Five steps to help shape your employee engagement and experience strategy and plan.
Step 1. Understand your audience’s needs
If you don’t invest time in ‘pre-research’ your audience’s needs, you might just as well start every communication with the words ‘to whom it may concern.’ In fact, you’d do well to find out what their concerns are.
What are the hot topics of conversation in the workplace? Find out what they know now, what they need to know and how they like to get their information.
Of course, you may have a number of audiences with distinct and differing needs, in which case you should segment them in order to meet their bespoke requirements.
Step 2. Be super clear about what you need to communicate
Before you even think of communicating anything with the workforce, you’d better get your story straight. What are the three to five overarching messages you want your colleagues to understand and act upon? And what detail will they need under each of those key messages?
Of course, the work you’ve done at step one, will help you meet the bespoke needs of your different audiences. We recommend you create a short written ‘key message manifesto’ and get it signed off by leaders. This helps create clear, consistent and compelling communications; aligning everything you, or anyone else, communicates.
Step 3. Create a plan based on outcomes
All too often we see well-intentioned communications calendars, stuffed full of channels, masquerading as a strategy. While calendars are important, we recommend you think through what you want each of your differing audiences to actually be doing in the context of your key messages – and by when.
In other words, focus on the outcomes. Having done this, you are better placed to then create the communications calendar, including the audience-specific channels, and when they are to be deployed – to achieve your desired outcomes. In an ideal world, your calendar should also take account of other messaging – to avoid clashes.
Step 4. Adopt the right style and tone
You’ve thought through what your varying audiences’ needs are. You’ve worked out what you need to say to them. And you’ve worked through the outcomes you’re looking to deliver and the comms plan that will make all this happen. Now it is time to ensure you adopt the right style and tone for each channel you intend to deploy.
A one size fits all approach rarely works, so echo how your audience likes to receive their information. Remember it is your audiences’ needs we are trying to meet, not those of your senior leaders.
Step 5. Measure what is working – and what isn’t
Effective communication must be two-way – more dialogue than diatribe.
The most effective way to find out if a colleagues understand your strategy and key messages is… to ask them!
It doesn’t have to be a full-on employee opinion survey, a small ‘Sounding Board’ might suffice, or use an employee engagement app such as Engage.
Whatever you do, do it regularly and check for understanding, not just whether someone actually received your communication. And check the extent to which the outcomes you identified in step three are being achieved. If they are… great, tell your bosses! If they aren’t, then you can take appropriate corrective action.
If you would like our help in taking these five steps and more, we would be delighted to hear from you. Contact us today!
