Home » How to Engage Employees With Digital Signage
Keeping employees engaged is paramount to the long-term success of a company.
Research shows that engaged employees boost organizational productivity, have increased participation, and are more committed to the company and its values.
According to Gallup, U.S. businesses lose up to $550 billion annually due to employee disengagement.
Today, motivating employees and improving retention are more important than ever.
A staggering 39% of adults in the U.S. quit their jobs last year, and November 2021 saw the highest quit rate in 20 years.
As we move into the post-pandemic world, the Great Resignation is ongoing, at least for now.
To reduce turnover and stay competitive, you must use every tool to your advantage.
Digital signage is a unique way to teach, entertain, excite, and engage employees.
Let’s look at how digital signage can help increase employee engagement!
What Is Digital Signage?
Digital signage, or electronic signage, is a digital installation that conveys multimedia content for information, content marketing, or advertising.
This can include video walls, menus, LED walls, TVs, monitors, projectors, and other multimedia devices that show graphics, animation, videos, and more.
Different software can create unique displays using templates, provide interfaces to help people navigate through the digital hardware, manage the displays, and even analyze employee interactions with the signage so the technology can be better applied within your organization.
You’ve probably seen or even interacted with digital signage in more places than you realize.
Subway stations and airports use the technology to display arrivals, platform and gate numbers, service changes, delays, and other important information.
Digital signage is also used in restaurants to display menus and other media, and in retail, it’s used at self-checkouts and wherever you see traditional store signage.
You’ve likely seen digital signage at bus stops and used as billboards over interstates.
In the corporate world, digital signage can be utilized for sharing information, scheduling, coordination, demonstrations, training, whiteboarding, etc.
9 Ways to Engage Employees Through Digital Signage
When employees feel connected to their team and company, it helps them become more involved.
Digital signage can be a fun and valuable medium to keep employees connected and increase engagement.
It can help employees stay in the loop by displaying important information regarding training, scheduling, or new opportunities.
The use of visual aids can remind employees of the company’s goals and vision, helping them stay focused.
Colorful text, engaging images, and messages on digital signage can give the workplace a positive and exciting atmosphere.
It can set the tone for the environment you want your business to convey to employees.
1. Utilize Visual Communication
While there is debate surrounding learning styles and whether educators should divide students into visual, auditory, or kinesthetic learners, it is clear that we are becoming increasingly reliant on visual imagery since the advent of social media.
Visual communication can be more effective at grabbing people’s attention than verbal communication, making more of an impact on the audience.
It can be flexible and direct while aiding in the retention of information.
Communication is key to engaging employees.
Employees who face confusing or unclear messaging can feel less inspired to be involved.
Digital signage is an exciting way to use media and visual communication to explain things to employees clearly.
2. Offer a More Exciting Workplace
Using digital signage in public spaces or break rooms to announce birthdays, employee achievements, and exciting news can create a more stimulating workplace.
While digital signage is often used to dispatch work-related news and messages, it can also be used for more fun applications.
Showing funny quotes, memes, or trivia on digital signage can spark employee conversation and encourage them to engage with one another.
They can be a medium for employees to share a recent photo from a vacation, a cute picture of a pet, a non-profit they love, or a personal announcement like an upcoming wedding or birth of a child.
Interacting with digital signage in a personal way in the workplace gives employees a sense that the company is interested in them individually, and it also helps coworkers find common interests.
3. Encourage Engagement Across Departments
If your company is a large organization, different divisions and units can become isolated and unaware of accomplishments and news from other groups.
This is possible even in smaller companies.
Digital signage can help break down these silos and connect diverse groups within a company by allowing content from different departments to reach everyone.
This helps employees grow connections and learn what the company is accomplishing overall.
Sharing other areas of the corporation will help employees better understand how their role fits into the company’s more significant objectives and successes.
Combining live or pre-recorded video with digital signage can be a great way to share company news, upcoming events, and other announcements.
This helps create an atmosphere where everyone feels like they’re on the same page, rather than waiting for information to trickle down the grapevine.
Displaying interactive signage where employees can see a directory and map of the corporate campus reminds people that they’re part of a larger organization and empowers them to venture to other areas and meet other teams.
4. Facilitate Rapid Communication
Digital signage can communicate information at essentially the speed of light.
This can be useful for urgent announcements like weather advisories, emergencies, news alerts, and essential company reports.
While we’ve all heard that a picture is worth a thousand words, this is true.
Information that may take minutes to describe verbally can be conveyed much easier and quicker visually and possibly with less chance of miscommunication.
It can be challenging for busy and distracted employees to take the time to read and digest emails and other written communication.
But images and video are potent forms of communication that can get the message across at a glance, reducing the likelihood of some employees being left out of the loop.
5. Use Direct Communication
Providing access to digital signage throughout the workplace can help give employees a clear idea of what they should expect.
Whether it’s a menu board in the cafeteria, an event itinerary, or an interactive scheduler for a meeting room, digital signage directly communicates information to whoever sees it.
Showing tailored displays on monitors in different office areas can help communicate important information directly to specific teams and employees who need it.
For example, one unit may have a meeting and need to know the room number.
Another may need to be informed of a canceled training event.
Digital signage can convey schedules by showing calendars and essential dates, business hours, events, and company deadlines.
The key to success with digital signage is to use it in a direct way that eliminates confusion and acts as a starting point for more evolved conversations and understandings.
6. Promote Corporate Transparency
Using digital signage to make the reception and break areas more welcoming and to reinforce the company’s brand and vision throughout the workplace are direct ways to remind people of your goals and who you are as a company.
Digital signage software like Microsoft Power BI can help convey information in real-time.
It converts company data like reports and dashboards into valuable visuals.
Having a way for employees to track the company’s strengths and weaknesses instantly can help teams adapt and plan.
Celebrating company achievements and milestones like an important business deal or sale, or identifying the weaknesses, can help employees understand the company’s challenges and reinforce that you’re all on the same team.
Integrating digital signage into communicating values and company performance can reinforce a message about where employees fit into achieving larger goals.
This can give context and more significant meaning to everyday tasks and increase job satisfaction.
7. Learn from Employees and Customers
Digital signage software can allow a company to track how employees engage with the technology and what features they interact with most.
Allowing employees to engage with customers through interactive imagery can also improve their sales skills.
It can assist salespeople by displaying talking points and demonstrations, and it can drive sales by answering customers’ questions quickly and directly with visual aids.
With QR codes on digital signage, companies can offer quizzes, games, surveys, and other feedback material to help them understand their employees’ or customers’ feelings and needs.
8. Offer Training and Learning
Training videos help ensure everyone understands company processes, policies, and expectations.
This is useful not only for onboarding but for veteran employees also.
Digital signage can be used to increase safety awareness by showing important refreshers regarding training or safety protocols.
This can be an excellent way to supplement other forms of training and help reinforce the importance of safety in your organization.
Even a company-wide email can feel like a personal attack because employees read it on their computers.
Posting the information on digital signage can help it feel less like a warning or reprimand and assure teams of what they are doing right.
You could back the visuals with a safety quiz or the email address of a safety manager for employees to use if they have questions.
Being open about safety in the workplace can help create a dialogue and work culture where safety is paramount.
Live-streaming or playing training videos or conference lectures in break rooms can be a great way to help employees who didn’t attend in person stay up to speed.
We retain information better if we see it multiple times, so it can be beneficial to offer a way for employees to review training and important points from other media on digital signage.
When people feel they’ve learned something, they feel more accomplished, empowered, and engaged.
9. Celebrate Success Together
One of the most successful ways to boost employee morale is by celebrating work-related accomplishments.
Post work anniversaries, prizes, and winners from a recent contest, a job well done on a project, innovative ideas or research, or a goal that has been surpassed or met.
Digital signage can enhance employee engagement by providing training, interaction, entertainment, and direct communication.
Visual communication helps companies get their message across in a way that’s memorable and easy to understand.
As the workplace evolves, so will digital signage with better interactive media, augmented reality, social media interactions, and more personalization.
In the future, AI may recognize employee faces when they approach a sign and tailor the information they see based on their ID and job title.
Exploring the possibilities for AI in digital signage likely will be a prime focus as companies work to stay ahead of the trends and continue to improve employee engagement.
