Category: Focus on Employee Communications

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Don’t Slack on Employee Communication

If you have more than a handful of employees chances are they are using some kind of internal communication platform.

Maybe they are among the 10 million people who use Slack every day, or maybe you’ve deployed Microsoft Teams, Yammer, Workplace by Facebook, or some other internal chat tool.

The key is, your employees have a place to collaborate, plan projects, brainstorm and share ideas. But are you sure that is all they are doing?

If a company has a communication culture where sexist jokes are casually exchanged, or employees think it’s OK to share client information via chat, it’s a just a matter of time before a crisis occurs. With that kind of risk simmering in the background, companies can’t just assume employees are following all the data-privacy rules and social protocols when using these internal platforms.

Unless HR is paying attention, these seemingly valuable collaboration platforms can quickly become problematic, said Jeff Schumann, CEO of Aware, a provider of monitoring software for collaboration platforms.

“A large company might have thousands of different public chat groups going at any given time,” he said. Thousands more employees will be exchanging private messages with other individuals or small groups. “It’s important to know what they are saying.”

Chances are employees are sharing information or communicating in a way that HR should be worried about. Columbus, Ohio-based Aware’s “Human Behavior Risk Analysis” report found that 1 in 50 private messages on these platforms contains sensitive information, including passwords and client data, and 1 in 90 are “negative in nature.” They also found that 1 in every 250 public messages — those shared with a large group — contain confidential information.

The challenge is how to monitor these conversations and respond without scaring people away. Smaller companies can mitigate these risks through human monitoring — assigning an HR person or team leader to keep track of the conversations and to address any issues that arise. But in big companies such oversight is impossible.

Instead, many firms are utilizing monitoring software with artificial intelligence and natural language processing to constantly read messages and alert HR if a problem arises. These platforms can be often customized to look for certain types of information, or conversations that might indicate a regulatory risk (sharing client data), or suggest cultural concerns, or forms of harassment.

Taking a proactive approach gives companies the information they need to prevent data breaches and to respond to bullying, racism or other negative exchanges, said Linda Pophal, founder of Strategic Communications, an employee communications consulting firm.

“If it’s a small issue, managers can address the issue privately,” Pophal said. But if the exchange represents a bigger systemic problem or it puts the company at risk, HR should be ready to step in. In these cases, a response may involve deleting the post, reprimanding the people involved and sending out a companywide reminder about appropriate use of these chat tools.

Pophal also urged HR leaders to post a follow-up message about how the situation was resolved. “You can’t just take something down and assume no one will notice,” she said. “Use these situations as an opportunity to communicate what’s happened, and to change the direction of the conversation.”

Pulse of the Workforce

She noted that monitoring isn’t only useful to uncover communication mistakes. HR leaders can also use monitoring as a way to gauge employee sentiment. “If something is going on at the company people are talking about it,” Pophal said. Monitoring these platforms lets you know what they are saying. Maybe they are mad about hikes in health insurance costs or confused about the new paid time off program. “HR can track these conversations and respond when necessary.”

They can also see when people are excited about a new program and to identify who are the communication influencers and who is opting out of the conversation, added Laura Hamill, chief people officer of Limeade, an employee experience software company. Hamill also is chief science officer of Limeade Institute, which researches employee well-being, engagement and other workplace issues. “Monitoring gives you a sense of whether people feel engaged,” she said.

These platforms provide employees with a virtual community that becomes inherent to the workplace culture. “Monitoring won’t solve your communication problems,” she said. But when HR pays attention to how people communicate, and sets the tone for appropriate behavior, it will ensure that everyone feels safe, included, and connected.

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How an Employee-centric HR Communications Strategy Impacts Your Organization

employee communication, hearing, talk, schedules

In today’s digital day and age, designing an HR communications strategy that effectively reaches an increasingly dispersed, distracted workforce is critical to increase employee engagement — and ensure employees are informed and aligned to meet broader business objectives.employee communications

Lack of employee engagement remains rampant among organizations, with a whopping 85 percent of employees today not engaged at work. Yet when employees are connected, organizations see an increase in productivity by 20 percent to 25 percent — making internal communications increasingly critical to the business. Those organizations that don’t prioritize their employees and ensure they are well connected will resign themselves to a serious disadvantage.

Also Read: Focus on Employee Work Passion, Not Employee Engagement

Yet, as companies embark on efforts to modernize the employee experience, many HR and communications teams struggle to scale communications in the face of resource and staffing constraints, often with ratios as low as 1 communicator to 20,000 employees. This reality makes it exceedingly challenging to create, deliver and measure content that is relevant and valuable to all different types of employees. HR and communications teams are delivering greater business impact but pulled in more directions than ever, and are in dire need of a scalable, targeted way to carry out their strategies to support broader business initiatives.

 With this in mind, here are a few factors to consider as you embark on designing a communications approach that empowers HR, communicators and employees alike — and why it matters to your business goals:

 Connected employees directly impact customer satisfaction

Employees’ value extends well beyond what you pay them in salary. Employees need to feel appreciated and recognized, despite what number appears on their paychecks. In fact, 69 percent of workers said they would work harder if they were recognized and appreciated more, and Gartner predicts that by 2020, 70 percent of companies will implement technology for employee recognition and reward.

 What’s more, a 5 percent increase in employee engagement can lead to a 3 percent jump in a company’s revenue. Effective communications not only makes employees feel like they matter to their organization, but also emphasizes their role in contributing to a greater goal and broader effort among colleagues — and that directly affects business outcomes.

Despite the clear business benefits of HR communications, most companies still rely on a single channel for communications. Employees have unique preferences for when, how and where they access communications, and HR and internal communications teams need to adopt a multi-channel strategy to reach all employees — regardless of location, job function and the devices they use.

Particularly as many employees today are desk-less, engaging employees wherever they may be is foundational to successfully connecting, informing and building trust with employees. From a company mobile app to digital signage, email, print and more, HR and communications teams must incorporate multiple, targeted channels in their toolkit, with a system to integrate all channels so they aren’t stuck managing multiple platforms.

And not only does the channel matter, but so does the message. What might work on email may not work for mobile or other mediums, and communications should be designed for consumption on each specific channel you plan to use. It is also important to train and encourage team and frontline managers to create their own content that caters to their team members and direct reports — making content more local and relevant not only ensures the right messages get to the right employees, but also alleviates the burden on HR and communications teams in creating all content.

 Build Employee Retention With Impactful Communications

As an organization grows, it is important to share engaging and compelling messages to motivate, inform and retain employees. Shockingly, only 10 percent of employees today report knowing what’s going on in their company at any given time — meaning they are not aligned to larger business goals, setting up those initiatives to fail.

Employee retention doesn’t stop with employee orientation. More impactful engagement goes well beyond day one, starting with studying and understanding your employees — who they are, their unique preferences and motivations. Much like a marketer who analyzes the customer journey, building employee personas and mapping out their journey will allow you to deliver more targeted, effective communications personalized to their needs.

Moreover, organizations should look to not only share relevant, customized communications across channels with employees, but also establish a platform where they can quickly search for and find information they need to be informed at all times. An outdated Intranet for sharing employee information simply won’t suffice when employee engagement, productivity and the bottom line are at stake.

Successful HR communication is vital in engaging employees, maintaining a thriving company culture and boosting both individual employees and the organization. By taking a more targeted, customized and multi-channel approach to communications, organizations can elevate HR and communications teams to support broader business outcomes, while reaping the benefits of greater employee engagement, productivity and retention.

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Collaboration Tools Are Great for Communication — Provided They Are Properly Implemented

employee communications

Organizations around the globe are communicating with employees through digital tools to improve engagement and retention, increase productivity and more.

poor communication

Connected workforces improve time-to-innovation by 31 percent, according to a McKinsey report. Digitally connected employees are 51 percent more likely to have strong job satisfaction and 43 percent more likely to have a positive view of work-life balance compared to workers who lack these tools, according to a recent study.

A growing number of organizations are adopting collaboration platforms such as Workplace by Facebook, Yammer and Microsoft Teams to break down silos, create a more vibrant culture, and foster a community of real-time teamwork. For instance, Workplace by Facebook provides a user experience similar to the company’s popular social media tools, enabling organizations to engage employees in a variety of ways, from live leadership broadcasts and news updates to polls and sentiment surveys.

Yet many organizations lag behind in implementing these tools. Because of their positive impacts on innovation and connectivity, use of digital collaboration platforms often pop up in pockets of organizations as employees seek more efficient ways to work. This unsanctioned shadow IT often lacks the appropriate governance or compliance mechanisms, carrying with it a myriad of risks, such as insider threats or vulnerable data. The organization must then play catch-up to roll out collaboration in a more controlled way.

Given the impacts on employee engagement, HR leaders often play a major role in the adoption of collaboration tools. But it’s important to look before you leap. Human behavior risk can proliferate without the right controls. The informal communication that speeds innovation can also cross the line into sexual harassment, discrimination and bullying. It’s essential to provide safeguards that ensure employees behave appropriately within these digital platforms to protect the company culture.

Others will share these concerns:

  • Cybersecurity will need to understand any new types of threats collaboration brings into the technology landscape. While enterprise-grade collaboration platforms are highly secure from outside attacks, it is essential to mitigate potential insider threats. Whether accidental or malicious, the chatty environment of collaboration tools can cause an employee to divulge sensitive or confidential information to the wrong people.
  • Compliance will have questions regarding data privacy regulations such as HIPAA and the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation, or GDPR, which went into effect in 2018. In industries such as healthcare and financial services, it is essential to have a process to enforce data removal and retention policies. Compliance will also want to know what measures will be in place to ensure employees adhere to the organization’s policies and guidelines for appropriate behavior, including in closed or secret groups.
  • Legal will have be concerned with addressing legal hold situations and efficiently completing eDiscovery processes and internal forensics investigations. Unlike email, collaboration tools offer revision or deletion functionalities on messages and shared content. This can create liability and compliance concerns. As a result, legal may require access to an archive of all public and private content relevant to pending litigation – including revisions and deletions.

To address these stakeholder concerns, organizations need an effective community management strategy when rolling out digital collaboration. This strategy will define what endorsed behavior looks like, along with a response plan for unsanctioned or distracting behavior. It will also detail how the community manager will monitor the digital community and reinforce the desired behaviors.

Community managers should introduce accompanying solutions that satisfy stakeholder needs. This will keep unexpected incidents or requirements from threatening digital workplace rollouts. These include:

  • A well-configured monitoring tool that scans public and private conversation areas. This solution will automate the day-to-day work of digital community management, providing real-time alerts as issues arise. Real-time surfacing of concerning content—whether an HR violation or a sensitive data share—is critical to reinforcing desired collaboration behaviors.
  • A searchable archive that serves as a protection against legal action. Introduce a practice of storing authored messages and posts, as well as corresponding context—including revisions and deletions. Legal teams can then efficiently search and extract relevant conversation data for litigation scenarios.
  • A data management solution that enforces retention policies, satisfies user data removal requests outlined by the GDPR as well as supports the need to manage legal holds. Organizations own the conversation data that is generated by workers. It is critical to have a way to purge, protect and extract as needed.

By staying mindful of stakeholder needs, champions of collaboration will address the risks and requirements that can derail organization’s collaboration rollout. By identifying and addressing these issues before employees start using the platform, community managers can ensure a positive user experience and digital workplace sponsorship across the organization’s leadership.

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Welcome to Your Employee Communication Road Map

employee communication roadmap

Road maps are a form of content that will help you navigate key areas of people management. Each road map includes an orientation guide that gives a high-level overview of the subject as well as articles and other resources that provide more detailed directions on how to find your way to success. This road map focuses on the changing terrain of employee communication. The orientation guide below will get you started, and we invite you to see other Workforce road maps by visiting workforce.com/roadmaps.

Effective employee communication is the foundation of a good human resources program. Setting guidelines for how and when to communicate with employees, and what you are going to say sets the tone for the company culture and paves the way for business success. However, most companies — even big global firms — often leave this important element of human resource management to chance.

Only 20 percent of organizations have an internal communications role somewhere within their HR department, according to a 2018 Newsweaver study. In other organizations this role falls to sales and marketing teams, individual managers or no one in particular.

employee communication roadmap

“They just let the communication culture emerge, and assume everyone knows what to do,” said Craig Johnson, partner in Mercer’s Career Business focusing on communication and technology. “That’s not the right approach.”

This “do-it-yourself” attitude leads to mixed messages, missed opportunities to engage, and a negative communication experience when employees are deluged with messages from management that they eventually just tune out, according to Rachel Miller, director of All Things IC, an internal communications consultancy.

“Internal communications should be part of your business strategy and plan,” she said. It ensures that internal messaging is consistent, relevant to the brand, and reflective of the company culture and business goals. “Every message should reflect what the company is trying to achieve.”

If you don’t have a communication plan — or haven’t reviewed yours in years — this road map will help you get started.

PART 1: Make a Plan

Put someone in charge. A communication strategy needs a leader, said Johnson. Putting someone from HR in change of the overarching company communication plan ensures a consistent tone and prevents disparate, confusing or conflicting information bombarding employees from all sides.

Identify stakeholders. Effective employee communication requires planning and buy-in from leaders across the organization. Miller suggests bringing together a cross functional team of executives, HR leaders, managers and employees to write the plan and ensure it aligns with the corporate vision.

Define your goals. A good communication plan links communication strategies to the purpose of the company, its mission and its vision. “Don’t just copy the words off a vision statement,” Miller warned. Really think about what the company is trying to do and how internal communication supports those goals.

Consider your audience. It’s not enough to know what information you want to send, you need to customize it for the reader. If you are announcing a merger, the information you share with front-line workers or IT teams will be far different from the messages you send to VPs and managers. “Understanding your audience is how you get the right information to the right people at the right time so that they can do their jobs,” Miller said.

Choose your channels. Do your employees read emails every day? Visit the company portal? Communicate via Slack? “It’s easy to attach a document to an email, but if three-fourths of your employees won’t click on it, what is the point?” Johnson said. Understanding how, where and when employees want to engage with company content will increase the chance that your messages will get read.

Create a calendar. Large companies may have dozens of vendors sending information to employees about benefits packages, 401(k) plans, insurance offerings, etc. If they all send messages at the same time it creates a tremendous amount of noise, Johnson said. To reduce the deluge, he advises clients to audit all communications — including vendor messages — then eliminate the ones that aren’t necessary, and create a schedule for those that are. “A plan helps you think through what you are sending instead of always reacting.”

He suggests organizing messages into three categories:

  • Annual events: Messages related to benefits enrollment and updates about annual meetings can be scheduled months in advance.
  • Ad hoc scheduled events. These include one-time scheduled events, including information about workshops, announcement about technology upgrades or reminders to complete required training.
  • Ad hoc unplanned events. Leave some space in the calendar for urgent messages that can’t wait.

Remember, Johnson added, “even if emails from vendors are part of the service, if the message isn’t useful it won’t add value.”

PART 2: Start Communicating

Customize each message. Every communication should begin with an overarching message about why this information ties back to the company’s goals and values, Johnson said. For example, if you are hosting a financial wellness workshop, start the announcement with, “As part of our commitment to helping employees achieve a better work-life balance, we are offering this financial wellness workshop to … .’ ”

It shows that the workshop is tied to something broader, Johnson said.

Create a review step. Having someone else review messages before they get sent to the entire company can minimize the risk that grammar errors, inaccurate information and embarrassing gaffes get sent out.

Provide training. HR isn’t the only group sending company communiques. To ensure there is a consistent cadence in all internal messages, provide training to managers and leaders about how to craft messages that align with the business goals.employee communication roadmap

PART 3: Measure Results

Define success. Every communication campaign should have a goal. “That is what makes measurement possible,” Miller said.

Establish key performance indicators. When setting measures, focus on outcomes not output. Counting messages sent or number of people who signed up for a class doesn’t tell you much, Miller said, whereas tracking the results of these programs will. Some useful measures might include proof of changed behavior, improved employee engagement, increased participation in rewards programs or fewer safety incidences. “Outcomes are tangible if you know what you are looking for,” she added. “We don’t do this enough.”

Ask employees what they think. Include questions in employee surveys about the quality of company communication, their top communication issues and/or what could be done better. This can provide evidence of the impact of HR communication efforts and help identify areas that require improvement.

Adapt accordingly. A communication plan is always evolving. Measuring outcomes can help you identify which messages, channels and cadence of content is having the biggest impact, so you can continue to adjust it to meet employees’ needs.

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Building Healthy Communications With a Remote Workforce

employee communication, hearing, talk, schedules

Over the past two decades, digital technologies have enabled more and more companies to utilize remote and mobile workers.employee communications

Virtual teams are commonplace, and they offer benefits for both the employer and the employee. But developing a healthy virtual culture is vital to ensure dispersed team members feel connected, engaged and valued.

According to a Global Analytics Workplace survey, 4.3 million people work from home at least half of the time, and the telecommuter population has grown 11.7 percent since 2008. Data show that working remotely is desired by employees, and the trend of working off-site isn’t going away.

Remote workers may consist of project teams working together at a remote site, individuals working independently and traveling frequently, such as salespersons, and people who work from home.

Communicating With Remote Teams

With project teams working in different locations, it is important for the leader to travel to the site regularly. Site visits allow the leader to pick up on subtle indicators of culture. Being there is often the only way the leader can assess the office environment: Do team members seem happy? Do they help each other? Do they engage in informal conversations or does everyone have their heads down? Do they feel supported by the company or cast away and forgotten?

By coming to the site, the leader can gauge what actions need to be taken to improve morale and connectedness. But more important, visiting the site lets the remote staff know that they are an important part of the team.

Research indicates the factor that most affects engagement at work is the employee’s relationship with the direct manager, so having a strong connection to the local site manager is more important than connecting with corporate leaders.

Visits from corporate may be rare when companies entrust local leaders with developing a strong culture, especially if the local culture mirrors headquarters. But other companies take an extra step by conducting strategy and vision meetings at remote work sites to help ensure buy-in and strengthen connections.

In his book “Drive,” Daniel Pink points out that people are most engaged when they have autonomy, purpose and mastery at work. Autonomy is being able to work according to your own schedule and the way you like to work, free of micromanagement provided deadlines and goals are met.

Purpose is feeling that the work you do matters and that you are aligned with the values of your organization. Mastery is being able to do high quality work and improve every day. Managers can keep remote workers engaged by providing clear goals so they know what success looks like, letting them know what quality is expected, and communicating with them frequently to learn what they care about and explain how their work aligns with the company’s goals.

Communicating With Individuals Working Remotely

Compared to on-site teams, more effort is required to make individuals working remotely feel connected. They are easily overlooked, whether intentionally or not.

An organization, for example, can address the “out of sight, out of mind” problem during video conference calls by placing large photos of remote team members in chairs around the table so everyone in the meeting room can remember their remote colleagues.

Another tip for including remote workers in virtual meetings is to remember to send the agenda and other information well in advance rather than handing out materials in the meeting and realizing remote workers don’t have them. This is also a good practice if you have introverts in the group who like to prepare and think about the topic ahead of time.

Another good practice is to have a meeting facilitator who can make sure remote workers get a chance to speak. It can be hard to know when to enter a conversation when you are on video or on the telephone; a facilitator can look for openings to bring in remote participants.

When it comes to people working from home, it’s vital to communicate standards and expectations. Do you expect them to be online and available during certain hours? Do you only care that the job gets done and not how long they are at their desks?

Setting clear expectations makes everyone know the boundaries and lessens the need to “check-up” on remote workers. When people feel trusted they tend to live up to expectations.

If you manage remote workers, treat them as you would local staff. Make time for conversations, both work related and personal. Keep them aware of changes going on at headquarters and involve them in local activities such as charity events.

Because remote workers may not want to “bother” you constantly with minor concerns and comments, they may save them up until a later time. By then, however, issues may have been forgotten or may have festered and dealing with them may take longer than if they had been handled in the moment.

You may need to call on remote workers frequently to give them the opportunity to ask any questions and offer comments. Some managers post office hours when staff can drop in or call in; others establish set times each day for remote team leaders to check-in.

Providing feedback, both appreciative and developmental, is especially important for remote workers to help them know they are not toiling away in a forgotten backwater. Being aware of their career goals is also important; often remote workers must rely on their managers to keep them apprised of advancement opportunities within the organization.

With a little forethought, remote workers can feel appreciated as valuable members of your team.

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The Past, Present and Future of Internal Communication

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Effective communication with internal staff ensures that all parties are on the same page. Without alignment on company goals, mission and values, confusion can easily ensue. That’s where Robyn Hannah steps in. As senior director of global communication at Dynamic Signal, an employee communication and engagement platform based in San Bruno, California, she leads the communication strategy both internally and externally, ensuring that employees know how to complete items as fundamental as signing up for health insurance to as complex as delivering business goals.

In an interview with Talent Economy [Workforce‘s sister publication], Hannah shared her observations of internal communication practices, what she sees for the future and suggestions for how to start a strong internal communication strategy on a dime. Edited excerpts follow.

TALENT ECONOMY: What exactly is internal communication and why is it important?

ROBYN HANNAH: Communication is the vehicle through which we disseminate corporate goals, business objectives and company culture. These things that make up the fabric of our organization disseminate to our employees, and from our employees to our customers, through communication. I think it is fundamentally how we create alignment within our company; it’s how we allow employees to know who we are as a company and what our values are; it’s how they understand our company goals, whether that’s for the year or quarter; it’s how employees can prioritize.

If you’re dealing with a difficult customer and maybe they are operating outside of your business values, maybe you have to retire a customer. Some of those tough business decisions can be bounced against the framework of who you are as an organization, what your vision and mission and values are, and the only way for employees to know those things, to make those decisions and to have that criteria is by having some vehicle for delivery, which is truly internal communication.

“Someone has to create alignment. Your employees are your most-valued asset. You do not have a company without your employees.”

— Robyn Hannah, senior director of global communication at Dynamic Signal

TE: Historically, how has this role changed?

HANNAH: For different companies of different communication maturity levels, internal communication can mean different things. For some, it’s very tactical. It’s blocking and tackling. It’s here’s your information. For a long time, the intranet or maybe posters in a breakroom have been internal communication for a lot of organizations. But that doesn’t work anymore.

Technology has fundamentally changed the way that we communicate in our everyday lives. We live in this app economy where news and information and content push to us. No longer do we have this destination model. I don’t go to the New York Times on my browser, right? I get a push notification, and that information that is being pushed to me is based on topics that I’ve self selected are relevant to me.

I think internal communication at companies is starting to reflect more the way that we communicate in our everyday lives. The enterprise has been a little behind. There are still a lot of companies that are using intranets and posters. Part of the evolution is that we’re moving to proactively providing employees news and information that’s relevant for them to do their job, and we’re now able to deliver it in a way that’s convenient for them.

Also read: Make Benefits and Internal Communications Inseparable

At Dynamic Signal, our employee communication and engagement platform is designed to meet employees where they’re at with targeted, relevant, timely content and information delivered to them on the channel that is most convenient for the way that they work. If you are in finance and you sit behind a computer all day, maybe getting internal communication about your open enrollment period or a new leadership appointment via email makes sense for you. Maybe you’ll read your email. But if you are a sales executive, when you’re looking in your inbox, you’re only looking for customers and trying to close business. You’ll mentally ignore those internal emails as, “I can get back to that later.” But what if they’re really important?

If the goal of internal communication is to align employees to business objectives and goals, disseminate culture and values, help employees prioritize their day and make sure that they’re getting the information they need as efficiently as possible, we need to find ways to get it to them in a way that makes sense for them. That’s a big part of the evolution.

Beyond that, what’s been really interesting is we’re seeing more and more appointments of chief communication officers. The CCO is a relatively new C-suite position, but it seems like every week we’re seeing more large companies appoint somebody as CCO. They’re really consolidating communication under one org, whereas in the past, maybe internal communication sat under HR or operations, and external communication — things like social media, public relations — sat under a marketing team.

The problem is that today, the speed of communication, the fact that everybody is on mobile and everyone is getting news and information at their fingertips all the time via news apps and Twitter, there’s no longer a sense of internal communication and external communication. It’s really confidential communication and everything else.

The other really important and I think notable advance in internal communication is around measurement. So many other parts of the organization, especially marketing, have become very data driven. And historically, internal comms has been seen as this soft, cushy part of the business. We put an email out there and said, “Open enrollment starts now. Please read. Action required!” We didn’t have any measurement. We didn’t know what was happening with penetration; we didn’t know what employee sentiment was; we didn’t know what employee engagement was; we didn’t know how employees were feeling or receiving the information. It was this sort of spray and pray mentality. Communication now looks at things beyond just open rates but engagement, time on page, are employees taking action on some of the information they’re given?

I think measurement is how communications will continue to earn a seat at the table. It’s hard to get budget or authority when you don’t have data. Communicators I think have always known that internal communication is critical when it comes to things like alignment, understanding business goals and objectives, driving culture throughout the organization. But if you have no way of measuring that, you can’t prove that. You can’t get resources or budget or headcount to support those efforts.

TE: In your position at Dynamic Signal, what do you communicate internally and externally?

HANNAH: There’s so much! We want to make sure our employees know how to enroll in the 401(k) or go see the doctor. We want them to have those sort of basic, HR communication functions, but it can also be the lunch menu for the week or our holiday schedule.

We have things like Women of DySi and Pets of DySi and DySi Cares, which is our CSR group. So we have these employee affinity groups that people can choose to join and connect with other employees around issues that are important to them. We have this whole internal channel of people who submit photos of their pets. It’s been fun to see these other sides of your colleagues’ lives that you wouldn’t normally see.

We also want our employees to be very well-informed about what our company goals are. Our CEO sends video messages saying, “Great Q1! Here’s what happened and what we’re looking to accomplish in Q2.” We also host all-hands meetings with an AMA [Ask Me Anything] session. We’ll send out that notification to all of our employees through different channels — whichever channel works best for them — and we let them know that this is coming up and they can submit questions that they want to ask the CEO. I think our objectives are always ensuring that employees feel celebrated, connected, aligned, know what our goals and objectives are and that they feel valued as people.

On the external side of things, we’re sharing what we’re doing in the industry, our thought leadership and some of our research externally, but it’s not enough for us to just share that from our own branded channels. In my role as far as public relations and media relations go, it’s exciting to get to go speak to communications professionals and share all of this, but it’s really important for us that our employees feel empowered to be storytellers, too.

We are very careful about who we hire because we want every employee to feel empowered to be a brand ambassador and an employee advocate. We push a lot of our news out to our employees to share across their own networks, in their own voice. And different employees share different things. That’s perfect because everyone brings a unique and diverse perspective to the company, and we use our communication tools to empower them to tell those stories externally. We believe that external storytelling success begins with internal communication.

“External storytelling success begins with internal communication.”

— Robyn Hannah, senior director of global communication at Dynamic Signal

TE: For smaller companies that might not have the funds for an internal communication role, who typically owns this, and what advice would you have for them?

HANNAH: Internal communication is a non-negotiable. Someone has to create alignment. Your employees are your most-valued asset. You do not have a company without your employees. And employees who don’t know what your goals are as a business, don’t know who you are as a company and what your values are and what your mission is, they can’t function and you will not be successful as an organization if you ignore the fact that employees are your most-valued asset. Whether it’s an executive or HR or someone in marketing, communicating with your most-valued asset — the people who truly represent your business to the world — is a non-negotiable.

I think you just have to start, even if you have nothing in place. Someone has to say, “Our employees are important; they need to know what’s happening in the company; they need to know what we’re driving to as a company; they need to know that we value them because we recognize we don’t have a business without them.”

If all you have is email, start with email. If all you have is an open space where you can gather people together, go face time. If you’re a small company and can get everybody in one space, great. Or use Skype or Google Teams or whatever digital tool you need to get people together.

My advice is to start doing something. And sometimes asking forgiveness is better than asking permission. We all have a phone in our pocket with video and camera capability. You can start a free social media account and start to take photos and video of your employees and what their day-to-day looks like. Celebrate the people who make your company what it is. Highlight and showcase them. Create a sense of pride and loyalty. Start to empower them to tell their story on social media. That doesn’t cost any money.

This story originally appeared in Workforce‘s sister publication Talent Economy.

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Poor Internal Communication Can Be a Costly Mistake for Businesses

employee communications

Poor internal communication can have some seriously negative impacts on a company — poor morale, high employee turnover and lower employee productivity, to name a few. Worse yet, these can lead to a lasting effect on a company’s bottom line.

employee communicationsStatistics show that plenty of businesses could stand to improve in this area. According to a 2018 Arthur J. Gallagher & Co. study, 60 percent of companies don’t have a long-term internal communication strategy, though about half said they wanted to make improving leadership communication a top priority.

Also read: How to use technology in your internal communications strategy

Additionally, replacing a worker can cost a company 33 percent of that worker’s annual salary. And lower morale leads to actively disengaged employees, which results in reduced productivity. Productivity loss costs the U.S. a whopping $550 billion each year, according to a Gallup report. Turnover and lower morale can also make it more difficult for a company to attract the talent it needs to move forward.

These problems should give businesses powerful incentive to improve communication with employees.

Three Internal Communication Problems to Avoid

Here are some of the most common communication problems companies face and how to avoid them:

  1. Using outdated communication methods. With many companies going paperless, email has become the primary form of communication because it’s quick and efficient. However, it can also be a source of decreased productivity, as employee inboxes can quickly get cluttered with frivolous emails that hide important messages. The constant influx of new messages can also be a distraction from completing important tasks.

Companies can try focusing on mobile-driven communication instead. Company apps such as G Suite, Asana and Slack offer a new way to communicate and engage employees via their smartphones or tablets. This is especially ideal as the workforce demographics are changing to include nontraditional employees like remote workers, contract-based workers and freelancers.

An employee app provides workers with easy access to corporate information and workplace tools while cutting out the clutter of irrelevant messages and keeping all employees on the same page. Many employees also prefer the use of apps over email. For example, our clients and even some vendors prefer communicating via Slack channels rather than email to touch base quickly and share relevant documents.

  1. Not having an internal communication strategy. Many times, companies place their focus on putting a solid strategy in place for external communications with their customers, but developing an internal communication strategy is just as important. In fact, poor internal communication, along with poor coaching of frontline workers, can result in poor communication with customers. This limits a company’s ability to build a sense of loyalty among customers. Here are some tips to help you start building an internal communication strategy that works:
  • Assess your current internal communication and where you want to be. What has worked successfully and what hasn’t?
  • Identify and track key metrics. What data points matter to you? Is it how many people access your intranet, social media shares and comments from your staff, or customer service issues? Identifying and setting goals that align with your business objectives will be important.
  • Identify and segment your internal audience. Not all communication needs to go to everyone.
  • Identify your communication tools. This can include email, face-to-face meetings, social media, an intranet, company apps and more. Pick the channel that works best for the audience and the type of message you are communicating.
  1. A lack of feedback. A lack of feedback can cause employees to feel like their voices aren’t being heard and can have a significant impact on employee turnover. HR professionals and managers often communicate with employees about policies and procedures without taking the time to listen to them. If you want to implement a comprehensive communication strategy, it should include two-way communication.

Not only does listening to employee issues and concerns improve productivity and build loyalty, but it’s also an opportunity to learn about issues or concerns before they escalate into a formal complaint.

Start a feedback loop process through authentic and consistent communication between managers and employees. Providing feedback benefits a company by increasing engagement and helping to move the company forward. Up to 80 percent of an organization’s opportunity for improvement comes from frontline employees.

Now that you understand what’s at stake when a company has poor internal communication, you can begin taking the necessary steps to avoid these pitfalls. If you don’t take the time to develop a solid strategy, you’re putting your company at risk of losing touch with employees in addition to losing money.

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Instant Messaging: The Future of Communication, With Caveats

The days of face-to-face meetings and group emails may soon be coming to an end. From texting job candidates and using Slack for project management, to building artificially intelligent chatbots that answer questions about human resources, communication technology in the workplace is evolving. All of this is a good thing, said Sharon O’Dea, a digital and social media consultant based in the U.K. These tools enable faster, more efficient communication, via the devices employees have in their hands all the time, she said. “We all use instant messaging in our personal lives. It is natural to see that shift into the workplace.”

Younger workers are far more likely to choose text or Slack over email or phone calls, which they view as cumbersome and outdated, said Adam Ochstein, CEO of StratEx, an HR technology and consulting firm based in Chicago. Email can also be tricky for contract workers and frontline staff, who may rarely check their emails but always have their phones. “They want to communicate in real time with their fingers, not their voices.”

The use of instant and automated technology to support communication isn’t going away, so managers need to get on board or risk creating information gaps in the workplace. A 2017 report from Dynamic Signal found that only 17 percent of companies had recently invested in technology for internal communication, even though 73 percent said communicating company information to employees was a “serious challenge.”

While chatbots won’t be taking over the way we engage any time soon, the tools we use are evolving, and skeptical managers need to get on board, Ochstein said. “If you want to be an employer of choice for this generation, you’ve got to adapt.

Conversation Bots

Along with changing how employees communicate, new technologies are also changing what information they can share, said Rob High, chief technology officer for IBM Watson, IBM’s cognitive computing system. “Artificial intelligence tools, at their most basic, improve the likelihood that employees can find and share information as they communicate.” This enables faster problem-solving and ensures they can make decisions based on data, not gut instinct. High envisions a day where AI conversation agents will be the third party in a conversation, automatically searching for information and providing context.

Also read: Meet Your New Colleague: Artificial Intelligence

High’s team has also created the AI-driven IBM tone analyzer, which uses linguistic analysis to examine the emotion in text messages. The goal is to help employees vet the “tone” of texts and emails, just as you might spell-check before hitting send. “It’s an efficient way to reduce misunderstandings,” he said. High believes AI technology will change the way we communicate at work and at home.

O’Dea agreed. “Chatbots offer huge potential for employee communication. They can take over the tasks that are needlessly complicated.” She believes early applications will focus on things like filling out employment forms, requesting days off and accessing personal data. “Chatbots can provide employees with instant access to this information through an app, which is where they spend more of their time anyway,” she said. For those who think chatbots are too inhuman for workplace communication, O’Dea believes it’s the opposite. Many employee communication platforms and corporate emails are “generic and impersonal, but chatbots can have human conversations,” she said.

In an era of social sharing, the casual nature of texts in the workplace can put companies at risk.

The Trouble With Text

The adoption of instant communication in the workplace isn’t all good news. In an era of social sharing, the casual nature of texts in the workplace can put companies at risk. We’ve all read the stories of managers cursing out employees for some minor infraction or flirting in a way that makes someone uncomfortable, only to have those conversations go viral and result in someone getting fired.

“There is a fine line between casual conversations and inappropriate content, and instant messaging makes that line very easy to cross,” StratEx’s Ochstein said. It’s rarely intentional. He recalls a recent day at his own company when employees were using Slack to discuss whether the company’s “no-shorts policy” should be abandoned when temperatures rise above 90 degrees. That evolved into a conversation about why female employees were lucky because they can wear skirts, which led to a “guys vs. girls in the workplace” battle. “That’s when the HR team had to get involved and shut it down,” he said. “It was innocent banter, but all of [the] sudden it was going in a direction no one wanted.”

Such scenarios are all too common, particularly when teams work long hours together or are out celebrating a project success. “One person may think a text is funny, where the other thinks it’s inappropriate,” he said. “But once you send it, you can’t get it back.”

The instant nature of these tools also creates legal issues with hourly gig workers. If a manager sends an email at night, it is assumed a contractor will respond the next day, but if they send an instant message the implication is that they expect an instant response. “Does that mean you have to pay them for that time?” Ochstein pondered. “Once you cross that chasm, the legal stuff can get bad.”

That doesn’t mean companies shouldn’t use instant messaging apps to interact with employees, but they should define clear policies for their use. Ochstein advised “over-communicating” to employees about texting protocol and reminding them that anything they say on text is as admissible as any other document. He also urged HR leaders to promote a culture of caution. “Encourage them to pause and think about whether a message could be construed as not respectful,” he said. “If there is any chance it could be construed as rude or not respectful, don’t send it.”

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Personal Lessons in Communicating Change

At the start of the year, I took a personal crash course in navigating organizational change. Despite consulting on issues around change management for most of my career, I learned it’s a different animal when you’re right in the middle of it yourself. Going through a big change reinforced a lot of what I know — and it gave me some new insights.

The source of all this change? My company, Benz Communications, joined forces with The Segal Group on Jan. 1. By absolutely all measures, this was — and is — an awesome step for our team, our business and our clients.

Segal is an 80-year-old privately held employee benefits and HR consulting firm that works with an amazing group of clients around the country. Our communications team doubled from 30 to 60 people, and we are so proud to be part of an organization with Segal’s history, values, people and clients. One of my favorite comments from a member of my team was “I feel like I just got an even better job — along with 30 of my best friends.”

Still, all the good stuff doesn’t mean change isn’t hard.

One of the things I learned is that it takes people a while to digest information when they are caught off guard. Fortunately, we were able to share our news in person with the Benz team during our annual end-of-year celebration in November.

But they were expecting to enjoy the time with colleagues and rejoice in all the great work we created during the year; no one was expecting me to announce a huge organizational change like this. That kind of surprise, no matter how good the news is, creates anxiety.

Also in Benefits Beat: Make Benefits and Internal Communications Inseparable

One of my team members said, “I know your lips were moving, but I didn’t absorb a thing you said.” It highlights an important lesson for corporate communicators, reinforcing why you have to give people time to absorb information and why you need to say things many times and in multiple ways.

It was also a reminder that leaders and employees experience change in entirely different ways. When I talk to clients about this, I tell them to remember that leaders have more context, more insight, more control and more notice.

It takes people a while to digest information when they are caught off guard. No matter how good the news is, surprise creates anxiety.

Those factors make it hard to put themselves in employees’ shoes. Even so, I was surprised by how big a blind spot I had in predicting my team’s concerns. Fortunately, people felt comfortable telling me exactly what they and their colleagues needed (it helps to have several communications consultants among them!). But over and over, I was disappointed in myself for not being able to anticipate their concerns on my own.

One example: Benefits changes are hard — even for a team of benefits experts. We didn’t have much time to move the Benz team onto Segal’s systems and benefits.

It’s hard getting up to speed on new programs, understanding how they compare to the old ones and making decisions — especially when you have so many other questions and concerns bubbling around. And present discomfort obscures long-term gain.

Our benefits package at Segal is far richer than what we had as a small business — we have a 401(k) match and a pension plan! But when your prescription ID card doesn’t arrive and you’re at the pharmacy with a sick kiddo, you’re not thinking about your pension plan.

And that was a big lesson for me. In times of change, not only do you need to communicate more, but you also need to thoughtfully engineer the small stuff.

Also in Benefits Beat: Employers Should Be Bold With Their Benefits

Go above and beyond to make sure there are no kinks in the systems or information flow. I recently caught up with a longtime friend and client who works for a large global corporation. She is immersed in M&A all year, because their business strategy relies so much on acquiring new companies. She said they have perfected almost everything about acquiring new companies — except delivering medical plan ID cards. That’s still a huge pain point for new employees and the one thing that continues to be a disconnect. It’s the small stuff.

I hope these personal anecdotes will help you navigate your next big change. While they are the lessons learned, we did plenty of things the right way, too.

Most importantly, we started from a place of trust and transparency, built from an employee-centered culture. And we joined an organization that shares our core values and also prioritizes doing the right thing for employees. Those are the best things any organization can have to help navigate the inevitable changes ahead.

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Top Effects & Causes of Poor Communication

poor communication

Summary

  • Employees across various industries report poor communication as one of the leading challenges they face during the workday. 

  • Poor communication has a negative impact on both employee productivity and mental health.

  • A mix of face-to-face meetings, training, and using communication software helps mitigate the effects of poor communication.

The workplace is increasingly connected, with 24/7 email, instant messaging and phone calls pulling employees into work matters both during and after business hours. But that doesn’t necessarily mean employees are better connected to each other. Often, all that information can become white noise.

The study “Communication Barriers in the Modern Workplace,” conducted by the Economist Intelligence Unit and sponsored by Lucidchart, has taken stock of communication in the workplace today, and the results suggest leaders have some work to do.

Also read: How to use technology in your internal communications strategy

The State of (Mis)Communication

EIU’s study of 403 executives, managers and staff at U.S. companies found that, across the board, employees believe miscommunication is contributing to their stress, failure to complete projects and loss of sales. “This is not just an unpleasantry. This is really affecting the performance of the company,” said Nathan Rawlins, chief marketing officer at Lucid Software, makers of Lucidchart.

Rawlins emphasized, “Employers just don’t even understand that this is a challenge. We talk about things like diversity and as part of that conversation don’t talk about the fact there are diverse ways of communicating.”

Miscommunication takes on many forms. According to the study, different communication styles, unclear responsibilities and time pressures are the three most frequently cited causes of poor communication. Focusing on communication styles, employees’ struggles to connect often result in unclear expectations that are amplified under pressure.

Employees believe miscommunication is contributing to their stress, failure to complete projects and loss of sales.

The data show that miscommunication is more severe across generational divides. “Nearly a third of millennials and Gen Xers said that they have used instant messaging every day in the past year to communicate with colleagues or clients,” Rawlins said. Only 12 percent of baby boomers reported a similar trend. This leaves part of the workforce with one less way to connect with one another, reducing the likelihood of effective message delivery.

Hierarchy impacts communication as well. Leaders have a hard time making direct contact with their frontline employees, for example. Those serving as bridges between higher-ups and nonsupervisory employees, the middle managers, tend to face the most communication trouble, having to navigate different goals and desires from above and below. “They tend to get caught in the middle of conflicting communication preferences,” Rawlins said.

Loss of morale, stress and frustration abound when employees can’t connect. That’s a burden employees may carry home with them, affecting their home life and future work performance.

The report found that in addition to its effect on productivity, miscommunication also has a heavy emotional impact on employees. Loss of morale, stress and frustration abound when employees can’t connect. That’s a burden employees may carry home with them, affecting their home life and future work performance.

Employees reported that too many unproductive meetings, tight deadlines and waiting for others to pass along information in order to continue working were the top three most stressful situations.

Also read: When Your Workday Is Interrupted, and Interrupted Again and Again

“These inconsistencies in the pattern of how managers who lead are communicating is leading to challenges,” said Philipp Schramm, chief financial officer and vice president of human resources and communications at Webasto Roof Systems Americas. “People are worried, rumors start and that’s a major problem.”

Technological Impact

Surprisingly, the study found a discrepancy between the tools employees know are effective and the ones they continue to use. For example, only 22 percent of employees reported they have meetings every day despite their reported effectiveness. Also, 60 percent of employees said they use email every day, but only 40 percent said it’s very effective at sharing information.

Many reported that technology is actually hurting communication as it has drastically cut down on direct communication, allowing employees to default to tools like email rather than phone calls and meetings. As a result, employees no longer have access to nonverbal cues like tone of voice, gestures and visuals to help them understand messages.

Sixty-five percent of employees reported that face-to-face meetings were very effective for sharing information, making them the most effective method the study examined. That number didn’t change across generations. That means employees may feel they’re missing out on important information, even if fewer meetings and phone calls reduce wasted time and interruptions to their workflow.

However, tools utilizing technology like video conferencing, slide presentations and even conference calls can reestablish some of the elements of visual and face-to-face communication that employees are looking for. For international businesses, digital conferencing has already become an essential element of the workday, and it may become increasingly important to connect with remote workers.

“These are all forms of communication,” Schramm said. “To say that one form of communication is best I think would be the wrong approach to it. It depends on the situation.”

To say that one form of communication is best I think would be the wrong approach to it. It depends on the situation.”

— Philipp Schramm, chief financial officer and vice president of human resources and communications at Webasto Roof Systems Americas

How Can Training Help?

While it may not be possible to completely change one’s communication style, the No. 1 cause of miscommunication found by the EIU, it is possible to become more aware of others’ communication styles through training. However, employees may be missing out on the right kind of training.

Schramm stated that some organizations don’t see communication as a topic where training is essential. “They say, ‘Why do you spend time on communication? We all learn how to communicate. We all learn how to speak.’ ” He emphasized that existing communication training programs tend to focus more on presentation than on communication. This makes them ineffective.

“In the end, it’s not about presenting yourself in an organization; it’s about how we interact with each other,” Schramm said.

One study found that even short communication training sessions for doctors improved patient satisfaction, as well as reduced burnout for participants. Communication training helped doctors better connect to those they serve, and the same can apply to other organizations.

Sixty-two percent of respondents to the EIU study said they believed firmwide training to improve communication would have a significant impact. Additionally, 57 percent of responders reported they enjoyed working with people who have different communication styles. They just need the training to understand how to better communicate among them.

“I think that’s absolutely critical, that we help people understand that not everyone communicates the same way they do,” Rawlins said.

Communication training is more than just increasing written communication skills. It should include training on verbal communication and basic training on the use of new communication tools. As the generational divide between millennials and boomers emphasizes, for example, training on the uses of instant messaging could expand use of the technology and increase efficacy.

More important, communication training should include opportunities to practice in realistic situations. “We think that this is a great opportunity for workshops and practice sessions where people can try different ways of communicating than they’re probably most familiar with,” Rawlins said.

Schramm echoed this point. “Put more emphasis actually on the doing. Don’t put too much emphasis on learning the theory behind,” he said.

Schramm’s team at Webasto has already overhauled the company’s communication training program with great success. “With putting a lot of effort on fairness and proper communication within the organization we have improved in just 15 months from the worst company McKinsey has seen to the second-best category,” Schramm said. And that overhaul has had an impact on the personal lives of employees who reported they are communicating better outside the office, as well.

What’s Next?

Overcoming communication problems needs to be a team effort. Schramm stated that it is the job of leaders to guide teams toward the right tools. “I think that’s the kind of understanding a leader has to get: what tool, what way of communication to use for what situation without losing your authenticity,” he said.

With the help of training, perhaps all employees can gain that level of understanding. Rawlins said, “One of the key skills is recognition of the type of communication patterns that are most common with the people you are working with.” Across the board, individuals should strive to better understand the communication methods that work best for their teams. Learning leaders can facilitate this process by ensuring all team members have the vocabulary to do so.

The workplace is only going to continue to change. That means additional stress on employees and a greater variety of tools available to employers. But by improving how they communicate now, teams at all levels can be ready to navigate what’s to come.

“As we understand this data, as we take a step back and think about communication, we can actually affect the bottom line,” Rawlins said. “We can help people be more effective, help them to be less stressed at work, focus on the things that matter most and ultimately improve the way that the business operates.”

This story originally appeared in Workforce’s sister publication, Chief Learning Officer.