The benefits of using digital signage

The adoption of digital technology has transformed the way many catering and hospitality companies operate and communicate, changing everything from taking bookings to communicating with staff. Despite this, digital signage is an area less thought of, with many companies still using traditional paper notice boards to communicate with staff. However, paper notice boards are ineffective in a number of ways. Mainly, they’re not as quick to update, especially if an urgent update is required to go out, causing crucial delays in communicating key messages with catering and hospitality staff. Notices also often get lost, important messages get missed, and there's no reliable way to ensure your staff are receiving vital company information. Traditional notice boards don’t engage people as much as digital signage, which offers a highly-visible internal communication platform to share information and keep your employees up-to-date. Here’s a breakdown of how using digital signage can help modern catering and hospitality companies to thrive: Digital signage meets your catering workers where they are Digital signage screens can be placed in busy areas where staff frequent such as break rooms, meeting rooms, staff canteens, and conference rooms. Using digital signage in these areas can be much more engaging with eye-catching visual messaging, with infographics, videos, and even gifs. The extra visual impact can help to attract and hold your employees’ attention to communicate key messages to them. Use the power of images to quickly get the message across, without employees having to read lots of text. Connect employees across different shifts Employees and teams who work at different times of the day can feel disconnected from each other, not to mention the struggle to pass on important information. Digital signage can be used as a team communication tool to transfer important information between teams accurately to keep everyone up to date. Another benefit of digital signage is that it can be updated instantly to communicate with staff in real-time. For example, if the night catering shift team at a large hotel needs to share important information with the next day’s shift it can be done via digital screens as an effective way to get the message out. Save time with automated internal communication Rather than manually updating physical notice boards you can save time by curating digital signage content through an automated system. This can be original content, or you can import it from other internal communication platforms. It’s an ideal place to share reminders, new policies, and employee recognition. It can also display basic information like a new menu. If you already use an internal communication app, you can easily manage digital signage content from your digital workplace dashboard, which allows different screens to display different information. Reach your mobile workforce in real-time Many frontline catering and hospitality employees are constantly on-the-move, whether working at a busy restaurant, a hotel, or at large events. Although your catering or hospitality company may already use an internal communications platform accessible via mobile devices, some employees may only check mobile devices for work messages during breaks and after shifts. This can lead to employees missing important time-sensitive information. But the high-visibility of digital signage makes it the ideal team communication channel to send important information to your employees in real-time. Foster employee collaboration and feedback Digital signage screens provide a great way to prompt conversations between employees when they are gathered together in areas like break rooms or the staff canteen. They can help foster conversations around things like a new company policy, results of an employee survey, or the employee of the month. These purpose-based conversations can help teamwork and increase collaboration between different employees and teams or departments. They also encourage feedback within and between teams, which you can facilitate directly through the right internal communications platform. Create a more aligned organisational culture Engaging with employees and creating a sense of community and organisational culture can be very challenging within catering and hospitality because employees are often separated by location, shift patterns, and job roles. Digital signage can help create a thriving organisational culture by fostering a real sense of team camaraderie and community, which helps employee retention. Digital signage can make employees feel acknowledged and appreciated in the workplace. Examples include displaying workforce-focused content like celebrating employee birthdays, introducing new team members, and baby announcements. With many employees now expressing a desire to feel more part of a team, digital signage can play a crucial part in ensuring employees feel happy, valued, and satisfied. Ultimately, using digital signage effectively results in a well-informed, more organised and more productive team, which in turn improves operations and enriches the customer experience. When used in combination with the right internal communications platform digital signage can also help to create better staff engagement, and this leads to lower staff turnover and substantial cost savings. By Cristian Grossmann, CEO and co-founder of workplace communication platform, Beekeeper