How digital signage can promote safety and awareness across departments

BusinessDigital SignagePost-lockdown
5 min read
How digital signage can promote safety and awareness across departments
Angela Murphy
May 28th, 2020

This third installment of our post-lockdown series for work looks at how to keep department spaces safe and inspiring for team members.

Last week we offered examples of how digital signage can help promote safety and awareness in shared spaces such as hallways, office cafeterias, and reception areas. This week we’re looking at the types of messaging and imagery that are relevant to different teams. 

Workspaces are often organized by department, meaning that colleagues who work closely together will occupy a space that’s more or less fixed. Work stations are more static than meeting rooms or other shared spaces where employees and guests are constantly coming and going. When it comes to sending messages and fostering a particular atmosphere with digital signage, there are two implications specific to department spaces where the same people tend to inhabit the same area every day. The first is that the content on display can be tailor-made for a very specific group of people. The second that digital signage messages are more likely to be seen. 

Here are some examples of how digital signage can be used to help to encourage teams while minimizing the risk of contagion within and across departments. 

Use Trello boards to stay on track with team projects

Department signage 3

Project management boards like Trello’s help to track shared projects, offering a visual summary of which tasks have been done, what’s currently being worked on, and what’s still left to tackle.  Consider the example of the HR department, known in some companies as the People Team. This task force is often responsible for reintroducing employees to their familiar-yet-new workplaces. A Trello board can be used to help the HR/People team band together and stay on track with plans for a safe reopening. Lists of tasks can also be organized based on deadlines, such as “2 weeks before reopening”, “1 week before reopening”, and “The day of reopening”. 

A shared Trello board can help to transform a whirlwind of to-dos into an achievable quest for any department where collaborative work is ongoing. You can even use boards to sync between teams, such as when customer support submits a task/request for the engineering team. The communications department can organize a Trello board to keep an eye on content ideas that have been approved and those that are still pending.

Use dashboards to reinforce sales targets and (healthy) competition

Department sales 2

As the world works through a recession, any sales outreach has to be tactful. Demand for your product or service may have decreased. That said, those who work in sales still have a job to do, and they shouldn’t feel bad about doing it. While every department plays a key role, your sales team might need more encouragement than normal to balance the dynamics of advocating for a product or service while not coming off as pushy or insensitive. 

Well-designed dashboards that reinforce sales targets and display time-specific progress can help teams visualize progress. Such designs can even gamify work by using targets to encourage healthy competition among colleagues. For example, a dashboard can include a picture that celebrates “Sales Rep of the Week” or “Account Manager of the Month”. You can spread the appreciation around by having various awards based on different products or services sold, total calls completed, etc. Success should be shared, especially when a department-wide milestone is reached. But recognizing individual achievement also goes a long way.

Use slideshows to promote cleanliness

Slide shows can be used across every department. They offer a format where text and imagery can be easily combined and updated remotely. Any changes that are made are synced to the screen in real-time, as everything is online. A picture can say a thousand words, but for anyone who doesn’t “get the picture”, it doesn’t hurt to add a few words to hammer the message home. In other words, slideshows are ideal for supporting new health and safety efforts. 

Many organizations are now legally mandated to have their office cleaned more regularly than they’re used to. To help this transition, images can instruct employees to keep surfaces as tidy as possible so that surfaces are easy to wipe down. Ask everyone to clear away dishes or litter left around their desk, as the alternative means unnecessary work for the cleaning crew. The new layout of your department may also require larger spaces between desks, barriers being installed between workstations, or paths being made one-way to avoid colleagues getting too close as they go back and forth to the restroom or coffee machine. All of these guidelines (and more) can be highlighted with the help of images and text displayed on a loop.

Use playlists to keep it interesting

Playlists in Airtame Cloud let you combine a variety of content, including those listed above. This helps to keep things fresh so that a team doesn’t see the same message every time they glance at the screens displayed around their department. You can customize a playlist so that content changes after a specific amount of time and last-minute changes can be easily accommodated if you want to send out the day’s news as it unfolds.

Learn more

Whether you work in communications or IT, human resources, or upper management, digital signage is relevant to your safety. You can have a say in what’s on display. 

Using digital signage with solutions like Airtame Cloud is both efficient and hygienic, as remote access to every screen allows for fast, bulk updates while avoiding physical contact with remote controls and touchscreens. It’s also cost-effective considering how most organizations already own many screens that are not being used to their full potential. There’s no limit to the number of screens you can access or the number of colleagues who can have access.

And don’t forget that any Airtame-equipped screen also offers wireless screen sharing, keeping presenters safe without the need to share any cables or dongles that may be contaminated. 

Contact us to learn more.

Interested? Let’s talk.

Angela Murphy
I translate technical features into benefits that everyone can understand.