For Employees Eyes
Brands want to build deep and engaged relationships with their customers. As businesses, they also have another type of customer – their employees. Microns can play a very positive role in enhancing the business-employee relationship also. The same building blocks can be used by businesses to communicate, engage and interact with their internal ‘customers’.
Here are some ideas to improve the business-employee engagement:
- A daily micron can be sent with some news – a new order won, profile of a new hire, an exciting development in an employee’s personal life, new product features launched, key milestones achieved, and so on. Of course, all of this can be via newsletters but they tend to be too long and therefore take a lot of time to create – sometimes causing a number of newsworthy items to be bunched together in a single mail. Think of microns as sending WhatsApp or Slack messages – we do it so easily. (A daily micron which takes 15 minutes to create leaves no reason to postpone such information to be shared only once a week or month. The idea then becomes to share information in almost real-time or at least with no more than 24-hour lag – rather than waiting for the end of the week or end of the month.) In a future hybrid workplace where in-person interactions of all the team members will be rare, microns can become the equivalent of the pantry or water-cooler – for sharing but in a controlled manner so one is overwhelmed with the inflow.
- The daily micron can also have an interactive component like a quiz or survey. A quiz can help the HR department get insights into what employees know about the company. A survey can help gauge mood. Because these interactions take 10-15 seconds only, they are more likely to get acted on than long multi-question surveys which become chores and are therefore ignored until repeatedly reminded.
- Microns can also be used to reinforce company or team targets through the year. Everyone starts the year with big goals (like New Year Resolutions) but the routine soon takes over and the big objectives are forgotten – and therefore may end up not getting done. A short reminder every so often can help keep everyone on track and aligned.
- Microns can be used to educate new hires about the company history. While most companies have induction programmes, they tend to cram in a lot in a few hours or days. Instead, microcontent sent daily can help build the story in a manner that is more likely to be remembered. (An equivalent idea can be used for new customer onboarding.)
- The same idea can be used for pre-joining: employees who have accepted the offer but not yet joined as they have to serve their notice period at the previous company. The HR department of the company that has just hired them is always worried whether they will join or not. In this period, daily microns about the company they are joining can create a bond with the employee telling stories about the company’s history, its culture and its vision for the future.
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There can be many more such ideas. The simple point is this: microns can have widespread usage because of their simplicity and brevity. They take 15 minutes to create and 15 seconds to consume. They come right into the inbox – which we all check many times during a day. When we think of emails, we think long, boring, never-ending newsletters, with lots of scrolling. When we think of microns, we should think short, exciting, fun, interactive content, available on a single mobile screen (no scrolling required). This is what will take the 15% open rate of emails to 100%. Whether for customers or employees, microns can help brands and businesses open a richer world of greater engagement and interaction. Welcome to the micron-verse and the 100% opens movement!
