It’s no surprise to internal communications professionals that People Managers can sometimes be considered the frozen middle – the space in a communications cascade framework that sits between leaders and employees. Our role is to constantly warm this frozen middle with consistent and proactive internal communications. This is always a key success factor of any enterprise change, transformation program or initiative. There is plenty of data to support this approach as you can see from this Gallup article.
To support with communicating this business case for effective and timely communications strategy development, Here are a few important datapoints you can share with your leaders:
- 7% of U.S. workers strongly agree that communication is accurate, timely and open where they work.
- 26% of employees strongly agree that their manager’s feedback helps them do better work.
- 22% strongly agree that their leaders have a clear direction for the organization.
- Four out of five start looking for a new job when they get negative feedback from a manager.
The case is clear, however where do we start? Be sure to employ an audience-centric communications strategy development method. Only when we surface the concerns of our audiences today, can we proactively message and communicate what matters most. Once employees concerns are addressed, then they will listen and act.