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Employee Communication: 5 Ways To Measure The Impact On Business Outcomes
Guest articles > Employee Communication: 5 Ways To Measure The Impact On Business Outcomes
by: Marcia Xenitelis
If you are involved in employee communication then you already know that one
of the most important aspects of employee communication today is measurement.
But so much of that measurement is focused on whether employees access the tools
organizations use to communicate with them. You know, questions such as do they
read the newsletter, do they access the corporate blog, do they find the
information sessions interesting. None of these questions prove that your
employee communication tools measure engagement which is what every CEO wants to
know. There is one key reason; you are measuring the acceptance of communication
tools, not measuring employee communication strategy. So here’s what you do. 1. Every organization conducts market research surveys. These surveys typically measure customer satisfaction levels across services and products provided by your organization. Sometimes they even ask questions about competitor products and services. Organizations then take that information and work towards improving the rating they received by introducing improvements to services, products and information. Now many organizations have a human resources department that usually conduct
a staff survey annually. This survey typically includes questions about
communication within the organization, understanding the corporate vision,
satisfaction with employee benefits and training and so on. What I suggest is
that organizations include a supplementary survey of just 10 questions at the
end of this survey. And these questions should be framed by selecting key
questions from the customer survey and asking staff what do you think customers
think about X? These 10 questions in effect become your employee communication
engagement measure. 2. Typically the result demonstrates disparity between what customers think
and what employees think customers think. Once you have the difference measured
between perception and reality then you have the opportunity to commence
dialogue about with your employees about what customers really think. Most
importantly it allows you to design employee communication strategies
specifically to target that business issue. So now you have a business and know
the key messages for your employee communication strategy. 3. One year on when the customer survey is conducted, you ask the same
questions and again do the same with the staff survey. What you seek to find is
that the measure of the perception staff have of what customers think and what
customers actually think have moved closer together and towards the
organizations desired outcome. This becomes your business measure of whether you
have engaged employees. 4. This information is important because your ultimate aim in employee
communication has to be to create the “Aha Moment”. The Aha Moment is based on
information that challenges the employee’s belief about an aspect of the
business. The information that suddenly helps employees say, “Now it makes
sense”, “Now I understand”, “Now I can do something about it”. It is only once
you see this gap close between what customers actually think about an issue and
what employees think the customer thinks that you have a measure that
demonstrates your employee communication engagement strategy has been
successful. If the gap still exists then the design of your employee
communication strategy is flawed in someway. 5. Finally, it is important that we measure employee communication tools such as readership of our staff magazine, access of our intranet and other tools. However the only way to impact perceptions of the value that the employee communication function contributes to an organization is to measure engagement strategies against business outcomes. This approach to measurement is low cost. The investment in the human
resources staff survey and the marketing departments’ customer research is
already locked in. You are simply adding 10 questions to the end of the human
resources survey based on the marketing questions. The engagement strategies are
generally low cost because they involve people, not tools. By this I mean that
employees are involved in doing something differently to bring about change in
an organization. The staff newsletter and other information tools already exist,
all you do is tailor the articles to reflect the main focus of your employee
engagement strategy. This low cost yet highly effective approach will ensure
that you can measure your employee communication strategies against business
outcomes. About the author: Marcia Xenitelis is a recognized authority on the subject
on employee communication and has spoken at conferences around the world. For
more information on the types of employee communication strategies you can
implement to engage employees visit her website
www.employeecommunicationtips.com for a wealth of informative articles and
resources. Contributor: Marcia Xenitelis Published here on: 7-Oct-07 Classification: Business, Communications Website: www.employeecommunicationtips.com MSWord: EmployeeComm5W.doc |
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| Home | Top | Quick Links | Settings | |
Main sections: | Disciplines | Techniques | Principles | Explanations | Theories | |
Other sections: | Blog! | Quotes | Guest articles | Analysis | Books | Help | |
More pages: | Contact | Caveat | About | Students | Webmasters | Awards | Guestbook | Feedback | Sitemap | Changes | |
Settings: | Computer layout | Mobile layout | Small font | Medium font | Large font | Translate | |
| Home | Top | Menu | Quick Links | |
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