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Effective Communication with Employees

Good staff communication is essential to business success. At the most basic level, employees who don't know what's expected of them seldom perform to their potential. "You can tie back almost every employee issue -attendance, morale, performance, and productivity -to communication," says Fred Holloway, an HR adviser in Medford, Oregon. According to a study by the consultants Watson Wyatt companies that communicate effectively are far more likely than companies that don't to report high levels of "employee engagement" and lower levels of turnover. The bottom line for these effective communicators, according to the study: a market premium of nearly 20 percent.

And yet, human nature being what it is, workplace communication is rarely adequate -- and could almost always be better. The good news is that you don't have to be an extrovert, or even particularly nurturing, to foster healthy communication at your company. You simply need the will to improve it. Mostly, you need to be honest, show respect to employees, and work on building trust, without which employees tend to put up a filter and what you say doesn't matter.

 

1. Create the Culture

Above all else, to the extent possible, strive to be transparent and straightforward about the challenges of your business and even about your company's financials. Such candor fosters trust and understanding. "Your employees know you make more money than they do," says Bloomington, Illinois, HR consultant Rick Galbreath. "What they don't understand is that you take more risk. They won't be able to understand the risk until they understand the business."

Schedule informal communication. The simplest way to put yourself in the mindset to communicate, says Galbreath, is to put it on your calendar. In addition to the scheduled activities below, he recommends spending 15 minutes each day, more if you can spare it, on "nontransactional conversation" with underlings. By nontransactional, Galbreath means exchanges that don't have a specific purpose, like a request to do something.

Meet one on one. Informal confabs with the people who report to you, held at least biweekly, serve as excellent occasions to check on their progress as well as identify problems before they blister, and so can be a powerful motivational tool. Galbreath also recommends occasional (once or twice a year) skip-level meetings with individual employees two or more levels down. Besides making sure the boss is not isolated at the top, skip-level meetings are a morale booster. "People are very complimented that a boss two levels up wants to talk with them," says Galbreath. "They're often turned into retention interviews."

Meet in groups. A brief team huddle at the start of the day or the shift is a good way to discuss the goals, challenges, or operating plan for the day. A huddle should be just that, conducted standing in an open space; it should not last more than 10 or 15 minutes. (Pass-down memos, stored in a network folder, can be used to report the events of one shift to the next.) Then, every quarter, a large-group or companywide meeting can serve as a sort of state-of-the-business update, says Galbreath.



The meeting should last about an hour and include a question-and-answer session. If the company culture discourages searching questions, they can be submitted anonymously in advance, says Galbreath. Finally, occasional "lunch and learn" gatherings are good for a less formal discussion of the company, for introducing new products and strategies, or for most any other ancillary subject you want to broach.

 


Date: 2015-01-12; view: 866


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