Avoid these 10 mistakes in your internal communications strategy

Avoid These 10

Mistakes in Your

Internal

Communications

Strategy

Stop Sabotaging the Way You Communicate

created by

The single biggest problem in communication is the illusion that it has taken place.

~ George Bernard Shaw

FACT Without effective internal

communication, your business is

doomed.

Without good communication methods,

companies fall behind in productivity,

profits, and employee satisfaction.

What a good internal

communications strategy

should do:

Help team members fully understand the

company’s objectives, values, and culture

Turn your employees into brand ambassadors

Build a company culture of honesty and trust

Improve employee retention, engagement, and

productivity

Provide easy access to important information so

everyone can perform their jobs well

Mistake #1

Letting information just

trickle down from the top

The traditional “hierarchy” model of

communication in which information trickles

down from top management to front-line

workers is fraught with problems. Slow

distribution, misplaced data, and lost

information are common issues.

Assume nothing. Just because the CEO told the executive manager a

piece of news doesn’t mean it reached everyone that

needed to hear it.

And when important information and ideas actually do

get passed along the chain of command, they often get

distorted and misunderstood before they reach their

final destination.

Speed up the flow of information with a good

communications strategy so that everyone stays on the

same page.

Mistake #2

Not asking for feedback

Really, the only way to measure the effectiveness of

your message is if the other person understood it.

Here’s a great definition of effective communication

from ask.com:

“Effective communication is a two-way process that includes sending the right message that is also being correctly received and understood by the other person/s who is receiving it on the other end.”

You need two-way dialogue.

Information is the simple sharing of facts,

but communication implies a two-way

dialogue.

This is a really important distinction that can

transform both your current and future

communication strategies, so let’s say it

again: information and communication are

not the same thing.

Ask yourself how you

communicate.

Do you feel like you do communicate with

your employees on a regular basis, but

they’re still “not getting it?”

Then ask yourself this question: are you

really communicating with your employees or

just giving them information?

Stop throwing information at

people.

We need to stop tossing information at our

employees just assuming they’ll understand it,

and really start communicating with them to

guarantee that they get it.

Mistake #3

Ignoring your employees’

expectations

Because of the recent technology revolution,

millennials (a.k.a. digital natives) expect to be

socially connected to everyone and everything all

the time.

This expectation not only includes their personal

lives but also extends to their workplace

environments.

What HR managers are doing:

HR managers are acknowledging the importance

of more interactive environments where workers

can engage with each other through internal

social networks and access real-time information,

feedback, and resources.

Staying ahead of the

technological curve

Because the current and future workforce is and

will be mostly comprised of millennials,

employers need to stay ahead of the

technological curve to ensure maximum

engagement, productivity, and efficiency from

their employees.

And, with 1 in 5 people in the world classified as

smartphone owners, it’s time we tap into these

digital skills and harness them for the workplace.

Mistake #4

Using outdated methods

The 1980s called. It wants its Rolodex back.

Updating your outdated, paper-based, internal

communication practices with automated and

cloud-based systems produces lots of benefits:

Reduced costs

Increased productivity

Less employee turnover

More efficient communication

Insurance against disasters

Paper is a problem.

These statistics highlight the general workplace

problems with manual paper processes:

1. Workers spend 5-15% of their time reading information

but up to 50% of their time trying to locate it.

2. 7.5% of documents are lost; the remaining 3% are

misfiled.

3. Average cost to manually process a single invoice: $24

4. Average labor costs spent by organizations:

$20 to file a document

$120 to find a misfiled document

$200 to reproduce a lost document

(Source: Going Paperless Saves Time and Hassle)

Use electronic solutions. Automated and web-based solutions allow

efficient management of forms, tasks, and employee socialization in the company culture. These 3 components are essential for every new worker.

In addition to managing these three components, an automated system can also build a network, assist with compliance training, and manage performance.

(Source: Aberdeen Group)

Mistake #5

Procrastination. Period.

Communicate early. No matter how good of a

“secret” you think the impending resignation

of the CEO is, chances are your employees are

already chatting about it.

Be proactive about communicating big

changes early on so employees don’t spread

rumors and gossip.

Decrease resistance to change.

Employees often resist change because they don’t

understand how the changes will personally

affect them. The more you communicate quickly

and honestly about what’s going on in the

company, the more you will have the support of

your staff.

Mistake #6

Not repeating your message When managers want to deliver important

messages, it’s important to deliver the same

message multiple times.

Recent studies have shown that managers

who ask their employees to perform a given

task more than once are more successful in

completing projects.

Repeat after me: repeat it.

In “Effective Managers Say the Same Thing Twice (or More)”, a team of researchers shadowed 13 managers in 6 companies for over 250 hours. The team recorded every type of communication and how frequently different delivery tools were used.

Action: 1 of every 7 types of communications were repeated but delivered through different mediums.

Results: Managers who were more deliberately redundant completed projects faster and with fewer mishaps.

(Source: Harvard Business Review)

Use lots of channels.

Effective tools that can be used to deliver the

same message include:

Face-to-face meetings

Video messages

Telephone conferences

Emails

Text and other documentation

Social media networks/intranets

Mistake #7

Having poor email skills

Email is still the #1 communication tool at

work, but it often causes more problems than

it solves, especially if you use it poorly.

One of the main problems with email is its

lack of feedback. There is little give and take

to the conversation. Because there is no

measurement of understanding,

misconceptions flourish and parties involved

become suspicious of others’ intentions.

Do it right the first time.

Since email can find its way into the wrong inbox

through a variety of careless errors, it is

important that you always use effective email

communication.

One rule of positive email conduct is to avoid

long or frustrating strings of email when a phone

call or face-to-face meeting will solve the issue in

a more efficient manner.

Learn good email behaviors.

More tips for using email effectively include the

following:

Create interesting, clear subject lines.

Never YELL AT YOUR RECIPIENT (i.e. use ALL CAPS).

Be civil and polite.

Include non-verbal cues (pictures, videos, etc.) to

increase understanding.

Be brief. Remove all unnecessary information to

keep your messages short and focused.

Reduce your “email anxiety” by scheduling specific

times to check and respond to messages instead of

switching between applications all day long.

Conquer challenges with good

email communication.

Creating and sending the right kinds of emails

will boost connections with your employees,

current clients, and potential customers.

Interactive video email, in particular, is an ideal

tool for customizing content and sending

personal multimedia messages for greater

impact.

Mistake #8

Being a poor listener

Being an effective communicator is impossible

without good listening skills. Managers should

actually listen more than they speak, because, as

we all know, talk is cheap.

Taking the time to really listen to what your

employees are saying is crucial for an effective

internal communications strategy.

Listening builds the right

foundation.

Listening is the foundation of any good

relationship. It demonstrates your open-

mindedness and genuine concern. From

recognition of day-to-day challenges to input on

larger company issues, employees greatly

appreciate being heard.

Pay it forward. In short, the most effective way to capture

employee attention and loyalty is to pay it

forward by giving employees your attention first.

Mistake #9

Making it too complicated

The best communication is straightforward.

In Made To Stick, Dan and Chip Heath discuss the

“Curse of Knowledge.” Complex information takes

time to process and take action on. Boil your message

down to its core. Make it as simple as possible without

losing the essence. This is difficult. It is easy to say a

lot and cover all the bases. It is hard to say a little and

cover what is necessary. But it’s worth it; brevity

inspires action.

Don’t overdo it. According to “You Won’t Finish This Article: Why

people online don’t read to the end,” most people read

only 50% of an email, webpage, online article, etc.,

before they bounce to the next thing they have to

read.

This implies that anything too long or hard to

understand will just be skipped, skimmed over, or

ignored by half of your recipients.

Mistake #10

Not making a plan in the

first place

Not having any communications strategy is just

as bad as having a dysfunctional one.

Organize your plan and then document it,

focusing on (among other things) the tools you’ll

use to communicate and collect feedback.

Have a goal and aim for it.

There’s a saying that goes something like this: if

you aim for nothing, you’ll hit it every time.

Don’t leave anything in your business to chance.

The communication strategies you choose impact

every area of your company, especially your

financial bottom line.

Get the results you want. Here’s the main goal of any good internal

communications strategy: turning your

employees into effective communicators that

increase your bottom line.

These two elements—effective communicators

and company profits—are directly related.

Start increasing profits. Companies with effective communicators achieved

47% higher total returns to shareholders over the

last 5 years compared to firms judged to have less

effective communications.

(Source: Edeleman Insights Comprehending Change 3.0)

Here’s the bottom line. Mastering internal communication is not only

possible but crucial to the success and

profitability of your organization. Effective

communicators increase profits.

As you consider adjusting or internal

communications strategy, make sure you

avoid these ten big mistakes.

Review: Top 10 Mistakes 1. Letting information just trickle down from the top

2. Not asking for feedback

3. Ignoring your employees’ expectations

4. Using outdated methods

5. Procrastination

6. Not repeating your message

7. Having poor email skills

8. Being a poor listener

9. Making it too complicated

10. Not making a plan in the first place

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Copyright 2014

www.vingapp.com