The Internal Communications Challenge

Communicating with employees is the bane of corporate life.Whether you have 50,000 employees or 5 insuring that the message sent is the message received is the toughest marketing challenge.

Why?

Because the workplace is so highly charged emotionally that clarity is almost impossible. Everyone filters each message through attitudes and emotions which change day-to-day and minute-by-minute. Because employers generally don’t level with the people who work for them. Because there are too many internal messages and little ability to frame, prioritize or target them. And because most internal messages are controlled by HR weenies who are usually clueless and officious.

The ability to clearly and forcefully transmit messages to the workforce is a critical factor in global competitiveness and employee satisfaction or retention. But go into any firm and you’ll find that the grapevine is a much faster and more credible network than official media that range from posters in the lunchroom to desktop flyers to elaborate e-mail chains and jam-packed intranets.

Employers chronically underestimate the amount and intensity of goodwill among employees. Most people want to make a difference, earn a living, enjoy their work and contribute to something bigger than themselves. There are very few real secrets inside any company. Employees know what’s going on in every dimension and consistently make the same competitive assessments and judgments that employers do.

As the social contract changes, the best employees will vote with their feet when they feel unloved, unfulfilled or oppressed by management. Employees constantly handicap the performance of their own companies. What they know about management plans, intentions and employee benefits are key data points that drive engagement, morale and performance.

Too many employers treat their work force like children by talking down to them, assuming they don’t understand global marketplace realities or by masking problems and intentions in the gobbledy-gook of corporate speak. The top-down command system of management has been broadly discredited, yet it seems to be the residual model for internal communications.

In a world where baby boomers leave the system, where retirement and healthcare benefits are severely reduced and where competition for fewer all-star performers is significantly more intense, poor internal communication will doom a company. The challenge for internal communications is to build a contact strategy that limits the number and quantity of internal messages sent and to install filters to insure that messages are clear and not subject to widespread or diverse interpretation.

Employees need clear, personal messages that are honest, straightforward, relevant to them and short. These messages have to be framed in friendly, savvy language that acknowledges what insiders’ know and feel. And they have to be targeted so that they go only to those who need to know or care about the contents.

Internal messages cannot be buried in an intranet or part of a relentless e-mail stream. Instead employers need to treat employee communications like prospect or client communications and ask the audience to set preferences for content, frequency and, channels. Only then will employers have a shot a truly mobilizing or motivating their workers.