Engage Employees with a Sound Communication Plan

Smart Leaders Engage Employees with Communication

Employee engagement training experts will tell you that there must be good communication for any relationship to prosper and grow. Do you want to improve your employee engagement? Take a close look at your communication strategy and make sure that you purposefully engage employees with communication.

Most parent-child relationships thrive when communication is open and empathetic. The relationship between friends improves as their communication is honest and direct. Accordingly, the relationship between employer and employee strengthens the more consistent, open and straightforward it is.

The way you position and communicate with your employees significantly affects how they respond to challenges. When you develop and follow a clear and open internal communications plan, you will build employee loyalty and commitment to excellent job performance. Isn’t that the definition of employee engagement?

4 Steps to Better Engage Employees with Communication
Here are the building blocks of a communication strategy that increases employee engagement:

1.  Make Communications Simple
Don’t obscure the message with confusing, overblown language. Respect your busy employees’ time … make your message simple and easy to grasp. And be sure that any request for action is highlighted with clear and specific next steps.

2.  Keep Track of Communication Effectiveness
Are your internal communications having the desired effect? When you ask for engagement action, measure how many respond. How good is your track record? If poor, perhaps you need to alter your message and the way you communicate.

3.  Don’t Overdo It
Regular communication is important in that it keeps a steady flow of information to the employees about how the company is doing. But too much and too frequent communication and you will lose your audience. Besides monitoring the frequency of your internal memos, screen that they are reaching the right audience with the right messages. Finance may not need to know that there is a deadline for Marketing’s newsletter. Make sure your communications are relevant to the recipients.

4.  Keep Communication Channels Open
Effective communication should be two-way. Set up an avenue for employees to comment, question, or share ideas. Engaged communities depend upon open communication to function at their peak. Create a means for dialog so that executives have a way to reach employees and vice versa. Good listening on both sides is what fosters the kind of high performing culture that is emblematic of high employee engagement.

The Bottom Line
Follow best practices in your internal communications to build momentum behind and support your employee engagement initiative.

To learn more about how to engage employees with communication, Download our Employee Engagement and Retention Toolkit Now to Start the Journey