Communication is the lifeblood of a business, but it can be disturbingly easy to stop it with simple barriers. If it takes just a few short meters in the physical word to diminish communication, imagine how many impediments there are in the digital digital landscape of large, distributed companies?
In the late 1970s, MIT Professor Thomas Allen researched the connection between the physical distance of employees and how often they communicate. The result was the famous curve named after its inventor.
The ‘Allen Curve’ shows that the probability of two people in an organization communicating with one another declines rapidly as the distance between them increases. Allen found that there was a 50-meter barrier. For a person sitting outside of that barrier, communication is literally non-existent.
Many years of experience in intranets and collaboration solutions have taught us that valuable information is often inaccessible to the relevant audience. It’s either hidden behind complexity or mixed up with meaningless data. Intranets, through their very nature as a kind of storage room for all of the information needed by a company, are becoming so full that it’s impossible to find exactly what it is you’re looking for. On top of that, the latest trend of collaborative or social intranets has created yet another rather messy platforms that leave many employees clueless.
Effective communication requires more than simply storing information somewhere theoretically accessible by the people who need it. Effective communication is about making sure that information is actually received and understood as intended. We strongly believe that this can only happen by removing as many digital barriers as possible.
With the Staffbase employee app, our goal is to create a solution that goes back to three basic design principles and answers three important questions:
1. What’s the easiest possible way to share news and lasting information within an organization of any size?
Staffbase uses customizable channels as a simple but powerful approach for organizing many sources of information. News and pages are attached to channels to allow targeted and interactive communication for various departments, locations, or teams.
2. How can we securely reach every employee?
The Staffbase employee app has been built with mobile users in mind, and is available for mobile devices via iOS and Android, and it’s also available on desktop computers. Employees can access the employee app in a variety of ways, including with their company or personal email addresses, where they are validated via a one-time token.
3. How do we enable customers and partners to build simple and smart tailor-made extensions?
An Extension API provides a powerful framework for easily adding applications to the Staffbase employee app. Extensions can also be attached to channels to make them available globally or just for a specific location or department.
So, just what is the Staffbase employee app?
Is it really an app?
Yes, but it’s optimized for different platforms like iOS, Android, and Web. Try it yourself and you’ll love the similar user experience between the mobile and desktop versions.
A content management system?
Yes, but the focus is solely on use within companies or organizations.
An intranet?
Yes, it is a simple and smart modern intranet specifically designed for enterprise companies.
A social intranet?
Actually, Social Intranets are a thing of the past. Staffbase is intentionally not a team-collaboration platform. It is ideal for interactive, authentic, and targeted communication. Users can create content themselves, add comments, or mark information as being helpful.
A good fit with Microsoft SharePoint?
Yes, because while SharePoint is a great team collaboration platform, it can become complex and costly as soon as you want it to become your one-stop intranet. The same applies for widely used SharePoint rivals like IBM Connections or Jive.
The Staffbase employee app is the missing link to an accessible and user-friendly digital workplace and an approachable employer. It is standardized, secure, and can be ready for your organization within weeks.
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Are you planning a new intranet or looking for a mobile communication solution? Or are you thinking about your digital workplace strategy? Our blog provides you with the latest thinking on strategy, technology, and practical use cases that can help you to take your corporate communication to a whole new level. Here’s just a selection of what you’ll find there: