Digital signage­—the use of electronic display screens to relay messages and information—is often associated with advertising. But it’s just as valuable in the workplace, with interactive content displayed in break rooms, conference rooms, communal areas, and employees’ own screens.

As part of your internal branding strategy, digital signage has huge benefits for employee engagement and for overall business success.

In this post, we’ll show you how HR managers can leverage digital signage to improve internal communication, boost productivity, and enhance the employee experience.

Importance of employee experience in organizations

It’s crucial that companies provide a happy employee experience, especially in the era of quiet quitting and the Great Resignation (You can read more about that here ). Job satisfaction is everything—if employees find their work enjoyable and rewarding, you’ll see a reduction in turnover rates.

To do this, you need to make sure your employees are motivated. They’ll be more productive and committed to their work and the business. This improves efficiency, the quality of your products and services, and the company’s profitability.

Engaged employees are also more likely to come up with innovative solutions and communicate more effectively. A positive experience leads to better team collaboration, which helps to create a constructive work environment in which goals are quickly achieved.

When staff are happy and well-trained, they are better equipped to interact with customers. You’ll see a better quality of customer service, leading to increased satisfaction, loyalty, and brand advocacy.

Digital signage applications in HR

Digital signage is the most effective way for HR teams to share various types of content with employees. You can inform and remind them of policies, events, and opportunities without having to send repeated emails.

Onboarding and training employees

You can use digital signage to tell employees about training and development opportunities such as workshops, seminars, or online courses. For instance, if you’re rolling out new software, you can advise of upcoming product demos or training sessions and clearly communicate different phases.

You can also show links to training videos and online resources, making it easier for staff to find information and learn at their own pace. It all shows that the company is invested in helping new and existing employees to improve their skills and knowledge.

Digital signage helps you to welcome new hires, introducing them by displaying their picture and bio and providing orientation information such as maps of the building

Company announcements and events

One way to boost employee engagement is to keep everyone informed about the latest company news and developments. When you keep employees in the loop, you create a transparent culture and make sure they have all the information they need.

With a signage software in place, you can easily announce upcoming projects, new product launches, or updates to business policy. You can share revenue figures, introduce new team members, and tell people about employee benefits, team-building activities, and social events.

It’s better to broadcast time-sensitive announcements this way, as emails can go astray or get overlooked during busy periods. And you can easily update the signage, unlike printed material that quickly goes out of date.

Updating health and safety guidelines

Digital signage is also ideal for promoting employee well-being and keeping everyone safe in the workplace. From information on health and safety policies to real-time alerts for emergencies, you can distribute information to all workers instantly and simultaneously.

You can also display safety tips and reminders for the workplace, promote health and wellness programs and benefits, and remind people to take regular screen breaks. The signage could include relevant contact details for reporting any safety issues.

Because it’s easy to change the messaging, employees always receive the latest updates—and a colorful visual display makes them more likely to remember what they’ve seen.

Recognizing and rewarding employees

Employees who feel that their work is not adequately recognized or valued by managers or colleagues can become demotivated. While it’s still important to recognize contributions on an individual basis, digital signage allows you to celebrate achievements with the whole company.

You can congratulate people on completing a project ahead of schedule, getting a promotion, or marking birthdays and work anniversaries. Using employee photos is a good way for dispersed teams to put faces to the names of their colleagues.

Besides announcing Employee of the Month winners, you could invite them to share their stories or backgrounds. You could also display motivational quotes or inspiring messages.

Strategies for utilizing digital signage in HR

Done right, digital signage can play a big role in your overall HR strategy.

Plan and streamline your content

Like all strategies, you need to start with a solid plan. Before implementing digital signage throughout your company, decide exactly what you want to achieve. What kind of information do you want to share? What will be most useful to employees?

Think about who will be responsible for creating and updating the digital signage and how often the information needs to be distributed. Consider the design and format, remembering that the signage should be easy to understand with a manageable amount of information and readable text.

You’ll be able to target different screens with different information, so plan whether you’ll need specific messages for office branches, particular departments, or employee groups.

Allocate a good budget for digital signage

The importance of digital signage to the employee experience means that it’s worth investing in the technology. You’ll need to budget for content creation, software, and hardware—but in the long run, you’ll see cost savings due to the improvement in productivity and employee retention.

Digital signage requires tools for creating content in an appealing visual style and a digital signage player to transmit multimedia messages to the screens. You can use regular TV screens, but screens designed for digital signage will provide superior visual output.

Use technologies to collate and create content

There’s plenty of useful technology to help you create attractive and informative digital signage. Some digital signage software comes with graphic design applications, but you might also use AI-powered image editing and video editing tools and writing aids.

As for the information itself, you need to be able to integrate business apps to pull data into your new software. For example, you could share the latest metrics and KPIs directly from your systems such as order management, CRM, or ERP software .

You might also connect social media feeds to pull in customer reviews and comments, news apps to display the latest headlines, or communication apps to send pop-up messages. Use a calendar for scheduling signage updates and apps for managing your signage from a mobile device.

Use visuals and interactive features

Make your signage look appealing with visuals such as pictures, videos, and animation, and use charts and graphs to make information easy to understand. You want to grab your employees’ attention, so having scrolling text encourages them to stop and read the message to the end.

It’s best to use similar colors, images, and text styles across the company to promote unity and tie the internal comms in with your external branding.

Interactive features also help with engagement. You can display data or social media posts that workers can share with others, plus employee-generated content such as ideas or photos. Send games, quizzes, and surveys to individual screens for training or gathering employee feedback.

Incorporate company values and goals

Digital signage is ideal for fostering a sense of company culture and unified purpose. You can reiterate your organization’s key values and mission, as well as remind employees of departmental and company-wide goals.

We already mentioned that you could pull in data from your business systems to display dashboards, KPIs, and metrics. These figures help to motivate workers, especially when they can see that a goal is within reach. You could pair the information with encouraging messages from managers and positive customer feedback.

Test content effectiveness and adjust as necessary

You’ll need to check the effectiveness of your messaging on a regular basis to make sure it’s having the desired impact. You could send out surveys to find out what your employees want to see. Use A/B testing or trial content on a small group of workers before launching it company-wide.

Set up ways to measure how well your internal digital signage is working. How often are people using the interactive features? Is the signage improving motivation, productivity, communication, and knowledge? Run a quiz to see if staff have remembered the messages.

Consider ERP software implementation to give you even deeper insights into the effectiveness of your digital signage. By compliling data from across your business, you’ll be able to identify what’s working and what’s not.

With regular reviews, you can spot areas for improvement and make changes if needed.

Digital signage: Connecting your employees

Digital signage helps you to present essential information in an appealing and memorable way. As well as improving internal communication, it adds transparency to your business and connects workers in different offices or departments.

A more engaging workplace boosts motivation and productivity, and you can also use digital signage to recognize and reward your staff. It’s a great way for HR teams to enhance the employee experience.