For your employee communication strategies to engage employees (rather than simply inform) and for those strategies to be measured by business outcomes, you must first ask some basic questions ...
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What are your 3 greatest challenges in employee communication right now?
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What is a major employee communication issue that you have either recently dealt with or are currently dealing with?
- What are the methods and tools that you are using to communicate with employees? Delineate between whether they are engagement strategies or information tools:
- Engagement strategies are designed so that there is some involvement of the employee.
- Information tools mean that you are telling employees something - it is information sharing, not an opportunity to become involved.
This is important because your ultimate aim in employee communication has to be to create the "Aha! Moment".
What is the "Aha! Moment"?
The Aha! Moment is based on information that does the following:
- Challenges the employee's belief about an aspect of the business.
- The information that suddenly helps employees say:
- "Now it makes sense."
- "Now I understand."
- "Now I can do something about it."
Focus group research - How to find out what data will cause your employees to go "Aha!"
Focus group research allows you to:
- Ask employees about your business and thoughts on competitors.
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Identify the largest gap between what customers think and what staff think customers think.
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Identify what would create a paradigm shift in employee's thinking.
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Identify how you will measure the impact of the change in employees thinking.
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Determine how significant it is towards achieving the business objectives.
Focus group outcomes
Once you have your focus group outcomes, you can then begin designing employee communication strategies that engage employees.
When I talk about employee engagement I mean:
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The business issue means something to employees personally.
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Employees understand the reason why.
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Employees feel part of the process.
You should have a clear understanding about what employees know and what the facts are, and the gap between customer and staff research. Most importantly, you then identify a business issue that you feel sure your strategies can impact and work together with that area to implement an employee communication strategy that can be measured by business outcomes.
7 key factors in an employee communication strategy
To move forward and realign your employee communication tools and techniques, as part of a new employee communication strategy, you need to do the following:
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Clearly identify the business strategy or issue facing your organisation, division or department.
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Measure how effectively your current employee communication tools address that issue or strategy.
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Examine customer satisfaction data and determine the precise areas where there could be improvement.
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Identify the key issue, the "Aha!" factor that will create a new paradigm for employees.
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Identify which employee communication strategies engage or simply inform.
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Measure the impact of your strategy on the business.
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Be aware of marketing data and what customers and staff think of your brand.
We now know:
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The difference between employee communication strategies that engage rather than simply inform.
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Identifying business data that will demonstrate the impact of your employee communication strategies on the customer experience.
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The importance of the "Aha! Moment" to focus employees on the customer experience.
The outcome of the above is an engaged workforce that is focused on the customer experience, that impacts on business outcomes.
Note the importance of linking the employee with the customer experience. If your focus in this is employee communication, it is easier to establish the direct link between your strategies and business outcomes.
It also creates a greater sense of engagement amongst your employees because they feel a significant increase in empowerment and understanding in how their role supports business outcomes.