How Chatbots Simplify Internal Communications for Your Workforce

Many of the most essential aspects of workforce management are also the most time-consuming. From staff trainings to company policy distribution, internal communications—and ensuring they reach your entire workforce—occupy a substantial portion of any company’s HR or IT departments bandwidth.

Endlessly customizable, chatbots are an effective asset to your internal communication strategy by enabling your workforce to obtain information through group messaging directly through employee apps like Beekeeper. With chatbots, employees can obtain PTO information, trade shifts with a colleague, or view payslips with just a quick message.

Read on to discover some of the most common use cases for chatbots as communication and operational tools and how your workforce can benefit from implementing them. Or get a free demo of Beekeeper and chatbots.

5 Ways to Make Chatbots Your Internal Communication Ally

The good news is that automation of digital communication tools has made many of these workforce management tasks more simple to deploy and easier to collect and manage data in the process. One key time-saving communication tool is chatbots. Programmed to facilitate two-way communication with employees, chatbots can automatically initiate a variety of internal communications and provide 24/7 access to company and employee information.

1. Workforce Task Assignment

Certain tasks require the input and contribution of multiple team members. A team lead may want to communicate and delegate responsibilities to specific people on their workforce, such as where to place tables and chairs for a large event. With a chatbot, reaching out individually to each employee isn’t necessary; better yet, the chatbot can confirm your team saw your event checklist by asking for confirmation with one click.

2. Issue Reporting

In addition to daily administrative tasks, chatbots can be a crucial, real-time internal communication method to quickly share important health and safety information. Chatbots can also receive accident report submissions or maintenance requests, complete with time and date stamps, as well as collect photos and other pertinent information on the spot.

Schedule a chatbot to remind teams of incoming inclement weather or resulting road closures to make sure employees can plan ahead to make arrangements to get to work on time.

3. Delivery of Company FAQs

Announcing a new hire, departure, or leadership change? Looking to actively engage your workforce in the talent acquisition process? These are just two examples when it comes to HR operations where a chatbot proves useful. A chatbot can send virtual invitations to your workforce for an off-site recruiting event, and take a headcount of who will attend.

4. Distribution of Workforce Onboarding and Training Materials

Easily share new hire onboarding materials, key company messaging documents, and updated policies with chatbots. Chatbots can also measure the information retention of employees to gauge their ability to recollect important information gleaned from trainings with a chatbot-administered refresher quiz. The chatbot can even reiterate best practices or reminders based on respondent’s answers, such as avoiding safety or worksite-related fines by wearing the proper equipment.

5. Shift Management and Schedule Requests

Perhaps one of the most helpful applications of chatbot technology lies in workforce shift management. One of the central benefits of a chatbot is that it’s available around the clock, whether management is on duty or not, to field time off requests, shift trades, or schedule changes. Clocking in and out is simplified, and most importantly accommodates mobile workers who may be working off-site at the start of a shift, eliminating the need to log-on with employee-designated codes or passwords.

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