Employee Communication Matters
Whether you have two employees, 200, or 200,000, how you talk to them and how you lead them directly effects how successful you can be. Large organizations have an internal communications division focused exclusively on this. But if you’re a smaller organization, you may not have the benefit of experienced communications leadership or staff, and you may have a lean budget. But you can pay attention to the best practices that successful companies model and look for ways to scale that appropriately for your business.
Start by assessing how effective your current internal communications are by asking some immportant questions:
How often do you communicate to employees?
What tools do you use to create and share internal communications?
How often are you frustrated that people don’t seem to understand what’s at stake or why leadership is making the decisions they’re making?
Do you engage and empower people to ask questions and share feedback/ideas?
Are you open to new ideas?
Does everyone on your team/at the company feel a shared sense of purpose?
Tools like Survey Monkey are a great way way to solicit anonymous feedback from your employees about how effective they think your internal commmunications are. Don’t be afraid of getting negative feedback - it’s an opportunity to listen, learn, and make improvements that will pay off. If you show that you care about them, they’ll care more about you and the work at hand.
Once you have clarity around what’s working and what’s not, the following guiding principles for your future communications can help ensure you communicate most effectively:
1. Be Transparent. Build Trust.
If you are open and honest with people, they’ll be more likely to trust you. And if they trust you, they’ll be more likely to work harder, and stick around and/or come back if you’ve had to furlough or lay them off. You don’t always need to have only good news. Just make sure the news you do share is clear, honest, and direct. And then walk your talk.
2. Be Open-minded. Listen.
We’ve all heard the line, “Our people are our greatest asset.” Do you believe this is true? If so, do you act like it? How can you leverage the experience and talent on your team? If you invite ideas you may be surprised not only what you hear, but also who you hear it from.
3. Have fun. Instill passion. Be Human.
How are you nurturing people’s spirits and enlisting their passion to fuel their hard work and commitment? Particularly with more people working remotely, it’s important to brainstorm meaningful ways to allow people to interact together that foster relationships and meaningful connections. Look for opportunities to cross-pollinate ideas across teams/functions, and even different levels of seniority.
4. Be Relevant & Useful.
A weekly/monthly newsletter may just get tossed into the trash unless it actually offers important news people want and is presented in an easily digestible format. How can you make in-person meetings something people value and rely upon? Avoid corporate jargon; be real and share key information that helps people do their jobs. Offer ways for people to ask questions, learn more, and share ideas.
5. Get Strategic and Be Creative.
Be intentional about how your communications look and feel. Ideally you want to engender positivity and team spirit, even when challenges arise. Use of color, layout/format, and writing excellence matter. Hopefully you’ve already got strategic goals, business objectives, and company values in place, as these provide a messaging roadmap of sorts and can guide the tone and content of what you share. The idea is to get all boats pointed in the same direction, and all the rowers rowing in sync.
If you need help with any of the above, I offer a free initial consultation, and would love to help you brainstorm ideas and opportunities, whatever size your company may be.
Ashley Kaiser is a writer and content creator based in Portland, Oregon. She is passionate about helping clients find their voice.