Employee Communication Channels: How to Communicate to Employees More Effectively

Management in businesses spends more time in developing strategies to improve business performance and increase profits. They implement various methods and approaches to find ways to engage their external stakeholders namely, their customers, investors, media, community members and analysts. However, they forget the most important element that can drive success in their organization: Their employees, the people who can greatly contribute to the success of the organization.

Top corporations know that employees play a crucial part in the overall performance of the business. They find ways to employ effective employee communications programs. They try hard to engage their employees as they know that this is a big factor in determining the organization's success. They know they need to understand their employees and to strategically communicate with them.

What employees want:

Employees in an organization are curious and want to know almost everything about the organization where they belong. They are interested to know of its mission, vision and its values. They intend to learn the organization's basic principles for them to decide to commit or not, engage or not, on the basis of the information that they have learned.

Employees play a critical role in any project and to get them to support and be engaged, management plans on strategies to improve employee communications. If they can successfully communicate with them strategically with a purpose, chances are, the employees will get motivated and engaged to work for a common end, which consists of the shared organizational goals and objectives.

How to improve employee communication channels:

High-performing organizations take employee communications seriously. In fact, they are always up to various techniques and approaches to improve their communication with their employees.

Below are some great tips that can help improve employee communication channels:

Be clear, concise and direct to the point. When composing memos and emails, get your message across clearly with simple wordings and don't use technical jargons because an overuse of words causes confusion and misunderstanding.

The tone starts at the top. Senior management are leaders who need to be visible as well as accessible to the employees as they work on achieving organizational goals. They understand that there is a correlation between an effective communication with the employees and the achievement of the company's goals.

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Use various channels to communicate with your employees. With the onset of advanced technology, there are various ways of communicating, e.g., computers, smartphones, emails, voice messages, private messages, and more. While there are many ways to electronically distribute your messages, the "old school" should not be forgotten as they have been proven and tested to be effective in a long time. Talk to your employees face-to-face and during meetings. Informal chances to chit-chat are also effective because employees feel that they are valued not only as workers but also as unique individuals.

Understanding the needs of your employees by listening to them as you go survey them occasionally to talk about things both related to work and personal. At these moments, you can show your concern of how they have been getting the information and support they need. Also, conversing with your employees in a personal level is an effective strategy to earn their respect and trust.

When explaining the work projects, provide context and explain the strategy to be used as well as make them understand how it will affect them. Give them reasons to own the project.

When ranking your communications, make sure that your employees hear the news from management before they hear them from other people. Communicate both good and bad news. Be transparent and make the employees understand the situation.

Always walk the talk and mark your words with actions. Without actions and they hear only words, you will lose credibility.

Create a meeting to solicit ideas, feedback and suggestion from employees. Important matters such as policies, safety, benefits, and anything pertaining to the job and to the organization are priorities. Lay out the plan as you share information about the organization's objectives, plans, activities, and how employees can help achieve the goals.

The best way to communicate in the past and until now is the face-to-face communication. The Millennials and the Gen Y are more tech savvy and for managers to be effectively communicating the plan, there is a need for them to gather the right tools and use them in the presentation. Facilitate two-way communication by giving the employees the chance to express their thoughts, opinions and suggestions.

Always create a plan for the communications. Be organized and systematic as well as strategic in the implementation. Create a checklist on what, how and when to strategically communicate with employees.

Be objective and never assume how people would feel about the news or updates that are being shared.
Always be polite and courteous. Say "thank you," and show appreciation and recognition even during informal situations.

Be genuinely interested in how you can improve employee communications in the company. Your employees can tell when managers take a half-hearted effort and when they are fully at it.

In the end, well developed employee communication channels will eventually result in an effective communication between employees and customers which results in customer satisfaction in the company, in its employees and in its products and services. Ultimately, the company's performance improves and more revenues and profits will follow.