Projections Inc

The 5 Highly Contagious Employee Communication Illnesses

How to avoid the 5 most common diseases found in employee communications

With so many avenues and styles of communication available, it can be hard to determine the best way for your message to reach your audience. We’ve noticed five highly infectious communication "illnesses" that often cripple business productivity. How can you diagnose and treat these illnesses? Our experts have the solutions.

1. Irregular Communicenza

This is the result of poor communication, and it is characterized by employee rumors and/or confusion. A company can contract irregular communicenza due to poor information flow among executives, managers, and employees, or a failure to deliver consistent, effective messages.

Communicenza includes:

Hyper-communicenza: An overload of information. Too much information can overwhelm employees and make it difficult to know what to listen to.

Hypo-communicenza: A lack of communication, found in organizations paralyzed by bad information they don’t want to share.

Partial communicenza: Only receiving parts of information. These communication gaps often fuel guessing games, which may cause employee fear and desperation.

If your organization suffers from irregular communicenza, act quickly. Identify it and develop a company-wide strategy to communicate more effectively with your employees.

2. Audience Amnesia

This occurs when you create a message without considering the audience. The audience is one of the most significant factors in shaping a message. If you ignore their needs and preferences, the message won’t be received properly.

To ward off audience amnesia, Josh Greenberg, president of Alphameasure, a leader in designing surveys to help organizations measure employee satisfaction and engagement, suggests that you assess the diversity of your organization. Consider the importance of family members, cultural differences, location, and other differing factors, and create multiple messages to reach everyone effectively.

3. Union-phobia

For some executives, the mere mention of the word "union" is terrifying. However, fear and avoidance of the "u-word" makes your company vulnerable to possible unionization.

To strengthen your organization from the effects of union-phobia, openly and honestly inform your employees of your organization’s union-free philosophy. Walter Orechwa, CEO of Projections, Inc., a leader in custom employee communications, encourages leaders and managers to communicate their union-free philosophy with employees from day one. Projections offers information on the benefits of remaining union free, including custom videos, eLearning tools, and articles, which can boost your organization’s immunity to unionizing efforts.

4. Pseudo-listening

This occurs when management fails to listen actively to employee needs and concerns. Kenneth R. Johnson, founder of WAGIC, Inc., a provider of product development and logistics services, notes that we often fail to listen because we mentally rehearse our responses, concentrate too much on our own experiences, or focus on being right.

Speaking is only half of a strong communication strategy; active listening is the other half. To prevent pseudo-listening from plaguing your company, you must develop and improve your active listening skills.

5. Erratic Messaging

This occurs when organizations send employees messages that are not in line with the company’s philosophy; when management sends employees conflicting messages; or when company messages are delivered inconsistently to employees in different geographic regions.

To avoid erratic messaging, ensure your internal and external messages are consistent. During a networking call with the Great Place to Work® Institute, Inc., Lee Weinstein, Nike’s director of internal global communication, revealed several methods Nike used to deliver consistent messaging, including an HTML newsletter. The newsletter featured links to stories, speeches, videos, and even new commercials before were released to the public.

Honest, effective, and consistent communication among all members of an organization is critical to your organization’s health. If you are concerned that your organization is suffering from one or more of these communication illnesses, let Projections, Inc., help you develop a custom communication solution to restore your company’s health.

Projections has been helping companies communicate with employees for more than 3 decades. CEO Walter Orechwa believes in working with the Human Resources and Labor Relations experts that help those companies maintain positive employee relations. For more information on the video, web, and eLearning resources Projections offers, please visit their website at www.ProjectionsInc.com

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