Each day, office managers the world over find themselves cursing and questioning why exactly it is that no matter how many ‘useful’ or ‘interesting’ items they post on internal display boards, nobody seems to read them. Or if they do, they sure as heck don’t absorb/remember the information.
Well, here’s the newsflash that could help clear things up – the way you present, organise and manage your office display boards really does matter. Or at least it matters as much as the information you intend to present on them, so if you plan to use an office display board for information of any kind of importance, it’s critical that you know how to go about it correctly.
So with this in mind, here’s a quick look at ten simple yet crucial commandments for effective office display boards – abide by all ten and you’ll be surprised by the difference:
1 – Thou Shalt Not Crowd or Clutter
Right off the bat, a display board that’s cluttered or crowded with far too many pieces of paper and other bits and bobs will never capture anyone’s attention…at least not for the right reasons. It’s a bit like when you pass a wall that’s had a thousand and one concert-advertising posters stuck to it over the years – you just walk on by and don’t bother checking what’s new.
2 – Thou Shalt Update Regularly
If your display board is updated maybe once every six months or so and even then it’s updated with information of little importance, how can you expect anyone to take notice of it? The whole idea of getting things like this noticed revolves around building good habits – habits that can be instilled by giving readers a reason to check back on a regular basis.
3 – Thou Shalt Try Alternative Locations
If nobody seems to be reading the board where it is, why not try moving it? There are certain ‘blind spots’ around every office just as there are spots that simply cannot be avoided – it costs nothing to try a few places, so feel free to do so.
4 – Thou Shalt Separate Relevant Sections
If there’s a lot of information to present, which there often is, be sure to separate the board off into as many specific sections as necessary. One for special offers, one for company news, one for external news, one for career opportunities and so on and so forth. This way, the whole thing looks much less cluttered.
5 – Thou Shalt Not Post Anything Irrelevant
If it’s not 100% relevant to the business and those you are reaching out to, don’t bother posting it. Ask a bunch of office workers why they don’t read these boards and chances are most will say it’s because there’s nothing worth reading. As such, it’s your job to make sure it IS worth reading.
6 – Thou Shalt Have an Area for Staff Use
Encouraging interaction is also a tried and tested approach for increasing engagement. Leave an area of the board for staff to use for their own bits and pieces – if nothing else, those using it for their own needs will naturally end up reading the rest of it.
7 – Thou Shalt Use Quality Hardware
If you have a notice board that looks like you pulled it out of a skip somewhere after it was discarded by another business, don’t expect it to be taken seriously. It’s not as if you need to have gold-plated hardware or flashing LED lights around the frame, but at the same time it does at least need to look professional and respectable.
8 – Thou Shalt Not Go OTT with Info
The most unattractive notice boards in any office are those that are crammed with so much information and small-print text that you’d technically have to dedicate half your working day to read through it all. There might be a lot to say, but the better idea here is to keep things as brief and digestible as possible to avoid would-be readers just walking straight past.
9 – Thou Shalt Not Create a Negative Tone
There are so many offices the world over that use their notice boards for nothing more than to tell workers how badly the company is doing, how certain teams are not performing well enough and how generally crap things are across the board. Sadly, the more negative of a tone you create with your board, the less chance there is of anyone actually wanting to read it off their own bat. After all, who really wants to go back to something that does nothing but lecture them time and time again? Keep it positive, keep it readable.
10 – Thou Shalt in Some Way Rewards Readers
And finally, perhaps the most important rule of all when it comes to literally anything like this is the way in which you need to in some way reward the reader for taking the time to read the information. Perhaps not in the literal sense, but it’s a case of making sure that those reading the boards and its posts in some way benefit. They learn something important, find out about a company offer, learn something funny – anything at all that gives them a reason to read it in the first place.