Internal Communications and Employee Engagement

[Carolyn Ray]

I'm working on a presentation that speaks to the role of effective communications in enabling employee engagement - research from Watson Wyatt and Gallup has clearly demonstrated the connections between communications effectiveness and alignment and engaged employees. I'm wondering if people are seeing a trend to more collaboration on employee engagement between HR and communications, and if they can share any stories, tips or advice about what's working or not at their organization from a communications perspective. Do you want more collaboration? Is there a need for better communication to employees?

[Deri Latimer]

In every single keynote presentation, training workshop, or meeting with clients; I find this to be a common problem. Most employees feel there is moderately adequate INFORMATION but woefully inadequate COMMUNICATION. Most organizations think information IS communication. With the fast pace of today's work environment, a monologue (information) has replaced a dialogue (communication); and without a dialogue we cannot have collaboration. I recommend asking more questions than providing answers; and asking APPRECIATIVE questions which are inherently more engaging (opening up opportunities rather than creating more problems). Questions that can be very engaging are 'When are you happiest at work? What work do you find most challenging? What ideas do you have to make things better around here? What do you need from you team in order for you to be successful? How can you let them know that? What do you need to provide to them?'

[Eric Nielsen]

Carolyn,

Melcrum did an entire report on just this topic including how to build a successful partnership and how Internal communicators become great partners. http://www.melcrum.com/store/products/product.shtml?id=300000160

[Terrence Seamon]

Carolyn,
Good topic. Communication is critical to employee engagement.

I first became aware of the connection back in the 1990's when I was with a small telco that was about to be acquired by a behemoth telco. Management was very concerned about retention of key employees.

Our HR consultants advised us to use an "employee engagement" strategy. It was the first I'd heard of the term. But it made a lot of sense.

The strategy was focused on retention and involved a concerted communication campaign, featuring highly targetted messages about the benefits of the takeover.

Did it work? Yes, it did. The retention numbers were very high going into the acquisition. Not 100% but still good.

Terry

[Mario Alberto Ortiz Martínez]

I friend of mine recommended me the tjlarking web site - it shows how good communications is essential to engage people on change issues. www.larkin.biz

I expect this is helpful for you

[Hugh Flouch]

I'm not sure exactly what angle will be most helpful for you Carolyn. But I think the issue may be simillar to one in another discussion I just replied to. Hope that may be of some help.

[Karl Buchanan]

One good add would be the "Time to Trust". Great read that links trust into engagement.
Thanks
Karl

[Wayne Turmel]

Carolyn, there is definitely a need for better internal communication. I think one factor many companies overlook is the ability to use multiple types of communication depending on the message. it's not just WHAT the message is, but HOW it's communicated. In my white paper on managing and training teams across the world, we discuss Bettina Buechel's research on Richness vs. Scope... yeah I know I talk about it a lot but it's crucial to what we do at both The Cranky Middle Manager Show and Greatwebmeetings.com

If your'e interested, I've uploaded it so folks can read it here....

Thank you for starting this thread.

[Carolyn Ray]

has anyone ever seen any good, relevant articles written for a CEO/Leadership audience about how internal communications can help improve productivity, morale, commitment etc?