Employee communications don’t have to be taxing or time consuming for you or your workers. Each year, you try to optimize the work culture you’ve been developing. This will require specific goals and a strategic planning process. However, an effective communication strategy is the piece that binds it all together.
Time will come to review and revamp your yearly employee communications plan. Such a plan should involve smart tactics and key messages. It should also include feedback and analysis to truly determine what your strengths and weaknesses are. Eventually, you will have a solid foundation that immediately wins the attention of your workforce.
Your internal communications must be clear and give employees added incentives to stick around. This should be one of the first things you prioritize in your annual planning.
Establish Clear Objectives
No one in an organization wants to be doing boring tasks without any real purpose. Work should have some meaning and end game within it. Your business should be prioritizing value add in every aspect. By establishing clear objectives, you provide the value that motivates employees to work harder and smarter for you.
Setting goals is not enough. You should be straightforward about what the objectives mean for your business. Your tactics and strategies will have a clear direction, and employees will be able to ask more definitive questions as well as come up with meaningful solutions.
Once that is established, communicate. Ensure employees know their role in supporting organizational strategy, show that you’re a trusted information source and encourage feedback.
Get Leadership to Buy In
When you create an annual employee communications plan, you also need to successfully attract key stakeholders and senior management. You determine how it will engage employees and provide value to the organization and improve productivity levels. You must now justify the purpose of your strategy. The more you can validate the plan and support the value drivers you’ve put in the plan, the more support you will receive from higher ups.
Make sure you invite these leaders and stakeholders to participate in the communications planning process. Involving their insight while collaborating and compromising at various points can make your communications strategy more effective and generate the kind of buy in you need from upper management.
Organize Your Workload
Another advantage of prioritizing employee communications in your annual planning process is that you’re able to establish greater discipline in managing your workload. With contrasting priorities, HR departments have to find a way to streamline their communications without compromising their responsibilities.
A strong plan lets you determine when and how often communications will occur while also outlining whose primary responsibility is to establish these connections. Define clear communications expectations and roles by outlining the communication approach and how you plan to measure the impact of your approach once it’s been implemented. You can use surveys, form focus groups and analyze newsletter metrics to determine the success of your communications plan.
Annual planning can be an exciting time to reinvent your employee experience and set new goals for next year. Employee communication is a vital part of the planning experience.
