By empowering leaders to personalize and contextualize information, HR teams can bridge the gap between leadership and employees, transforming a reactive tactic into a measurable business strategy.
Maria Valero
Editorial Strategist, HR
Workday
Communication tactics have business-wide implications. Here’s the proof.
72% of employees reported a direct correlation between how well they understand their organization’s goals and how engaged they are at work, according to a recent study by Axios. It reveals an under-prioritized connection between what a company wants to achieve and how well they’re able to communicate it.
In the information era, where humans consume more information on a daily basis than ever, HR teams compete with countless external forces for their workforce’s attention—from news cycles and social media to personal obligations. Those external forces likely have larger pockets and more sophisticated strategies than most internal communications teams.
How you cut through the noise and deliver information matters. Organizational success hinges on employees, and if they don’t understand what’s expected of them or how their work contributes to broader organizational goals, huge amounts of productivity—and its associated opportunity cost—is left on the table.
Here’s how HR teams can tackle these communication challenges from the inside out.
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Leaders and employees aren’t aligned on internal communications. When answering the question “The communications that leaders at our organization send to employees are…”, the difference is painfully obvious:
When looking at this data, it’s important to remember that two things can be true at the same time: Leaders can be overwhelmed and doing their best to communicate effectively, while employees may also feel completely overwhelmed. The good news is, we have strategies that can help.
This isn't just about sending a memo. It’s about a fundamental connection between what a company wants to achieve and how its people feel about getting there.
Modern communication methods are certainly more effective than in the past, but the problem is often rooted in volume and personalization.
The average person consumes 16 movies worth of information daily. Information overload is the norm, so instead of trying to cherry-pick between important and unimportant information, it’s easiest to shut it all out.
On top of that, preferences amongst employees differ. Some prefer email or Slack as their primary communication channels, others like in-person meetings, and others prefer virtual town halls. Some find weekly communications daunting, while others want to amp up the frequency.
But don’t worry. The solution to this is not to hire a communication coordinator for every team at your company. It’s actually simpler than that.
When it comes to internal communications and cascading information across teams, finding a way to please everyone is not the answer. Instead, it’s about empowering leaders to personalize information that’s relevant to their employees, helping them understand how the news affects them and their roles.
This is where HR’s role is critical. We can provide the tools and guidance that enable leaders to move from simply forwarding an email to actually translating information in a meaningful way. Tailoring communication ensures that organizational communication is interpreted correctly, leaving less room for error and guaranteeing the information is received or acted on accordingly.
Think of this step in the communication process as step one in the chain of events that needs to happen to ensure alignment across functions.
If leaders aren’t able to articulate organizational communications effectively, then their team won’t be able to either.
Let’s look at an example. Leadership sends out a company-wide memo about a new sustainability initiative. The leader of the events team flags the initiative to their team in an email, and in a weekly meeting explains how the initiative applies to that team’s projects. This leads to a team member volunteering to create a guidance doc for the rest of the group on expectations for upcoming events, like using green event centers that have similar sustainability goals. That team member is now helping their team, their business, and the environment.
When employees understand their personal contribution, they feel more invested, more engaged, and more willing to put in their best work. This is the human-centric approach that fuels true business momentum.
When those mass communications happen, those forward and send buttons are tempting and may save a few seconds. But providing context and tailoring communications can have a much more profound impact on results and helps you avoid the headaches of an ineffective delivery.
Take a look at just a few potential pitfalls that you won’t have to face anymore:
85% of leaders agree that no matter what challenges they’re facing, they can make a direct impact on performance if they have team-wide understanding of organizational goals. Leaders understand the business case for an intentional approach, but what separates winning organizations from the laggards even further is organization-wide buy-in and program funding.
Will you spend your time proactively on an effective strategy, or will you spend it reactively on cleaning up the mess from a bad one?
When leaders prioritize and embed effective communications into their organizations, the tactics become measurable. And when a tactic is measurable, it turns into a strategy. By increasing comms investments, you're investing in the success of your workforce. It’s a circular effect of benefits that is tangible and most importantly, it does have an ROI.
In the business landscape, it’s never been more important to increase impact. Markets are getting more competitive and high-performing talent is harder to keep, all while budgets are slimming. Leaders have to be more intentional than ever before with every dollar.
When prioritizing initiatives, you can combat all of those realities and then some with an increased investment in your internal communication initiatives—the proof is in the data shown below from the Axios research study.
In today's competitive business landscape, it’s important to remember that the journey to effective internal communication is a marathon, not a sprint. It begins with a single, intentional step to empower leaders, which empowers their teams and your bottom line.
It's about moving beyond simply blasting information to investing in a culture of understanding and alignment. As HR professionals, you have the power to be the architects of this change in the next era of work.
By championing a people-first approach and prioritizing initiatives that empower leaders and, in turn, their employees, we can transform a fragmented workforce into one that’s unified and high performing.
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A gap between effort and impact is the real ROI problem. Discover the solution.