15 tips for effective employee communication

Management guru Patrick Lencioni, in his book “The Three Big Questions for a Frantic Family,” pointed out that many of us spend a lot of time and energy developing strategic plans for our businesses, but fly by the seat of our pants with our families.

A similar phenomenon takes place within businesses. Many organizations plan tirelessly for how to best engage their external audiences: customers, investors, media, analysts, and community members.

Often, they forget their most important constituency: their employees, the people who have the most control over the future of the organization.

High-performing organizations make employee communications a priority. They know an engaged workforce makes for a more successful organization. And to engage employees, they understand the need to communicate strategically with them.

Gallup has an employee engagement survey that is widely used. Employees are split into three categories: engaged, not engaged, and actively disengaged. Generally, nationwide, Gallup finds that about a quarter of employees are engaged and about 20 percent are actively disengaged. That leaves more than half of the employees on the fence, neither engaged nor disengaged.