In tricky economic times, effective internal communications can have a vital role to play in helping to keep staff morale up and anxiety down.
All too often these days, however, communication activity can end up being focused almost exclusively online, creating the risk that workers without access to the latest social media tool or even the internet may be left out.
But developing a communications strategy aimed at hard-to-reach teams such as those on the factory floor or in the warehouse follows the same principles as with any other employee segment – it requires careful planning as well as an analysis of both channels and resources.
There are a number of distinct issues that HR directors should also take into consideration, however:
1. Know your demographics
Is your audience predominantly male or female? What generation do they belong to? What languages do they speak?
2. Understand how people spend their working day
What is their work environment like? What hours do they work? Do they get downtime between shifts or only if a machine breaks down? When and where do people gather together to take their breaks?
3. Identify how workers prefer to interact
Do you have a workforce full of tech-savvy people who spend their personal lives skipping between YouTube and Facebook? Or not? Do they use mobile phones? Would they prefer to read a print magazine during their break? Is the best option simply to put eye-catching posters next to coffee machines?
4. Establish when and where you can communicate on a face-to-face basis
For example, does your company have a monthly ‘live’ briefing event designed to help improve employee understanding? If so, is this approach working or do you need to modify it to meet time and/or space or other constraints?
5. Find out what your employees are interested in
Are they ambitious and interested in knowing about the company and its competition or focused purely on anything relating to their job and team? Do they just want short bullet points or comprehensive detail?
6. Learn who people trust
Do employees see communication from HR directors and other senior managers as useful and honest or more like corporate propaganda? Do they trust their line managers? Would peer-to-peer communication work more effectively and if so, who are the influential team members?
While some of these suggestions may sound simple, it’s surprising how easy it is to lose sight of the fundamentals, which – ultimately – would probably help communication with wired teams too. So how can you go about getting hold of all of this information? Possibilities include:
Surveys: Consider online surveys used in combination with paper-based ones or short ‘pulse’ questions that are sent to workers’ mobile phones and ask them to text back their responses.
Focus groups: Look for opportunities where people are already being brought together for events or training. You may be able to include one or two focus groups at the same time.
Individual feedback: Think about investing time in carrying out one-to-one telephone interviews or build time into your week to ‘walk the floor’, asking for feedback.
Champions and forums: Networks of staff members can be engaged to help design communication approaches that are fit-for-purpose.
Existing data: Think about who else may have data that could help?
Job-shadowing: If communication is a major challenge for the business, physically spending time in the working environment in order to watch how workers operate can be extremely helpful.
Rebecca Richmond is group director of research and content at Melcrum, a research and training company aimed at senior internal communication professionals.
