Last updated on March 8, 2023 at 09:18 pm

It has been another big year for internal communications professionals. While we’ve all experienced personal and professional challenges, we’ve also learned a lot about how to improve internal comms. In so many ways, we’ve changed our industry for the better. So, we thought it was fitting to celebrate and share the story of our 2022 with twelve pieces of content that we created over the year—the 12 Posts of Christmas.

1. Improving Frontline Worker Recognition

We created a comprehensive recognition guide for companies wanting to get better at frontline worker appreciation. This guide includes a wealth of research about why recognition is so important for retention, improving culture, and engaging our people. But our whitepaper also breaks down best practices, strategic approaches, and campaign ideas.

While these campaigns could work for any workforce (e.g. remote or office-based), they are really geared towards helping companies be able to recognize their deskless workforce.

2. Editorial Calendar Template

We already have a great template for conducting an internal comms audit, but in 2022 we finally shared an editorial calendar template too. This template is based on excel so anyone can use it for free, and it includes all the best practices for using content calendars:

• Approval workflows
• Goal-setting
• Organization and project management
• And more!

3. Predictions for Internal Comms Trends in 2023

We partnered with ALI Conferences to share what we think are going to be the top internal communications trends for 2023. So much has been changing in our industry, but these four areas of focus are going to be major in the new year:

• Employee engagement will evolve to conversations about workplace belonging.
• How we work will continue to be up for debate. This includes the fight over remote vs. return to office as well as the benefits and expectations on our deskless workers.
• Companies will need to re-evaluate their digital employee experience (DEX) to make sure they aren’t overwhelming their teams with tech overload.
• Across the board, companies need to re-evaluate what matters and how they communicate their values/vision to their people.

4. Internal Comms Must Focus on Workplace Belonging

Our fourth resource of 2022 is this blog about why internal communications must focus on workplace belonging. Belonging was really one of the major shifts in the discourse in 2022. And this is a shift that’s been a long time coming.

Why?

Because it’s an evolution of how we think about employee engagement and the employee experience. You can’t really shape a culture or create a psychologically safe environment without thinking about belonging and acceptance at work.

5. Why Employee Experience Should Be Our Focus

This ties in with number 4. For years employee engagement has dominated the conversation. And we think it’s about time we focus more on employee experience (EX) instead. This comes back to a wealth of research that links EX to higher engagement, productivity, retention, and more. But also, improvements to EX are intrinsically linked to improving the customer experience (CX) too.

Read this 2022 blog to learn all about EX and why it’s so important.

6. Advancements to Our Technology

2022 was a big year for theEMPLOYEEapp product. Not only did we update our engagement functionality (@ mentions, hashtags, and thread comments), but we also launched our new and improved employee intranet.

You can learn all about these updates on our Product pages or by watching this hype video we shared as part of the announcement.

7. CEOs Must Embrace Executive Comms

Having an executive communications plan is a must these days. But internal comms pros know this. It’s our C-Suite that we sometimes need to convince.

And 2022 was the year of CEO communication…both the good and the bad. As a year full of layoffs and economic uncertainty, we got to see a lot of executives in the spotlight, but not always in a flattering light.

Our February blog about CEO communications might have helped a few companies avoid these blunders.

8. More Resources for Employee App Users

This was a big year for building out more resources for clients of ours and anyone using an internal communication app for business communication. In addition to the launch of our new Client Support Website, we also wrote a few useful blogs:

• Best Practices for Creating Great Employee App Visuals
• 5 Tips for Writing Titles to Increase Employee Engagement

9. Making Measurement More Accessible to Communicators

Measurement is something we have been passionate about for a long time. But we took it a step further this year with a few new comprehensive guides (not gated) on key areas of measurement: 

• An overview of what internal communication metrics are and which data points really matter
• A guide to measuring employee engagement and activation
• The dos and don’ts of employee engagement surveys

10. Getting to Know Your Audience

At theEMPLOYEEapp, we’re on a mission to help companies better support their deskless workforce. And that starts with actually understanding these employees and their distinct needs. That’s why we created a few guides to break down the nuances between key groups:

• Who are frontline workers?
• Who are deskless employees? 

Believe it or not, frontline workers are really a type of deskless employee. But not all deskless workers are front line facing. Some are behind the wheel of trucks or working in warehouses. And some interact with your customer or patients all day long. Understanding the different types of non-desk worker and how to reach them is key to success in 2023.

11. The Rise of BYOD

One of the major trends from our 2022 Frontline Worker Survey was that more companies are embracing bring your own device (BYOD) policies. Not only are more companies using SMS texting and employee apps for communication, but more employees mentioned wanting these channels than was reported in 2021. 

We think this is a positive step forward for companies. By embracing BYOD policies, we are opening the door for more deskless employees to be able to access resources and communication.

12. Our New Topic Hubs! 

We closed out 2022 with a new resource hub for our clients and the internal comms and HR communities. These pages are comprehensive guides on all the topic areas we cover. Check them out:

• Internal Communication Topic Hub
• Employee Communication Topic Hub
• Deskless Employees Topic Hub
• Employee Engagement Topic Hub
• Employee Experience Topic Hub
• HR Communication Topic Hub