When you’re designing the perfect hybrid workplace or upgrading your office spaces, the value of effective workplace digital signage may not be the first thing you think about. However, today, digital signage is more than just a wayfinding or navigation solution.
The right tools can actually have a direct impact on how well your teams communicate, and collaborate. At a time when employees are constantly bombarded by emails and chat notifications across apps, digital signage can be the best way to cut through the noise.
By displaying focused, visible updates on screens around the office, digital signage helps you keep your team members informed, strengthen company culture, and even optimize employee engagement and productivity. Here’s what signage really does for today’s teams.
The Benefits of Workplace Digital Signage
Intuitive workplace digital signage solutions make it easier to disseminate information, align employees, and manage an ever-evolving workplace environment. Here’s how the right hardware can revolutionize any modern workplace.
1. Improving Communication: Knowledge Sharing Made Simple
Today’s teams are dealing with a constantly growing number of emails, chat notifications, messages, and meetings. With so many digital communication channels to keep on top of, it’s easy for important information to slip through the cracks. Workplace digital signage ensures that your most crucial insights, from announcements, to news alerts, are prominently visible.
You can display crucial event reminders, metrics, and even business updates on every screen throughout your office and even push notifications to personal devices for remote workers. Basically, digital signage gives you a consistent, visible channel for communication that’s difficult to miss.
This can be particularly crucial in settings where emergency information needs to be shared quickly. For instance, if all of your team members need to leave an office quickly in a fire drill, you can send an instant “red alert” out to every device simultaneously.
2. Boosting Engagement: Keeping Staff Motivated
Effective communication isn’t just about sharing information. It’s about capturing and maintaining employee attention and engagement. Workplace digital signage can enhance engagement in various ways. It gives you a bulletin board you can use to recognize and celebrate the achievements, birthdays, or milestones of workers throughout your team instantly.
It also ensures you have a space where you can constantly draw attention to company values. For instance, you could create a segment of a workplace display dedicated to commending employees who have shown commitment to priorities like innovation or teamwork.
You can even use digital signage to inspire and connect employees. For instance, you might share compelling stories, or employee generated content on your displays – or highlight the interests and passions of different staff members with an “employee of the week” section. Plus, interactive displays can even allow you to capture insights from employees, asking them to respond to polls, or vote on answers to specific questions and topics.
3. Enhancing Collaborative Decision-Making
Workplace digital signage isn’t limited to displaying company news or maps of the office. It can also actively support collaboration and decision-making by integrating with business tools. Consider office dashboards that update in real-time with key performance indicators, project statuses, or sales figures.
Instead of data being siloed in a manager’s spreadsheet, it’s up on the wall for everyone to see and act on. Modern digital signage platforms integrate with KPI dashboards, BI tools, CRM systems, and more. For example, a screen in the marketing department could display live website traffic and lead conversions from Google Analytics or Salesforce.
Over in operations, a screen might show a live production dashboard or inventory levels. When everyone has access to this same, crucial data at a glance, it’s easier for staff to work together on making decisions that benefit the entire business.
4. Improving Culture with Workplace Digital Signage
A company’s culture thrives when employees feel recognized, motivated, and connected to a shared purpose. Workplace digital signage can be a powerful tool for HR and leadership to cultivate a positive culture daily.
For instance, HR teams could run a “Wellness Challenge” leaderboard on the cafeteria screen, turning step counts or volunteer hours into a friendly competition. Sales leaders could use signage to create digital leaderboards where team members can track their progress towards larger business goals, like achieving a specific quota.
As mentioned above, digital signage can address the recognition gap in many organizations. While around 94% of companies believe positive and regular feedback improves performance, many staff members often feel overlooked. Digital signage can minimize this issue by making it easy to share kudos with staff members, wherever they are in the organization.
5. Optimizing Workplace Management
Finally, one significant advantage of workplace digital signage is that it can help you run your office or workplace more effectively. Digital signs in lobbies can serve as virtual receptionists, greeting visitors with customized welcome messages and guiding them to the right place.
For employees, digital signage can assist with space optimization and room booking. Teams can quickly identify available spaces when they enter the office, and book a room or focus space based on their specific needs and workflow. Some solutions, like Microsoft Places, even make it easy to book spaces based on the location of nearby colleagues or amenities.
As mentioned above, digital signage also helps companies optimize space and ensure safety. The meeting room panels we mentioned earlier not only prevent double-booking but also collect data on room usage, helping facility managers optimize layouts.
In crisis situations – like a fire drill, security alert, or severe weather warning – digital signage can broadcast instant, attention-grabbing alerts building-wide.
Best Practices for Effective Workplace Digital Signage
Workplace digital signage works best when you take a cautious approach to implementation. You need to ensure you’re choosing the right hardware, integrating it with your existing systems, and considering potential security threats as you design your workplace.
Here are some best practices to keep in mind:
- Prioritize Integrations: Digital signage should integrate seamlessly with your existing workplace technology, from your collaboration platforms like Slack, to calendar apps, HR systems, and desk booking software. This integration will make it easier to automate content distribution across devices, and gather valuable information throughout your workplace. It will also mean team members can make the most of your digital signage, using it to share feedback, track metrics, or just reserve spaces.
- Master digital content creation: The mantra for content on digital signage is “fresh, relevant, and visually appealing.” Unlike emails that can be long, screen content must be concise and striking. Use a mix of media – videos, animations, dynamic charts, and bold graphics – to grab attention. However, avoid cramming too much content onto one screen, as this could lead to confusion and information overload.
- Remember security and governance: Treat your digital signage network as an extension of your IT infrastructure. This means implementing user permissions and workflows for content approval. You don’t want just anyone broadcasting to every screen without oversight. Additionally, if you’re supporting BYOD solutions, make sure there are restrictions in place for how employees can connect to your displays.
Plus, remember, just like with any communication tool, you’ll want to measure the effectiveness of digital signage. Many systems provide analytics, such as how many times the content is played or viewer engagement through sensors. Take advantage of these insights to guide your future decisions.
The Power of Workplace Digital Signage
In an era of information overload, workplace digital signage stands out as a smart investment for cutting through the noise. It delivers clear, visible messaging that keeps employees informed without overwhelming them.
Digital signage can improve internal communication, enhance engagement, and reinforce a strong company culture while helping you make the most of your workspace resources. Plus, when combined with other communication display tools, and UC software, the potential of digital signage is even greater. Ready to upgrade your workplace?
Learn more about the benefits of communication displays for workplaces here. Alternatively, check out our top tips for improving your employee experience with communication displays here.
