Sixty percent of companies don't have a long-term strategy for their internal communication. Regardless of how large your organization is, it's critical to have a long-term plan for employee communication. The key to success is to be mindful of all communications across all levels of the organization — and find what's authentic and effective for both the organization and employees.
Use this checklist as a suggested step-by-step process of creating and managing a formal employee communication strategy. Components and the overall goal can also be implemented less formally at smaller organizations.
Planning
- Conduct an audit to understand the organizational structure and specific needs for communicating with employees, including:
- Mission statement
- Company values
- Company culture
- Strategic business goals
- Evaluate the need for a communication strategy (e.g., inform employees, improve employee engagement or restore employee morale)
- Identify communication stakeholders across multiple departments
- Assign dedicated communication leaders to help unify messaging, deliver a seamless experience and provide a go-to contact for employees
Developing and Implementing
- Identify organizational updates or news to communicate
- Ask the following questions about the content topic:
- What is important?
- Why is it important to employees?
- What should employees do?
- Assess current content format and tailor to new format, if necessary
- Consider available channels and identify the appropriate channel(s) for the topic
- Identify and tweak tone, if necessary, to be transparent, honest and jargon-free
- Ensure two-way communication so employees can provide feedback or ask follow-up questions
- Pay attention to the delivery and timing of the communication
- Ensure communication messaging is:
- Compelling
- Concise
- Credible
- Consistent
Measuring and Evaluating
- Identify key performance indicators (KPIs). Common KPIs include:
- Reach
- Engagement
- Feedback
- Turnover
- Other behavioral outcomes
- Organizational goals
- Set clear and trackable goals as a baseline for communication efforts
- Create and deploy employee surveys to discover employee communication benchmarks
- Evaluate communication performance and effectiveness based on KPIs
- Identify errors, gaps, improvements or successes
- Ensure employee feedback is addressed and those actions are shared with employees
- Update or enhance communication efforts and tactics as necessary
This checklist is merely a guideline. It is neither meant to be exhaustive nor meant to be construed as legal advice. It does not address all potential compliance issues with federal, state or local standards. Consult your licensed representative at Caffrey Insurance Solutions or legal counsel to address possible compliance requirements. © 2021 Zywave, Inc. All rights reserved.