Letsignit, as a precursor and leader on the market, we are constantly looking to improve our tool in order to respond to business issues and their evolution.

Thus, we have developed a functionality dedicated to internal communication. If our platform allows the integration and the attribution of banners for external audience in the email signatures, it will soon be possible to target them even more precisely.

Thanks to our internal banner scheduling feature, there is no need for a long and risky communication plan. All your internal emails will be broadcasting messages that are important to your employees. You capture the audience as a whole and all types of employees (remote, freelance, etc.).

In addition, you create a culture of operational excellence. You share the company's strategy in real time to limit misunderstandings, duplication, and indecision.

5 banner ideas to incorporate into your email signatures to engage your employees

1.Create a suggestion box


Each employee can submit their initiatives to improve the life of the company.

email signature banner

2. Launch a call for projects


More than an idea, the call for projects offers employees the opportunity to formalize a concrete project.

email signature banner

3. Conduct a survey


To find out your employee satisfaction and expectations.

email signature banner

4. Entertain with a quiz


It can be a question about current events, the company's history, a new project, sports, culture.

email signature banner

5. Establish a mentoring program


To associate an experienced employee with a younger one, helping to guide the latter in their career.

email signature banner
ebook internal communication

Sources :

https://www.lefigaro.fr/decideurs/vie-bureau/les-francais-ont-teletravaille-massivement-depuis-la-fermeture-des-ecoles-20210422
(Gallup, State of the Global Workplace, 2017) : https://lesnouveauxtravailleurs.fr/gallup-etude-engagement-salaries-2017/

About the author
Amandine is the Head of Acquisition at Letsignit! Initially a content specialist, she now actively contributes to the profitability of acquisition channels: SEO, SEA, SMA, SMO... Amandine is also one of the pillars of Marketing at Letsignit! For more than 5 years, she has been participating in and initiating marketing projects and campaigns that systematically reflect her vision, writing style, and creativity (which can also be seen in all of her colorful outfits that brighten up the day of everyone she meets).
About Letsignit
With Letsignit email signature manager, connect with your audience in a way that's on-brand and personal, while driving quality lead generation.
Frequently
asked questions
1
Is it possible to track the number of clicks on email signatures?

Yes, with the 'Campaigns' offer, it is possible to track the number of clicks on the email signatures of all your employees in the 'Statistics' area of the platform.

You can then access a detailed or global view of the number of clicks on the email signatures of each employee. You can use the search option to target a specific signature or a given period. Finally, you have the possibility to export all statistics to an Excel document.

If you launch campaigns with banners inserted in your email signatures, you can also access their performance via this same space.

2
Can we add links to social networks, our website, and appointment-setting applications such as Calendly?

With Letsignit, you can easily add social network icons in your collaborators' email signatures and link to your company pages. Also, our "attributes" feature allows you to manage personalized URLs for each of your collaborators such as their individual LinkedIn profile.

And that's not all: you can add links to an appointment-setting application, allow your customers to leave reviews easily, and integrate our 'Chat on Teams' widget to let anyone start a discussion via Microsoft Teams chat.

3
Can employees update their signature information themselves (number, function, etc.)?

It’s up to you! As an administrator of the Letsignit platform, you choose whether or not to grant modification rights to your employees. These permissions are managed on an attribute-by-attribute basis, which means that you can decide to allow the employee to change their phone number, but not the address of your premises, for example.

This feature applies to all attributes in your directory, including custom attributes created on Letsignit. When your employees change one or more attributes, your directory is obviously not affected.

4
Why it is important to standardize our email signatures on a large scale to ensure our identity and brand image?

It often happens that employees make their email signature their own: custom format, bad fonts, colors inconsistent with the brand standards... all of this has an impact on your brand!

A consistent visual identity is considered authentic and outperforms a perceived weak one by 20%. And, your customers are 2.4 times more likely to buy your products.

With Letsignit, take back control over your brand identity by standardizing all your email signatures. Our tool has many features that allow you to customize your signatures by department, by audience or by subsidiary. Not to mention the possibility of carrying out campaigns within your email signatures thanks to our Campaign offer.

5
What is the user experience like for our employees?

What is the user experience like for our employees?

  • If you opt for the Letsignit Add-in for Outlook, they will have a dedicated space in their Outlook account where they will be able to view the signatures and campaigns assigned to them.
  • If you opt for the Letsignit Desktop APP, they will be able to preview all their signatures and campaigns in this space. If they want to change their default signature to another one when sending an email, this will be done in their signature library in Outlook.

In both cases:

  • They preview their signature before sending an email and choose from signatures assigned to them.
  • Based on the permissions granted, they will also be able to modify their personal information such as their name, position, or address in these spaces.

In short, they have autonomy in their email signature, but you keep control on the field, signatures, and banners they can edit or use.

6
Can my employees have multiple signatures available to them?

With our "multi-signature" feature, your employees can benefit from multiple email signatures. No technical manipulation is required. Thanks to our Add-in for Outlook or the desktop app, they can change their email signatures as they wish with just a few clicks.

Regarding the creation of email signatures, you can make several variations such as:

Everything has been thought of to go further in the personalization process based on the recipient of your emails.

7
Regarding “Green IT,” have you implemented measures to limit the digital footprint of email signatures?

If sending emails has an impact, non-optimized email signatures also have an impact. An unsuitable format or an image that is too heavy considerably increases the size of your signatures... and therefore, your emails.

As a responsible economic actor, we contribute to reducing our CO2 emissions and those of our customers in several ways:

  • Optimization of the weight of signatures and campaigns in emails.
  • Green features: lightening of signatures during response/transfer emails, possibility of not embedding images, implementation of lighter signatures for internal exchanges.
  • Integration of a 'Switch to Teams' widget to encourage your employees to continue their exchanges via chat, rather than email.

As we are increasingly involved in sustainability initiatives, our priority in 2023 is to develop even more green IT functionality.

8
Regarding “Green IT,” have you implemented measures to limit the digital footprint of email signatures?

If sending emails has an impact, non-optimized email signatures also have an impact. An unsuitable format or an image that is too heavy considerably increases the size of your signatures... and therefore, your emails.

As a responsible economic actor, we contribute to reducing our CO2 emissions and those of our customers in several ways:

  • Optimization of the weight of signatures and campaigns in emails.
  • Green features: lightening of signatures during response/transfer emails, possibility of not embedding images, implementation of lighter signatures for internal exchanges.
  • Integration of a 'Switch to Teams' widget to encourage your employees to continue their exchanges via chat, rather than email.

As we are increasingly involved in sustainability initiatives, our priority in 2023 is to develop even more green IT functionality.

Frequently
asked questions
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Looking for a tool to manage your email signatures?

Letsignit allows you to create, manage, and deploy email signatures for all your employees in just a few clicks.
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