Internal communication is a struggle for many companies, regardless of size. Yet effective internal communication is critical to your company's success, according to Entrepreneur magazine. An easy way to improve internal communication is to automate it. Now that doesn't necessarily mean set it and forget it. There should always be a human component to internal communication. But there are four ways you can automate internal communication.;

Newsletters

It might sound a little cheesy, but a quality newsletter is an effective and affordable way to communicate with all your employees at one time. While paper newsletters used to be the norm, digital newsletters delivered via email is the standard now. They can include key information that employees need like upcoming benefits enrollment deadlines as well as encouraging stories and employee features. 

Surveys

Understanding what your employees think and feel about the company is important. Creating surveys to be distributed automatically is an easy way to get the feedback you need. There is a bit of work on the front end - creating the survey and setting up the delivery system. But once that is done, the survey can be sent out to a pre-determined number of employees. What's even better, is that you can also set reminders to go out automatically as well, so employees who have not taken the survey are reminded to. 

Notifications

Sending notifications to all employees can be difficult, but it is necessary. The notification might be as simple as alerting employees to a mandatory training or as dire as alerting employees to a significant threat in the area. Whatever the reason, automating notifications can save your company time and money - and in those dire situations, maybe even lives. The old-school phone tree method isn't going to cut it anymore.  

Online Chat

While this technically isn't automating, implementing a type of company chat is an excellent way of facilitating communication between employees. Choosing an easy to use a tool like Slack makes it easy for co-workers to chat virtually. Make sure employees are able to chat with employees up and down the management level. It's a great way to keep the digital doors open when having a physical open door policy isn't an option. 

Remember that just because some aspects of internal communication are automated doesn't mean your job is done. Internal communication should be an integral part of your business because it is essential to building and maintaining a positive workplace.