Effective communication with employees takes repetition, effort, thoughtfulness and most importantly it needs to come from the heart. Communication needs to be something leadership seek to do whenever they can rather than considering it a checkbox before getting back to the “real work” of running the business.
Here are some strategies we recommend putting in place for creating a culture of communication and alignment:
Build comfort in talking about what is not working.
Great companies focus on what is not going well so they can dig in and get better. This approach allows employees to feel they have a say in their company’s culture and their ideas are valued. Don’t be the many companies that have a culture of looking for the positives and avoiding calling out and discussing the negatives.
Answer every employee email within 24 hours.
Everyone is busy but you should always have time for communicating with employees that work hard every day to serve your customers and build your company. Your team wants to be heard and feel appreciated.
Send weekly correspondence to all employees in the company.
Every Monday try sending a personal written email to every employee in the company about things you are thinking about and important topics for the business. This kind of communication could serve as an opportunity to truly connect and engage with the entire organization.
Hold town hall meetings.
Whether you have offices in one city or nationwide, plan for travel to have face-to-face conversations with your teams no matter the size. Make sure you aren’t just lecturing. Foster a two-way candid dialog. From these town halls everyone will be able to learn a great deal about what is really happening in the business from these sessions, which can help the leadership team make better decisions.
Put on an annual senior leadership conference for your top leaders.
This type of conference is a working session where every leader and ones in the making can hear the company strategy, plans and messages together and bring the information back to their teams. An equally important value is the informal network building that takes place that enables leaders to have effective communication with each other throughout the year.
Take these strategies to begin and improve effective communication and you won’t regret the opportunity to create an environment of open, transparent dialog about the company, its progress and what everyone can do to win.