3 steps to effective employee communication

Actionable information for improving internal communications

Simplifying access to relevant information

Historical data reveal problem-solving knowledge is under-leveraged because employees did not know it existed. Additionally, they are uninformed about its relevance. Accessing relevant information during problem solving is also constrained by the amount of time available. To overcome the challenge, teach employees how to access explicit and tacit knowledge by making it a part of their induction/on-boarding process. Facilitate it by stocking the repositories with documents pertaining to best practices.

Encouraging collectivism

In global enterprises, employees understand organizational culture through strikingly different lens of beliefs and values.  As communicators, we should acknowledge and understand its influence and facilitate dialogue by employing a bias free language. In addition, we should weave in the differing perspectives by highlighting the areas of commonality into employee communications. This will help in breaking-through the cultural silos and unifying over a shared understanding of the goals. Significantly, it encourages cohesion within the organization, thereby making communications between peers effortless and effective.

Facilitating Flow of Information

Engage employees by letting them access the tacit knowledge within the organization. Use newsletters, email campaigns, internal social networks, groups and importantly influencers to further the process.  For example, in addition to discussion boards, create communities of practices. The key is to facilitate expertise brokerage in real-time, along with communication, collaboration and networking. The goal is to make employees part of the information flow, so that they will feel empowered to propagate it between themselves.

Discussion Question: How does your organization facilitate internal communication?

Do we always have to go after the next big thing?

This is something I am forced to consider every time I conclude a campaign.

At the end of a successful email campaign, which saw an amazing 342% increase in downloads, my boss spelled out the dreaded question, How are we going to better it the next time?

Obviously, it meant, I have to research and find out the next shiny thing in marketing communications. While, the event was an annual one and there is a lot of time to plan a new strategy, I admit that I was actually exasperated. The calibrated campaign had yielded dramatic results and I really did not understand the need to go after something new.

So, going back to the original question do we always have to innovate, particularly when the tried and trusted methodology is still delivering stellar results.

To mind, there is no need to tinker with success. Having said that, I am not advocating that there is no place for innovation. All I am saying is that there is no reason to change just to prove that you are inventive.

Consider the facts as I see it. The just concluded email campaign was successful beyond expectations. Now look at how the world sees emails. According to the Radicati Group:

In 2014, the majority of email traffic comes from the business world, which accounts for over 108.7 billion emails sent and received per day. Email remains the most common form of communication in the business space. Email use is growing in the business sector and by 2018, business email will account for over 139.4 billion emails sent and received per day.

Granted other options are catching up, but I still believe that this does not call for jettisoning the old and embracing the new just because it is available. While an integrated approach to marketing is always the smart option, I am not ready yet to replace my database of email addresses with a phalanx of followers or anonymous visitors unless I am shown a substitute, which is platform and device agnostic, non-intrusive, and delivers far better sustainable results as an email. photo credit: Scolirk via photopin cc

Communications-the art of influencing

Image Courtesy Shutterstock

Early in the game, thanks to my mentor, I realized that communication is all about influencing. However,  with the advent of the Internet and the ensuing availability of hundreds of platforms and thousands of channels, the challenge is in ensuring that the message is heard and shared. Significantly, it has become more about minimizing noise.

Similarly, the business environment has evolved, along with it the dimensions of communication have changed—from trust and reputation management, to enabling transparency, change and crisis management. The lines that distinguished traditional communication disciplines have disappeared. It is replaced by a yet to tamed beast—integrated communication.

In fact, there is no B2B or B2C, it has become one mass—P2P (Peer-to-Peer) communication. Additionally, the seamless fusion of the real and the virtual worlds, namely the connectedness between people, data and objects (IoT) have quivered the pitch for communication practitioners.
Simply put ,the message is as important as the method by which it is communicated.

So, here are a few questions I wrestle with every day as a communication specialist:

• How to reach the right people?
• What are the tools to convey a message in the most cost-effective manner?
• Is there a standard method that will help me leapfrog the hurdles?
• What are the areas of communication that are changing and how responsive am I?
• Finally, how to influence the influencers?

Through Communication Speak, I aim to share the result of my quest and maybe provide a few pointers for fellow practitioners to follow.