Communication Is Not Always Good

We are constantly urging firms to communicate effectively with their employees - letting them know what is happening … and why.  This is particularly true of issues that affect those employees.

Communicating should be easy as the range of media and tools available has grown

substantially over the last couple of decades.  

However effective communication only happens when there is a real will to communicate - and to be honest and transparent.

The downsides of all this communication are that employees can be, or feel, overwhelmed and can be distracted from their real work tasks by responding to the range of communications they receive.

The sheer volume of emails, memos, instructions, progress updates and so on can outpace the ability of some employees to process and deal with it

This means that firms should establish/create:

• a clear communications strategy which sets out the kind and forms of information that should be sent to specific individuals, groups and teams;
  
  
• tools which enable staff to mange multiple inboxes in a coherent and coordinated way;
  
  
• training programmes for staff in how to manage multiple messages;
  
  
• an audit programme to check on what messages are actually being sent to which individuals and groups and whether this pattern of activity is in line with the agreed strategy.

A little initial planning could save a lot of time subsequently and ensure that staff are not distracted from their real work - and yet are kept fully engaged and informed.