Improve communication and engagement

You conduct an Employee Engagement Survey. The results are clear. In short, your organization needs to improve communications. So what does that mean? Anyone knows that communication is important. For example, you cascade information through your quarterly town hall meetings and monthly meetings with your leadership team. So where does communications fail? And, above all, what is the remedy?

Conduct a Communications Audit

Often, companies conduct a communications audit. The audit reveals a number of things:

• how people currently share information
• the types of information shared
• who delivers the information
• who receives the information
• the frequency

By understanding the current state of information flow, you can ask employees what works. Moreover, you can get their suggestions on what you can do to improve it. Be sure to evaluate information flow not only top-down, but also bottom-up and laterally. In most cases, information should be freely shared. When you make information easily available, employees can make better decisions.

Improve meetings and cascade information

Typically, after conducting a communications audit, one of the action items is to improve the flow of information from meetings. This entails improving the management of the meeting and the cascading of information from the meeting. You can apply these improvements to information flow both top-down and bottom-up.

Take a few moments to evaluate your meetings.

• Is there an agenda for each meeting?
• Are objectives for each element of the meeting listed?
• Are meeting minutes posted on flip charts–in real time–documenting all decisions made and action items?
• Do you develop a useful document at the conclusion of the meeting that clearly lists the decisions and action items?
• Is there an expectation that you distribute the cascade document within a set period of time? And when do employees discuss this information?

Improve how you structure your meetings and your processes for sharing information after meetings.

Above all, don’t leave communication up to chance. Communication is often a key driver of employee engagement. And when information gets bottled up, the organization suffers. Employees expect companies to share information with employees. Keep employees informed, so they feel like owners and are an integral part of the organization.

Contact Sheila to help you improve communication and engagement.