If you’re like most home builders, you want employees who consistently strive to fulfill your company’s goals and mission. Yet, chances are that poor organizational communication is preventing that from happening. As a follow up to last month’s article on employee engagement, I want to expand on that topic and provide some more useful ideas for improving engagement within your organization.

I once worked with a home builder who was introducing an organizational change that included the creation of a new executive management team. Since its inception, the company had been led by the owner and his COO partner. Both of them wanted to transition into retirement over the next five years, so they decided to establish an executive management team to groom potential successors and gradually turn over leadership of the company to the executive team. Without this change, the partners realized the future of the business was at risk.

As I consulted with the builder, I conducted several internal interviews to gather information from various stakeholders before the planned change in leadership was announced. I discovered that the majority of the employees did not really know the company’s strategy and mission. Another discovery was the employees’ lack of confidence in any major shift in the organization, because “they’ve tried this before and it didn’t work.”

When I asked the partners how they planned to introduce the re-organization and the new executive management team, their response was, “We thought we would write a letter and send it out via e-mail. Then, when we have our all-employee meeting in a couple of months, we can talk about it again.” That’s when I put on my executive coaching hat and helped them understand that a comprehensive communication plan is as important as the organizational change itself.

My first task was to help the partners design a communications plan that would engage employees, align their behavior with the company’s goals, and inspire them to do their best work. This process began with reintroducing the builder’s strategy, vision, and mission. Although these “critical communication points” were well-crafted and spot-on with the builder’s focus on quality, customer service, community involvement, and sustainable building, their meaning was not present in the day-to-day communication with employees. They existed on the home builder’s website, in marketing materials, and on signage throughout the office and sales centers; however, employees never made the connection between the company’s vision and mission and their own role and performance.

The best communication plans are created with input from various people and perspectives, including your human resources, marketing, and communications teams. It should also:

• Define critical points to communicate and detail how they support your business mission and strategy.
• Outline who needs to know what and identify groups that may need different, supplemental, or abbreviated communication.
• Describe methods and venues to be used for the communication.
• Address the impact the communication may have on different people, processes, systems, etc. in the business.
• Detail ongoing plans.
• Establish metrics and evaluations that will be applicable to the communication.

Define Critical Points of Communication

Your company’s vision and mission are good examples of critical communication points because they help the organization stay focused and they guide decisions when business goals need to be adapted to a changing marketplace. With so much riding on them, it’s no wonder so many organizations invest significant time and money to define a vision and mission.

However, discussions about vision and mission often end up in day-long “wordsmithing” sessions that focus too much on sentiment and not enough on actions or targets. Plus, they are rarely stated clearly or in a way that connects with everyone in the company. Simply having nicely produced posters hanging in the hallways does not communicate the meaning of your messages!

Do you have clear and action-oriented purpose statements for your organization? Do they genuinely represent the customers you serve, the products and services you deliver, and the differentiating characteristics of your organization? Getting alignment and clarity in these areas will guide your organizational communication focus. No matter the critical points you may be communicating, take every opportunity to align the message back to the organizational strategy, vision and/or mission. This consistent alignment helps all employees to see how business decisions are made in support of the goals.

Deciding the critical information is a key part of an overall communications plan. Also, you need to explain your purpose statements in a way that is meaningful to your employees. For example, if you are sharing annual business goals, you’ll want to be explicit in the reason for the goal and include specific targets and timelines. If you are announcing a product change, speak to the reason for the change and the benefits that will be attained by your customers and within the business. Introductions of system or tool changes are always met with skepticism and concern, so being specific about the impacts to operations, customers, and employees is as important as the change itself.

Outline Who Needs To Know What

In addition to defining the critical points for communication, it is also important to determine who needs to receive the communication, and to what level. Again, this is an area where businesses often struggle. You’ve heard the phrase, “on a need to know basis.” I always wonder who makes that determination. Certainly with highly sensitive information there is a need for tighter controls, but in the scope of internal communication that impacts business operations it is important that the larger population has at least a general understanding of what is happening, why, and how they will be affected.

Your communication plan should include a clear definition of which points need to be communicated to which divisions, functions, and people, and to what level and at what point in the process. Different groups and individuals will require deeper levels of technical information, especially if the change affects them directly; in that case, they may even have an integral role in defining the execution and implementation of the change.

Describe Methods and Venues to Be Used

In this portion of your plan, consider the where, when, and how of delivering the information. A typical scenario is to hold the annual employee meeting and roll out the amazing revelations that occurred in your planning meeting. This is a great format in which to make the initial announcement of key organizational changes or to tie a performance period to existing vision and mission statements. However, this general session should only serve as the launching point of communication and should be followed up quickly with further communication among operational divisions and/or functional workgroups. These smaller groups allow people with common responsibilities to discuss and raise questions specific to them.

Also, you should supplement the verbal communication with written communication that documents more details and provides additional resources. The written materials can be made available in a variety of formats, including print and electronic. Include your internal communications or marketing teams in this aspect of the planning, as well as your human resources and legal teams if information requires that type of consideration.

I am a strong proponent of cascading communications for conveying major changes or announcements. However, cascading communication works in both directions, downward and upward.

Downward Communications. Organizational communication will naturally occur from the senior leaders through the management teams to all associates. Share information with mid-level management teams first. This gives them the opportunity to clearly understand the message and, more importantly, to carry it forward and support the continued communications efforts.

Upward Communications. Management should seek purposeful and deliberate feedback and encourage it throughout the communication message. Depending on the organizational change, this can be informal or structured. However, it is important to seek out the perspectives of associates in order to continue with effective implementation of the change and to refine the communication in a way that reduces or eliminates confusion, fear, or disruption.

Address the Impact

One of the first reactions your employees will have to change or lofty goals will be, “How does this affect me and my day-to-day work?” Although you may not have all the details defined in the early stages, take some time to consider the areas that will be impacted the greatest and acknowledge that you understand these impacts. For example, if a goal includes improving homeowner satisfaction, acknowledge that you don’t have all of the answers on how this will be achieved, but that you recognize that people within your organization will play a fundamental role in generating these ideas and process improvements.

If you have a strategy to improve a product, do you have the systems in place that will support that improvement? If not, your communication should include the fact that a systems analysis will be part of the tactics to support the strategy.

Acknowledging this will reassure employees that you haven’t overlooked the need for details and will encourage them to get engaged in the solutions.

Detail Ongoing Plans

You will not be able to predict everything that will occur as you communicate goals or changes. So, your initial communication plan should include some place markers and milestones for regrouping to assess the impacts and determine how your communication may need to be refined or reinforced.

For example, let’s say you have launched a communication plan around your company’s vision and mission and shared goals for a 12-month period. Your communications plan may include a 6-month communications update that shares progress toward the goals, changes within the environment, and recognition of results achieved. Although you won’t know these details at the formulation of the plan, including this mid-term communications step will help assure it doesn't slip by.

Establish Metrics and Evaluations

In addition to the metrics you may create against the goals you’re setting, you should establish metrics and evaluation steps around the actual communication. This will serve multiple purposes. It will help assure your progress with the communication, and it will provide a measurement of what worked well and what didn’t. You can then incorporate your best practices into future communication efforts.

Some metrics examples may include:

• Assure all functional groups have a follow-up session within one week of the initial launch.
• Provide written supporting communication within 24 hours of the initial communication.
• Review and update written materials on a quarterly basis.

Some evaluation examples may include:

• Leadership sessions to assess the message communicated
• Surveys to identify what messages were received and what concerns exist

Although this article addresses internal communication, many of the suggestions are relevant for external communications to business partners, suppliers, and even customers. In either case, an effective approach to communications is essential in establishing an open and trusting environment, which in turn will engage employees more deeply in your business and ultimately improve your customers’ experience.

Jayne Phillips, SPHR, is an AVID Advisor with AVID Ratings, the leading provider of customer loyalty research and consulting to the home-building industry. Through the AVID system, homebuilders improve referrals, reduce warranty costs, and strengthen their brands. She can be reached at jayne.phillips@avidratings.com.