How To Demonstrate That Your Employee Communication Strategies Really Do Engage Employees

One of the most important aspects of employee communication today is measurement. But so much of that measurement is whether employees access the tools to communicate with them. You know, questions such as do they read the newsletter, do they access the corporate blog, do they find the information sessions interesting. None of these questions prove that your employee communication tools measure engagement. There is one key reason; you are measuring the acceptance of communication tools, not measuring employee communication strategy. So heres what you do.

Every organization conducts market research surveys. These surveys typically measure customer satisfaction levels across services and products provided by your organization. Sometimes they even ask questions about competitor product and services. Organizations then take that information and work towards improving the rating they received by introducing improvements to services, products and information.

Now many organizations have a human resources department that usually conduct a staff survey annually. And this survey typically includes questions about communication within the organization, understanding the direction, satisfaction with employee benefits and training and so on. What I suggest is that organizations include a supplementary survey of just 10 questions at the end of this survey. And these questions should be framed by selecting key questions from the customer survey and asking staff what do you think customers think about X? Typically the result demonstrates disparity between what customers think and what employees think customers think. Once you have the difference measured between perception and reality then you have the opportunity to commence dialogue about with your employees about what customers really think. Most importantly it allows you to design employee communication strategies specifically to target that area or issue and your employee communication tools can then be used to support and provide information on the actions employees are taking and the business outcomes.

Then, one year on when the customer survey is conducted, you ask the same questions and again do the same with the staff survey. What you seek to find is that the measure of the perception staff have of what customers think and what customers actually think have moved closer together and towards the organizations desired outcome.

This information is important because your ultimate aim in employee communication has to be to create the Aha Moment. The Aha Moment is based on information that challenges the employees belief about an aspect of the business. The information that suddenly helps employees say, Now it makes sense, Now I understand, Now I can do something about it

About the author: Marcia Xenitelis is a recognized authority on the subject on employee communication and has spoken at conferences around the world. Her website http://www.employeecommunicationtips.com provides a wealth of informative articles and resources.

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