Organizations that use SharePoint for their intranet are always looking for the best way to communicate with their mobile workforce. We’ve talked about how to assess your options in this post about the Viva Connections mobile intranet experience.
Now there are a few more tools you can add to your toolbox.
Microsoft has introduced a new mobile experience for SharePoint intranets as well as a new feature for SharePoint that cross-posts News pages into Viva Engage. When combined with existing features in Microsoft 365 and GO SharePoint intranet, they offer exciting potential to help you increase intranet reach with frontline and mobile workers.
In this post, we’ll explore all of the options available with Microsoft 365 right now and share a strategy for how you can put them into action.
Why it’s hard to reach frontline workers
Frontline and mobile workers often have very different needs and priorities than desked workers. Here are the top three reasons your content may fail to reach them where they are:
1. They don’t have patience for tools that slow them down.
If it takes too many steps or sign-ins to reach the information they need, frontline workers are more likely to give up.
Solution: Create an easy, smooth user experience. There should be no roadblocks or usability issues across both desktop/browser and mobile devices.
2. They don’t care about the same content as desked workers.
If they’re working in the field, they tend to be focused on operational announcements and procedure-type documentation. Or, if they’re a high-level executive, they might want to quickly catch up on essential company updates while they’re travelling.
Solution: Make sure the information you’re posting is relevant and valuable to the frontline worker.
3. They access digital devices sporadically.
Frontline workers don’t have time to monitor their company’s many communication channels. They need help cutting through the noise to easily reach the right information.
Solution: Focus on nudges, not noise. Consider adding multi-channel nudges to help people become aware of the new content and bring them back.
Setting intranet benchmarks
Before we get into the different tools you can use to reach frontline workers, it’s important to consider what you’re aiming for. Reach often refers to the percentage of employees who accessed (or read) a news article based on the total number of potential employees who may have access (target total).
- Weak reach: 10 to 20% of workers
- Average reach: 20 to 50% of workers
- Top-performing reach: 50 to 75%+ of workers
In our experience, it is rare to see companies consistently reach 80-90% of their organization. Instead, a more appropriate target to reach for is 50% to 75%.
Microsoft and SharePoint tools you can use
There are a few different tools within Microsoft 365 and SharePoint that you can use to increase reach. Start by getting to know them and what they can do.
SharePoint app in Teams
SharePoint app in Teams is Microsoft’s new mobile experience for SharePoint intranets (aka Connections). It allows you to surface the intranet in Microsoft Teams on both a desktop app and mobile device. Employees can browse and search intranet content, and you can target content or features to different audiences.
Push notifications
SharePoint generates mobile push notification automatically when new pages are created under these circumstances:
- News page is boosted and a particular audience is targeted
- Followed site – when someone has chosen to follow a particular site
- Proximity – when news is created by someone who the employee is close with via a proximity score
SharePoint Announcements
SharePoint’s Announcements feature triggers notifications in Microsoft Teams or mobile. While it used to be part of Viva Connections (and required an extra licence), it's now available within SharePoint for free.
You can schedule Announcements and target them to different audiences. When you create an Announcement, the notification pops-up either in Microsoft Teams or on mobile devices, depending on the employee’s settings. The notification then opens a modal in the SharePoint App for Teams that you can read, and it can also link you to a page.
Email newsletters
Using email is a great way to drive awareness and remind people of important content. As a best practice, don’t include the full article in the email; instead, link people back to read it in the intranet. From a desktop, the links will open in the default browser. However, on mobile devices, they'll open the native browser on device (requiring 2-factor authentication) -- unfortunately, this creates a roadblock for our frontline workers!
Viva Engage
Many companies use Viva Engage to foster more conversation within different audience groups or communities.
When you create an Announcement in Viva Engage in a community, it also triggers a smart notification inside Microsoft Teams and mobile. A few hours later, it will also automatically trigger a back-up email notification in case you missed it.
Create a strategy to increase reach
Now that you know what tools are available to you with SharePoint and Microsoft 365, you’re ready to create a strategy to use them effectively. We recommend creating a pilot that will allow you to test drive better experiences, get some real feedback and shape a vision for how to improve the experience in the short term and over time.
Step 1: Understand employee needs
Explore what the day-in-a-life looks like for frontline and mobile workers at your organization. This will help you start to think about ways to streamline their experience and add value to their day-to-day lives, helping them feel better connected.
Step 2: Review your current strategy
Conduct an audit of your current internal communications strategy. What channels are you using? What analytics or insight can you use to benchmark the experience?
Step 3: Shape the new experience
Explore the ways you can combine tools to increase your reach. For many organizations, their current approach may be posting news to SharePoint and sending email newsletters. Depending on their needs, they could explore one of the following options:
- Option 1: Create a news page in SharePoint and leverage an email newsletter, Microsoft Teams conversation or Viva Engage post to increase awareness of the new content and bring people to the page.
- Option 2: Extend to mobile with the SharePoint App for Teams + SharePoint Announcements to trigger push notification.
- Option 3: Extend to mobile with the SharePoint App for Teams + new SharePoint News - Viva Engage cross-post + leverage an Engage Announcement to trigger smart notifications. With this option users will see the post in Teams, Outlook, Engage, and SharePoint and the comments feed is that much more engaging with the Engage format.
Step 4: Test and launch
Before launching the new experience to your entire workforce, test it with real frontline workers (representative audience groups).
Step 5: Measure results
Be sure to measure your baseline, so you can easily track improvements in reach. Be sure to collect feedback, so you can continue to refine the experience.
