In 2022, Lead with the Story: Solving for Deliberately Irrelevant Internal Communications
Health care organizations often initiate self-inflicted wounds when it comes to employee engagement but now have a remedy.
People are inundated with information today. The truth is that there is more content than attention. Companies and communicators continue to blast messages and information at employees in the hope they will find them, comprehend them, act on them and move ahead with speed and agility.
For internal communicators, whose stakeholders run the gamut from the C-suite to data privacy directors and whose (important!) initiatives range from merit cycles to sweeping organizational changes, managing the type and frequency of communications is a constant dilemma. With the speed of change in modern workplaces – not to mention the impacts of COVID-19 – we’re often asking our people something they can’t really give us: their full and undivided attention. Nevertheless, companies and communicators continue to blast messages and information at employees with the best of intentions, only to realize many employees are already “working with the volume off.”
Elevating Internal Communications to a Strategic Way of Working
One reason internal communicators feel pressure to overcommunicate is that we know informed, engaged employees can be a huge competitive advantage. The more an employee knows about your organization, the better connected they are – and the easier it is for them to connect the dots for others on their teams or for their customers. But when it comes to employee communications, simply communicating more is not better. Instead, taking a rigorous strategic approach is required to equip employees with the information needed to operate a streamlined business that delivers. That strategy needs to account for your organization’s corporate goals, of course, but it should also take into account specific details about how your employees prefer to be engaged and identify ways to determine the right time, channel and cadence for communicating. And, perhaps unfortunately, ownership can’t rest solely with your communications team. It requires buy-in and active investment from your most senior leaders, especially your CEO. The communications team helps translate and provide counsel, but the ownership of both the strategy and outcomes must be shared if it’s going to stick and have an impact.
The Answer is Simple: Own the Story and Choose Your Moments Wisely!
By taking on greater ownership of communications to employees, leaders equip employees to better understand the most critical areas to focus on and permission to place everything else in the rear-view window. Every all-staff email, every monthly Town Hall, every internal blog should be thought of as a strategic way to create pathways for employees to participate in the company story as it unfolds in real time.
But it takes dedication and deft orchestration to make an impact. Put in other terms, your story/message is the opening set of a musical score that requires “internal surround sound” to maximize comprehension. The individual instruments – events, forums, live meetings, manager interactions, internal marketing and, yes, emails – need to be harmonized completely. Otherwise, your employee communications run the risk of sounding like a fifth-grade band rehearsing “Hot Cross Buns” for the hundredth time. This level of commitment – and investment – in strategic internal communications has been too low on the priority list for too many organizations for far too long.
In the end, it boils down to one question for any CEO or leader to answer regarding internal communications: “Do I believe that smart and engaged employees help me deliver real business results?” If the answer is yes, then it’s time to elevate organizational and internal communications. In 2022, we have the technology, business acumen, trust and data/insights to create a better employee experience.
Let’s take advantage of that!
