When it comes to creating great employee experiences, communication matters — a LOT. In fact, almost every organization the ethOs team works with on improving their company culture struggles with the best ways to communicate with employees without overwhelming them with endless messages.

Through our discovery process, leaders take a step back and consider the experiences they want their teams to have, and that’s often when they realize that what and how they’re communicating isn’t aligning with their end goal.

Communicating in an Over-Communicated World

Let’s face it, from the moment you open your eyes, you’re bombarded with information. The average American takes in about 34 gigabytes of information every day, which equates to 100,000 words. We’ve learned to pick and choose the information we pay attention to by quickly identifying if and how it is relevant to our own lives.

At ethOs, one of the ways we help clients create their ideal workplace culture is by customizing their communication frameworks. We’ve found the basis of creating and sharing information employees actually pay attention to has to do with understanding who is receiving the message. This includes knowing your employee demographics (age, location, job position, etc.) and tailoring communications in ways that increase the likelihood they’ll see and retain it.

When you understand who you’re talking to, you are better able to craft messages that are relevant to diverse audiences and distribute it in ways they are more likely to pay attention (video, email, newsletters, etc.).

Tips for Communicating Successfully

Here are just a few of our tips for communicating effectively as an organization.

Use a Consistent Voice Internally and Externally

Establishing familiarity comes from a consistent brand voice and personality felt within every communication an organization releases. Whether through advertising, internal memos, social media posts, or employee announcements, every brand message shares the same personality.

For example, some organizations craft messages using very professional and straightforward content, while others are more casual, conversational, and even humorous. Your brand voice can take on any personality; it just depends on how your leaders want people inside and outside of the organization to experience and feel about the brand itself.

Make the Information Count

Not only are we receiving information every waking second, but modern technology also makes it possible for information to be personalized to every person. Anymore, it’s important for consumers to understand quickly how the information they’re receiving affects their own life.

Too often, organizations create messages based on how the information affects the organization itself, when it really needs to hit on why the information is important to each person receiving it. The message needs to be very clear about who needs to hear it, and why or how it’s relevant to them.

This also means that every message might not be relevant to every employee. Just be intentional about pointing out how the content you’re sharing can help the recipients who may use it purposefully.

Communication Is More Than Email

Instead of sending out one companywide email with 20 bullet points of information, there are several other options for sharing smaller pieces of information at different touchpoints.

Email can absolutely be used to share three or four bullet points, but you should consider saving some of the other information to share the next day in, perhaps, a short video. A few days later, you could distribute a brief newsletter with interesting images, links, and four topics with just one sentence of explanation.

We’ve also helped clients create internal information “hubs,” where important website links or documents are housed for easy reference when employees find time to look into something of interest.

Another quick information touchpoint could be a simple postcard left on desks as a brief reminder about information or events. By mixing up the ways you communicate, you avoid diluting important information by overloading recipients all at once.

Videos Are Easy and Effective

Interestingly, many organizations chose to communicate through the pandemic with videos and have found it continues to be effective! In fact, we’ve heard from some clients that they stopped using video messages when people came back to the office, but employees have requested it back. Videos can be quick to produce and watch — available on smartphones and computers wherever you are or can just be listened to when eyes can’t be on a screen in the moment.

Sharing Information That’s Convenient, Relevant, and Fun

Planning all your communications and breaking them up into various messages may sound like more work, but it doesn’t have to be. In fact, sharing smaller bundles of information means you can do it in more efficient and creative ways.

We’ll continue to explore the role communications play in influencing the employee experience in future blogs. As always, if you need our help to better understand the communication tools you already have at your fingertips or identify new ones that work for your specific organization, let us know!