In many companies, in different parts of the world, Summer is a period where normal business is slower, and many colleagues are on vacation. Sometimes it means more work for the colleagues remaining and maybe also an increase in new faces at work, as temporary staff need to keep the wheels spinning while others enjoy their well-deserved leave.
To make sure you get the most out of your employee app also during these periods, there are a few things you can consider doing:
Pre- and onboard your temporary employees to give them a flying start
Will your temporary employees get the same pre- and onboarding as other new-hires or a lighter version with essential content only? Either way you do it, make sure you consider utilizing the automations in Actimo to ensure a consistent and thorough onboarding experience for all your employees, including short-term colleagues.
How to build automated flows in Actimo
Make sure your temporary employees are welcomed and recognised
Another way for your temporary employees to get a good start is to present them to all their colleagues. Actually, it’s just as important for temporary employees to be recognised when joining a company, as all other new-hires. You can of course just present your new-hires and temporary employees as news posts in the regular feed, but you can also consider creating a certain place in the app where all new staff is welcomed:
Several Actimo customers are using a similar feed to also say thanks and goodbye to employees leaving the company. This provides clarity on which colleagues who decided to leave, and maybe adds information on who will be taking over responsibilities or if the position is to be replaced.
Build a reasonable Summer content plan
Consider letting the number of posts decrease during your slower seasons and make them less formal, increase playfulness where possible.
Make sure you prepare “back-to-work” content ready to make sure app activity and seriousness help bring employees back from vacay mode at the end of summer.
This is an example of what a very simple content calendar could look like in the beginning of June, with some content already prepared and the rest still to be decided on and produced:
Feel free to download this template in Excel format if you'd like to use it as a starting point for your own content planning — you'll find the file at the bottom of the article.
Invite other contributors
A slower season with a less formal tonality calls for inviting other talents than the usual communicators to publish content. Look around your company and see who would be inspired by updating their colleagues on different topics. The already mentioned Summer workers could perhaps be motivated by sharing how they are experiencing their temporary job?
Create a temporary social wall
There are many opportunities with creating temporary social walls and it’s a good idea to think about – and maybe discuss internally – what would make a good theme to gather around. If you have many parents with kids working in your company, it could be an idea to create a social wall with “Affordable Summer activities for families”. Then, everyone can share and interact on this topic.
Two ways of making a social wall come off to a good start are:
Identify 1-2 employees who would like to serve as informal “conversation starters” on the new wall, when it’s opened
Introduce the wall thoroughly to your employees when launching it, so it’s clear for everyone what the purpose of the wall is
Maybe your walls could turn out looking something like this:
Give your app a summery look
With a simple twist to the theme and the menu layout, using header banners and maybe colours too, you can let the app give your employees a different and relaxed impression, with a summery look.
To make it as easy as possible, let a certain Summer theme apply to the homepage only and leave all other content with your default theme. The temporary menu changes can easiest be applied to the default menu and then changed back.
How to create seasonal themes and menus in Actimo
How to create and edit menus in Actimo
How to create a theme in Actimo
Find the Excel template of the summer content plan below: