Talk with Employees Not to Employees

By Deborah Rechnitz CMA CMC


It seems that we do talk with employees everyday, but is that what we’re really doing? Consider, for a moment, the types of communication you have with your staff on a daily basis. Do you have conversations like: It’s "important" that you do something or you tell someone "to inform" them of something or to tell someone that it’s "their responsibility" to do something or possibly to ask someone "when they have time" to do something else. There is a common thread among these conversations. There is very little two way communication taking place. In fact, in most of your conversations throughout the day there may be little or no two-way conversations.

Telling people what to do and what needs to be done seems to be a major part of your job. You spend a lot of time doing it. In fact, you may find that you do this same job over and over again, day in and day out. You have feel like you are a broken record stuck in the same groove, never able to move to the next track. You may try more of the same type of communication and see no better results. Part of the problem may be, in fact, the type of communication you are having rather than the amount of it.

Is there any benefit to help everyone understand "why you do what you do"? It certainly takes a lot of time to explain the "why’s" of things. Remember when your children were very small. You would answer one question only to be asked why again and again until you lost patience and they seemed sad to end the game.

Why does asking and answering this question matter so much? Because if each of us understands the rationale behind business decisions, even very small decisions, then each of us can understand how our contributions fit within the bigger picture and ultimately how our contribution can help your business grow to even greater heights. It seems simple enough, doesn’t it? Well, sometimes the simplest sounding thing turns out to be the toughest to implement.

How would you go about implementing a new way to "talk with" your employees, a truly new communications strategy? You might want to try getting a small group of people together or even your entire staff if it is fairly small. Ask them "how" they would like to receive their communications. For instance, what would they like to know about the company, when would they like to spend time hearing about the business, does everyone around the table want to hear the same type of information, and how frequently should this news be communicated? Each of these questions has tremendous implications for both your staff and yourself.

Employees all have different levels of interest about a company. The amount of information they are interested in will have much to do with their own personal goals and priorities. Also, as information is shared, people tend to feel a part of it and continue to increase the amount that they would like to know. How much information should each staff person expect and how much information is reasonable for owners to communicate becomes a struggle, particularly for privately held firms.

Finding the time for sharing this information can be a small procedural issue or a major task as the company grows. Smaller businesses can spend the first five minutes of the day talking about timely issues such as large expected increases in seasonal volume or holidays and schedule planning. Generally, if it’s important and relevant to the individual, they’ll find the time to listen.

Not everyone wants to hear the same type of information. Some people need different information to do their jobs well. Information shared with customer service representatives may be different than information shared with pressers. Sometimes it’s the same information, but provided from a slightly different perspective and becomes more relevant to the employee listening

Finally, the frequency of this information exchange should be discussed. How frequently does the staff want these types of updates? Maybe monthly for some types of issues and more frequently on other, very timely, issues.

It’s a lot easier for small organizations to achieve good communications, to spend a few moments answering questions and discussing upcoming opportunities perhaps. Consider the difficulties of a large organization. Eastman Kodak with 85,000 plus employees has one, full time employee who does nothing but tries to improve communications internally. The company has struggled with these same issues for many years, as have countless other companies, but if Eastman Kodak can make progress, perhaps others can as well.

The real issue is changing the mindset of management. Here’s an example of how Kodak views these changes. Consider the types of communications you now have with your employees. Could the nature of their content be changed to help you grow the business and jump off the repeating track that you now find yourself?

Communication Perspectives.

From Important To inform To report what has happened Worthy of my support Someone's responsibility An organizational nicety When you have time

To Essential To lead To shape what will happen Demanding participation My Responsibility A leadership tool All the time

Do you see the difference? It is a change of mindset to move from the left side of the equation to the right. It takes a lot of very hard work to get there. In the end, if you are looking to change the way things are today to something else, it may be one of the factors that will help you get there.

Article which appeared in American Drycleaner, December 1999

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