The best internal communications tools for 2024

Boosting staff engagement, improving company culture, ensuring flawless communication, and making your employees more productive through team collaboration is the goal of every Internal Comms strategy.

There’s no need to convince corporate communications leaders that an intranet is a key to achieve it – they know that.

But recently, the variety of modern intranet solutions has grown immensely. With so many options, how can Internal Communications practitioners decide on what is the best Internal Communication tool for their business?

Your Internal Communications strategy won't scale if you end up with a clunky Sharepoint that employees don’t get fully involved with, or an ESN (Enterprise social network) that creates more distraction than efficiency.

Luckily, we have the right intranet solution for your strategy. Enter: Happeo. A robust and secure intranet with a clean and simple UX. Combined with Google's productivity apps, Happeo is powering an increasing number of digital workplaces. Here are just a few reasons why.  

Happeo promotes online interaction and employee engagement

We know that an engaged workforce is good for both morale and the bottom line – every Internal Communications expert has their own statistics to prove this. Getting employees involved with an intranet is step number one to creating engagement. It is crucial for it to be supported by a well-thought design and easy-to-use interface. As some employees might be new to the idea of online collaboration, a user-oriented internal comms tool is also one that contains all documentation in the same location. 

So why exactly would online collaboration through an intranet boost employee engagement? Since well-thought-out IC tools provide your staff with the ability to collaborate online, your employees will be aligned on the goals of the business, which results in:

• Employees feeling involved in the process
  
  
• Stimulation to collaborate and communicate
  
  
• Employees who engage with content
   
• Your staff feeling encouraged to discuss and contribute
  
  

However, information plus an Internal Communications strategy won’t necessarily lead to better-engaged employees; instead, you need to add that essential piece of kit to bring it all together.

Whatever your strategy is to increase engagement through interaction, your IC tool should be built to both deliver content and drive conversation. You can create Channels for colleagues to debate and discuss specific topics; integrate Slack to boost communication through instant messaging; keep employees informed through sharing news and information; onboard new employees and new teams with virtual communities; help them pinpoint the exact person they need to speak to about any complex or niche topic.

Here's an example of big companies that use IC tools and are known for their high employee productivity and engagement rates:

• Randstad Sourceright 
  

• Tide Cleaners
  
  
• Givaudan
  
  
• Xvideos

• Chantelle
  

• Azets
  
  
• ZPG
  
  
• Trimble
  
  
• DeLonghi
  
  Google-based IC tools integrate perfectly with Workspace's apps, making it as easy as possible for your workforce to get online, and work more efficiently. The most popular Google apps for work are Google Docs (a word processor), Google Sheets (a spreadsheet), and Google Slides (a presentation program). All three apps enable employee collaboration and drive productivity. They let users view and edit files in real-time and changes are saved automatically. Combining an intranet with Google apps for work will drive efficiency in your teams.

Google-based IC tools improve team collaboration and company culture

Google knows how to boost team collaboration. They’ve even studied their own organization to get to the heart of what makes high-performing teams work so well. Enabling real-time collaboration is part of the very essence of the company, and now thanks to Google-based IC tools, that’s something feasible for every business. 

• 75% of employers consider employee collaboration as “very important”
  
  
• 67% of organizations note a rise in productivity rates as a result of implementing digital workplaces
  
  
• 40% of projects fail, where 1 out of the 2 points to ineffective communications as a reason for failure
  
  

Google-based IC tools are not just about enabling people to work better together; it’s about using modern technology to unite people across locations so that no one is left behind. Through real-time collaborative working practices in Google Docs, Sheets, Slides, and more, colleagues can see the changes they’re making and comment on them immediately, speeding up the creation process and making the world of working so much more efficient. 

Google Workspace gives employees a voice

Google-based internal communications tools are built to link your employees together seamlessly, efficiently, and in a way that encourages them to work together – but, it can also show employees they matter by keeping everyone in the loop, and creating a room for self-expression and two-way communication. When your employees feel they are being heard by both leadership and their colleagues, it can go a long way towards building the sort of culture you want.

It makes Internal Communications measurable with Advanced Analytics

Your Google-based IC tool can sync with Google's Analytics to help you see the challenges in your engagement plan so you know where to spend attention. Measurement is essential, but was always a difficult thing for Internal Communications teams – it’s not like other areas of the business that are driven by analytics. That’s all changed now, and having a Google-based intranet makes measuring engagement easier.

Start with participation rates, then look further into the channels and pages that are proving most popular. This has the bonus of showing you what’s on the minds of the workforce. You can then build on your Internal Communications strategy safe in the knowledge that the need is proven, and backed up by data.

Google-based IC tools address Generation Z 

Long gone are the days when your company intranet had to come out of the same box as your ancestors’ IT infrastructure. Small businesses and corporate enterprises alike are realizing the opportunities held within Google-based internal comms tools, especially as the workforce gets younger and more used to the Google UX.

The wave of Gen Z employees is coming and just as every generation, they have their unique set of features – part of theirs are the technological agility and flexibility. They’re familiar with Google's products and design and don’t need time to adapt to it. Instead, they’re demanding efficiency and engagement, and it seems like Google Workspace and related internal comms tools match those demands with their user interface and high adoption rate.

Quality work and engagement through collaboration and flexible Internal Communications are what we, at Happeo, value the most, and make sure that our intranet offers that solution to your business as well. Watch our video to get a better idea of our digital workplace or request a personalized demo – our experts are here to help you build your successful Internal Communications strategy. 

Choosing a Google-based intranet like Happeo provides businesses with a robust, secure, and highly intuitive digital home that integrates seamlessly with existing productivity tools. Traditional options like clunky SharePoint setups or disjointed enterprise social networks often create more distraction than efficiency. In contrast, Happeo combines a clean, simple user experience with Google Workspace apps to foster genuine employee interaction, boost morale, and drive overall productivity across the entire organisation.

The primary benefit of this integration is the familiar user interface. Popular tools such as Google Docs, Sheets, and Slides are embedded directly, allowing employees to view and edit files in real-time with automatic saving. This level of accessibility is particularly beneficial for onboarding new team members and appealing to younger generations, such as Gen Z, who already possess technological agility and familiarity with Google’s design and demand highly efficient digital workplaces.

Additionally, Happeo serves as a centralised hub that houses all company documentation in a single location. Internal communications teams can easily set up dedicated Channels for employees to debate and discuss specific topics, integrate Slack for instant messaging, and share news. This comprehensive structure keeps staff aligned on business goals, giving them a voice and making them feel heard, valued, and actively encouraged to contribute to the company culture.

To support this, organisations can establish virtual communities to help staff pinpoint the exact experts they need to speak with regarding complex or niche topics. By bridging the gap between top-down information delivery and peer-to-peer conversation, this modern solution ensures that your communication strategy scales successfully as your business grows.

Google-based internal communications tools improve team collaboration by enabling real-time cooperative working practices that unite employees across different locations. When team members can collaborate dynamically, they are far more likely to remain aligned on business goals. Research shows that seventy-five per cent of employers consider employee collaboration to be very important, and sixty-seven per cent of organisations experience a rise in productivity after implementing digital workplaces.

Furthermore, ineffective communication is a primary reason why forty per cent of projects fail. Google-based tools directly address this issue by integrating collaborative apps like Google Docs, Sheets, and Slides into the intranet. This integration allows colleagues to view, edit, and comment on files simultaneously. Because changes are saved automatically, it eliminates version-control issues, speeds up the content creation process, and makes daily operations much more efficient.

Beyond document collaboration, these tools help build a stronger company culture where no employee is left behind. By creating virtual communities, businesses can easily onboard new employees and help staff identify internal experts for niche topics. This seamless connectivity ensures that all employees have a voice, creating an environment of self-expression and two-way communication that keeps everyone in the loop and boosts overall performance.

Additionally, integrating supplementary communication platforms like Slack allows for rapid, informal conversations alongside more structured discussions. This dual approach to communication ensures that teams can resolve issues quickly without relying on long, slow email threads, keeping projects moving forward on schedule.

A Google-based intranet helps measure the success of internal communications by syncing with Advanced Analytics to track engagement metrics and identify potential challenges in your communication plan. Historically, measuring the impact of internal campaigns has been a difficult task for corporate communications teams, as their work was not traditionally driven by data in the same way as other business departments. Modern Google-based tools successfully eliminate this guesswork.

By accessing these detailed analytics, communication teams can start by monitoring basic participation rates across the platform. From there, you can dive deeper into the data to find out which specific channels and pages are proving to be the most popular among your workforce. This capability acts as a direct window into the minds of your employees, showing you what topics are generating the most interest or concern.

With these concrete insights, you can refine your ongoing internal communications strategy safe in the knowledge that your decisions are backed up by real user data. Instead of wasting time on initiatives that do not resonate, you can focus your attention and resources where they are needed most. This targeted approach ensures that your content drives meaningful conversation, increases overall engagement, and delivers a measurable return on your intranet investment.

Furthermore, understanding these engagement patterns allows leaders to tailor their messaging to different cohorts, such as younger Gen Z staff who demand technological efficiency. By continuously analysing and adapting to this data, businesses can foster a healthier company culture where two-way feedback is genuinely valued and supported by modern digital infrastructure.