The 5 Keys to Effective Employee Communication
In most organizations, there is significant opportunity to enhance and sustain your employee engagement with employee communications as the keystone and hallmark of your people strategy. How do organizations overcome the challenges to effective employee communications? Here are the 5 keys.
Employee communications is the “keystone” to employee engagement. Just like the keystone is the critical component and the centerpiece in architecture, communication is the vital component that provides structure, strength, and stability to any organization.
So how solid are your employee communications? Is your communications strategy central to your employee engagement efforts? Would your employees say that overall communications are a key strength as an organization? Is the communication and messaging consistent and does it support every part of the organization? Does the communication provide clarity and stability in times of uncertainty, change, and crisis?
In most organizations, there is significant opportunity to enhance and sustain your employee engagement with employee communications as the keystone and hallmark of your people strategy.
However, there are a number of factors that impact outstanding employee communications efforts:
Who owns the overall strategy, coordination, and effective execution of employee communications in your organization?
Are employee communications a planned strategy or a reactive, ad-hoc task sent as needed?
Employee’s communication needs, expectations and requirements have and will continue to change.
Communication is both an art and science that continually evolves and requires a dedicated focus to stay abreast of best practices and changes in technology and tools.
So how do organizations overcome the challenges to effective employee communications?
“Be Intentional” about elevating employee communications to your #1 employee engagement strategy and make it a competitive advantage for your organization.
“Get Real” about the perception and real impact of your current state employee communications efforts.
“Reimagine It” based on your identified current state. Leverage your strengths and reimagine your gaps and weaknesses. Make changes quick and visible so the organization can see the importance and reap the rewards.
“Own It” Who will ultimately own and have accountability for the sustained success of your reimagined employee communication strategy and ongoing efforts?
“Evaluate It” Continual measurement of impact and effectiveness of your employee communications efforts will ensure the investment of time and resources are delivering results with every interaction.
So is employee communication the keystone in your employee engagement or it is the weak link that needs to be enhanced?
As we have noted here, and found through our work with clients, communication is the most important step to begin increasing employee engagement and easily generates to biggest “bang for you buck”. Contact us today at info@cornerstonelearning.com and let us partner with you to strategically enhance your employee communications.
Relics of Bygone Eras - 2nd Edition - Employee Communications (Part III)
In this last segment, we will outline the 5 keys to creating a highly effective communication strategy. Don’t wait any longer. It’s time for your organization to turn employee communications into a dynamic competitive advantage and highly effective employee engagement and retention strategy.
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Making it Happen – The Employee Communication Advantage
To conclude our series on Relics of a Bygone Era - Employee Communications, we want to provide a blueprint for employee communication success.
In our first two updates of this series, we highlighted why organizations historically receive low ratings in all employee survey results in the area of employee communications. We also discussed what can be done to turn employee communications from a deficient advantage to a competitive advantage.
In this last segment, we will outline the 5 keys to creating a highly effective communication strategy.
Be Intentional - Make elevating and sustaining employee communications your #1 employee engagement strategy and focus.
Get Real – To get better we have to admit we have a problem. Start by gaining input and feedback from the employees so you can get real with effort, time and resources the organization will need to better meet the communication needs and expectations.
Reimagine It – Armed with the feedback on what employees desire, reimage and develop a vision and plan that meets the demands and requirements for a next generation employee communication strategy.
Own It – There has to be clear ownership and accountability to your reimagined employee communications strategy. It can be an internal resource or align with an external partner that is responsible for ensuring your employee communications sustained success.
Evaluate/Measure It –Success can only be achieved, and more importantly, sustained if employee communication actions and activities are continually evaluated and measured with a commitment to refining and adjusting course along the way. Employee’s needs and requirements continually change, as do the communication tools, technology and platforms that facilitate and enable effective employee communications.
Don’t wait any longer. It’s time for your organization to turn employee communications into a dynamic competitive advantage and highly effective employee engagement and retention strategy.
And for more detailed information about how to truly transform your employee communications, check out https://www.cornerstonelearning.com/engagement-communication.
For free engagement and performance resources head over to our Resource Vault!
Relics of Bygone Eras - 2nd Edition - Employee Communications (Part II)
How do you begin to shift employee communications from a tactical, primarily ad hoc exercise, with little to no coordination or consistency into a highly effective, dynamic, well-orchestrated, strategic competitive advantage? Find out here.
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Turn Employee Communications into a Competitive Advantage
’Tis the season where 2021 organizational goals are created and finalized. Let us add one to your 2021 list that will have a positive, lasting impact on your organization, guaranteed!
As we mentioned in our update, change will occur when organizations view their employee communications as an opportunity to create a competitive advantage and communication becomes the strategic vehicle through which we continually connect our people to our culture, values, purpose, goals, objectives and priorities. The essential elements that make up the fabric of any organization.
So how do you begin to shift employee communications from a tactical, primarily ad hoc exercise, with little to no coordination or consistency into a highly effective, dynamic, well-orchestrated, strategic competitive advantage?
First, the vision and goal for employee communications must shift and elevate to a strategic discussion and be provided with the necessary investment of time and dedicated resources. Without a vision and no dedicated resources, employee communications will always struggle to meet the expectations and growing needs of your employee base.
The need for, and access to information has dramatically increased over the last 5-8 years with technology and social media leading the way, setting a tremendously high bar for how we communicate, the speed at which we communicate and the various mediums to communicate.
Companies and organizations need to invest in either developing internal resources or looking to external communications expertise that have the responsibility to own, drive and measure effective employee communications plans and strategies.
Organizations can no longer do it alone, working in reactive silos. It is imperative there is a proactive and coordinated communication strategy that looks to continually inform, educate, motivate and engage each and every employee.
In our next update of this series we will outline a blueprint for employee communication success. Join us next time!
And for more detailed information about how to truly transform your employee communications, check out https://www.cornerstonelearning.com/engagement-communication.
For free engagement and performance resources head over to our Resource Vault!
Connecting the Employee Training Disconnects
The amount of work (and revenue) lost due to a sluggish performance environment alone ought to shock organizations into focusing more on employee engagement. According to Gallup, disengaged employees have 37% higher absenteeism, 18% lower productivity and 15% lower profitability. When that translates into dollars, you're looking at the cost of 34% of a disengaged employee's annual salary, or $3,400 for every $10,000 they make. With that, employee engagement is quite literally valuable to every organization.
What makes one organization more successful than the next? Usually that gets defined by the revenues brought in, the growth of those revenues year over year, how long a dividend has been distributed to its shareholders, and so on. And while those things can certainly be a barometer for success, those are the outcomes. But those are not what actually makes any organization successful. The easy, to the point answer is the organization's people, the employees, management, etc. But all organizations have people. So if the people are what makes an organization successful and all organizations have people, I'll ask the question again. What makes one organization more successful that the next?
The largest difference between an average organization and some of the most successful ones comes down to employee engagement. If the employees are engaged, the work is done more efficiently and the performance of the organization thrives. The amount of work (and revenue) lost due to a sluggish performance environment alone ought to shock organizations into focusing more on employee engagement. According to Gallup, disengaged employees have 37% higher absenteeism, 18% lower productivity and 15% lower profitability. When that translates into dollars, you're looking at the cost of 34% of a disengaged employee's annual salary, or $3,400 for every $10,000 they make. With that, employee engagement is quite literally valuable to every organization. As the leaders in elevating employee engagement, we talk alot about the Three Keys to Engagement: Employee Communication, an ELO performance environment, and creating a career of engagement for all employees through a Triboarding process, but there is another piece that builds engagement and tends to "fly under the radar". One that organizations, previously and especially now in our new "Will they, won't they, let's do hybrid!" workplace scenarios, tend to struggle with and provide adequately to employees.
Training. Dun dun dunnnn! Yes, training. Training is critical to employee engagement. According to a study conducted by the Dale Carnegie Training Center, 40% of employees leave the job within the year due to poor training. Through training you should be connecting your people to the organization and its mission and purpose (Here's a little more information on organizational purpose), connecting your people to their jobs by building capability and capacity within them, and connecting your people to themselves through continuous opportunities for learning and personal growth.
However, training isn't always easy, as most organizations fully realize, and the majority of the issues surrounding employee training were already present and have only been exacerbated by the COVID-19 outbreak. What are the issues with employee trainings? That list truly depends on your organization, but here are the top four issues we have found to be fairly universal from organization to organization.
Geographic dispersion of employees and the expertise.
Having your employee population and the training expertise dispersed geographically creates multiple isses for employee training. First of all, let's start with the numbers. It's just plain expensive to conduct in-person trainings around the country or globe. There are instructor time and fees, travel time and fees, time the employees are having to spend out of the office and away from their actual jobs, space or training sites, and so on. It all adds up. Secondly, it makes it difficult to schedule trainings. Depending on the organization and how far the employees are dispersed, there will likely need to be multiple trainings at multiple training sites and getting all required employees scheduled for those trainings tends to be a nightmare. The next issue is the different leadership, cultures and areas of expertise that come with multiple trainings. This can, and most of the time does, lead to some inconsistencies that ultimately leads to confusion and employee frustration. And lastly, building off the last one, it tends to create a lack of connection between the employees and the organization's mission since not all employees are receiving the same training.
Opportunity
The trend of geographically disperse employees and experts is only going to increase as organizations realize they are no longer tied to talent is already located near their location or talent that is willing to move or travel. Fortunately, with technology, we are able to move past this barrier relatively easily. Online employee training gives us an excellent, and proven, option for training all our employees easier. It is much more cost-effective (no more travel and site costs), employees can complete the training on a schedule that is convenient for them, and all the employees are receiving the same training, no more inconsistencies. And as for the expertise, you can now find and work with the top talent around the globe for creating and leading online trainings without having to worry about and major scheduling. They can either help develop the training content or actually lead online session conversations at any time.
Existing trainings have to be too broad to be beneficial.
This issue is fairly simple and straight forward. The majority of employee trainings, in order to be cost effective, have to be created to cover broad topics, but in doing so lack the ability to be truly transformative, engaging and, quite frankly, beneficial. If your organization does provide in-depth, customized trainings, then a tip of the cap to them for recognizing the valuable need to provide this to the employees. This is rare and should not be taken for granted.
Opportunity
By turning to online training, you can produce high quality, customized and targeted trainings at a much cheaper cost. These targeted trainings, specifically developed for your organization and your people, provide a much richer learning experience as your employees can now take courses that are specifically tailored to their jobs and careers. And don't forget, a richer, more transformative learning experience creates more highly engaged employees. If they feel like their development is being poored into, it gives them a huge incentive to poor it back into the organization.
Trainings either do not exist where needed or there is an overload of generic trainings provided.
This issues tends to go in two directions. For in-house training there just isn't enough resources to be able to create targeted trainings, either in-person or online. An employee wants to learn how to better understand an accounting process, that's great! However, for such a specific request, the likelyhood of an organization having put together a training speficially for that procees is slim to none. On the other side, organization's today tend to rely on services such as LinkedIn Learning or Skillsoft to provide employees with a plethora of options for training to use at their disposal. These can be excellent tools, but what about the employee that wants to learn about an accounting process. Maybe their is something within the training platform about AN accounting process, but is it tailored to YOUR organization. I don't think so. So then you're left with an abundant amount of information, but a general lack of actual organizational-specific knowledge for employees to avail themselves of.
Opportunity
When, as an organization, we don't have certain trainings or the trainings we do have don't cover the content needed or wanted, who should we turn to in order to find out what is needed? Our people, that's right. Our people are absloutely our most valuable resource, and the knowledge and information that can be gained from them is quite literally infinite. All we have to do is ask. One of our mottos is if you want better employee engagement, you better engage your employees. Engaging them in something as simple as coming up with a list of organizational specific trainings increases employee engagement by instilling a sense of ownership and also gives you the information you're needing. Win-win. Once the content needed is discovered, turning that content into online training is the quickest and most cost-effective way to turn the feedback you have received into change. Employees want results. One of the most disengaging actions we see within organizations is non-action. Whether it's annual survey feedback or something as simple as a generated list of productive trainings, if nothing comes from it, what do you think the employees are going to hear the next time you ask for feedback? Probably crickets.
Continuous improvement of trainings is too slow or nonexistent.
I know we have all been through harrassment trainings or videos that look and feel as if the individuals are from the 90's. Well, that's because they are. And there is a reason companies tend to throw the same trainings at employees year after year, it's expensive to updated live or video trainings. They have to be re-thoughtout, re-written, essentially everything has to be re-done. And that takes time and money. And that's just for the trainings that actually do (eventually) get updated. There are some in-house trainings that never do. The information isn't outdated or irrelevant, so what's the point? Employee engagement. Just like a loaf of bread thats been left out for a week, training gets stale...and eventually moldy. That's just not a great way to recruit top-tier talent or retain the talent you do have. Trainings should be updated at least every few years to give it a fresh look. And back to the training services like Skillsoft, you can't update it. You're at the mercy of the training provider. 'Nuff said.
Opportunity
The opportunity for a lack of continuous or non-existent training improvement is fairly simple and by now you can probably guess what it is. Yes, you're correct! Online training. Understandably, updating in-person or live trainings, is a bear. Not so with customized online trainings. An entire training or specific sections of a training can be updated in a very short amount of time and keep your wallet fat. Just looking for fresher look? Easy. Within a day or two you can have the same content wrapped in a pretty new package so employees aren't getting the same training over and over. Decide a year later you would like some accountability or a measure of course effectiveness? No problem, just throw some learning checkpoints or quizzes in there. Again, quick and easy. Online training is extremely flexible and allows you to adapt much quicker than past training formats. Make the switch to online training today.
As you begin to plan out your training, remember, providing your employees with targeted options where they can truly benefit and grow both personally and professionally is a huge boost to employee engagement. Spending the time and resources upfront to build a solid training program tailored for your employees pays major dividends on the backend. Remember the outcomes of a successful organization we mentioned at the beginning? Achieving them and sustaining them requires an investment in the people who get you there.
One final note, another issue we come across when speaking with clients is that they simply don't know how to produce online trainings. They don't have a dedicated person or team who can create them and they don't know where to beginning looking for outside help. If you find yourself in this position, we can help. We are an employee engagement consultancy at our core with the ability to develop high quality online training, so we know what truly engages your people more than a standard online training authoring company.
You bring the training, we transform it. Let us be your online training partner. Your new and existing employees get the training they need in a safer and effective format. Let us help you make the switch.
We are an employee engagement consultancy at our core with the ability to develop online training, so we know what truly engages your people more than a standard online training authoring company. Contact us today at info@cornerstonelearning.com and let us partner with you to transform your training.
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Relics of Bygone Eras - 2nd Edition - Employee Communications (Part I)
Too often you hear it in the hallways (or over conference apps, ironically) and see it on employee surveys, “We don’t communicate as a company. We send a lot of emails, but we don’t communicate.” Employee communication is truly the lifeblood of any organization. The more timely, efficient, and consistent the communication flows, the greater chance that organization thrives.
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“We Don’t Communicate”
Too often you hear it in the hallways (or over conference apps, ironically) and see it on employee surveys, “We don’t communicate as a company. We send a lot of emails, but we don’t communicate.”
Employee communication is truly the lifeblood of any organization. The more timely, efficient, and consistent the communication flows, the greater chance that organization thrives. But you already know that.
But if we know this, then why has nothing changed?
Nothing changes because for decades employee communication has been viewed as tactical, blocking and tackling, and uses a “destination model” for disseminating information. It is “Here is your information, please read it”. It might be delivered in a form of “all employee” correspondence or emails with the subject line “PLEASE READ”, or posted on internal intranets with the occasional poster created for the break room wall.
Nothing changes because organizations continue to employ these outdated tools and techniques for message distribution, and nothing will change as long as organizations continue to view communicating as a task, something that needs to “go out by this afternoon”. It’s not viewed as a comprehensive and powerful strategy that can become a true competitive advantage for the organization. Internal communications are relegated to ad hoc, as needed information dissemination.
Change will occur when organizations view their employee communications as an opportunity to create a competitive advantage and communication becomes the strategic vehicle through which we continually connect our people to culture, values, purpose, goals, objectives and priorities. The essential elements that make up the fabric of any organization.
Employee communications, fundamentally, is how alignment within organizations is achieved. It’s how employees know who we are as a company and what we value. It’s how they understand the company’s direction and goals, and it’s how employees can prioritize and align their actions and activities to the direction and success of the organization. But this type of communication can’t have just a one-and-done, “We have now communicated with and informed them, check!” mindset. It needs to be coordinated, consistent, relevant and targeted.
Next week we will outline how change can occur and where it starts. In fact, here is just a quick preview. Most organizations can’t do it alone. Join us next week!
And for more detailed information about how to truly transform your employee communications, check out https://www.cornerstonelearning.com/engagement-communication.
For free engagement and performance resources head over to our Resource Vault!
Relics of Bygone Eras - 2nd Edition - Career Development
The traditional career path of linear career progression continues to be disrupted and evolve. For decades, employees looked to their employer to develop them and provide career advancement opportunities. If they completed required in-house training courses each year and paid their dues by doing what management asked, employees could follow a [fairly] predictable career path.
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“I am in line for a promotion this next year.”
“He/She is on a career fast track.”
“I will out for the next two weeks for training.”
In the past, these were very common phases you would hear and described what most people would point to as a sign of career development. Today, you don’t hear statements like these and the future and meaning of career development is vastly different than in years past.
The traditional career path of linear career progression continues to be disrupted and evolve. For decades, employees looked to their employer to develop them and provide career advancement opportunities. If they completed required in-house training courses each year and paid their dues by doing what management asked, employees could follow a [fairly] predictable career path.
That was until competitive landscapes changed in the 80’s and forced organizations to significantly downsize, thereby limiting career advancement opportunities. The “career ladder” started to fall.
Now, as the workplace has been completely disrupted by a global pandemic, predictable career paths are nonexistent and the path to career success relies on each individual proactively identifying and cultivating their unique ability, knowledge, experience and talents that are valuable and easily transferable.
No matter where you are in the organization, from mailroom, manufacturing, finance or accounting, the sales organization to the C-suite, an individual’s career growth and success will be based on your ability to take the initiative to personally learn, grow, and develop, find opportunities to apply your unique talents, experience and knowledge that add significant value to your employer, no matter the workplace location.
Now more than ever, look to identify what unique talents and skills you possess, find opportunities to hone those skills, develop new talents and experiences and create, where possible, opportunities internally and externally to proactively step up and step in to apply those talents.
While most are waiting to see what happens next, those that accept that the future has changed forever will seize this moment and take control of their career development, chart their own path, and cultivate personal career success.
And for more detailed information about how to lead your own performance be sure to check out our Lead Where You Are book or online training! Both have greater insights and give you an actual plan to begin leading where you are.