"I Speak. You Listen."

The conventional understanding of employee communications can be summed up in four words: “I speak. You listen.”

            In other words, many people believe that employee communications is simply top-down, with messages and information emanating from senior managers for consumption by the broad mass of employees. This approach rests on a set of questionable assumptions:

• Individual employees will actually receive the message when they are supposed to receive it.
• They will fully understand it.
• They will know what to do as a result of getting it.
• They will act accordingly.

Nothing could be further from the truth. Assumptions like that are the height of arrogance and have a tendency to sneak up behind you and bite you when you least expect it. It’s never good for business. 

A hierarchy of responsibilities 

In fact, effective employee communications involves a hierarchy of responsibilities for everyone in the organization, from the CEO to the individual front line employee; a hierarchy that develops and sustains on-going dialogues, discussion and debate up, down and across the organization, among and between leadership, managers, supervisors, and employees.
            A few years ago, we were working with a client company and helped them discover the truth in this, and then helped them implement it – to their enormous benefit, I might add. The hierarchy of responsibilities we developed with them, with a few tweaks, could be adopted for any organization’s communications.
            It begins in the executive suite, with the establishment of strategy, direction toward achieving that strategy, the story behind it, and the rules of engagement – i.e., how the business and people will operate in the quest.
            For their part, managers must comprehend and activate the strategy, interpreting it for their respective teams and/or business units to make it relevant and meaningful to them, and then engage their teams regularly in discussion, dialogue and debate to make it come alive.
            Managers must also establish mid-point and end targets for their teams to aim for, how they will measure progress toward those targets, and be ready and able to adjust and adapt as events and needs dictate or unforeseen roadblocks arise.
            To this last point, that means that managers must pay attention to where the business is going, where their industry is headed, the effects of the current economy on both, and how employees are impacted.
            At the same time, managers must encourage a two-way conversation by asking employees the right questions, and jointly identifying problems, challenges, opportunities and gaps early. 

Employees take ownership 

The last segment of the hierarchy of responsibilities – that of the employees – is the one most often overlooked. In fact, without it, communications, no matter how well planned and executed, will fail.
            Employees’ responsibilities demand that they be independent thinkers. They need to be actively engaged in the business at all times, conscious of its health as well as that of its market and industry.
            Employees must be active listeners, with a strong desire for continuous learning. And lastly, rather than just bring problems to their supervisors, they must pose ideas, suggestions and solutions.
            This set of responsibilities is key. This is employee engagement.
            It’s not enough just to announce a directive that employees be engaged. Employee engagement in a healthy operation is a continuous state of affairs where information flows readily up, down and across the organization, without a lot of impediments or formalities about who can and cannot talk to whom. It’s where people feel valued, regardless of their role, where their ideas, suggestions and solutions are welcomed, even if they can’t be acted on for whatever reason.
            Employees are emotionally tied to the business, conscious of their own connection to its welfare and how their performance contributes to its success… or failure.
            It’s an organization where their good work is rewarded, not just with promotions and pay increases but also with recognition and acknowledgement, or maybe just a simple “thank you” when it’s called for.
            In the end, isn’t that why we do what we do – to contribute to and be part of a healthy, thriving organization, and be appreciated for it?