Internal Communication Company Culture Employee Engagement

Hacks on How to Get Employees to Actually Read Your Internal Comms

In a modern organization, internal communication has a crucial role in keeping everyone in the loop and ensuring that all parts of the organization are working together towards the same goal.

Internal communication is used to communicate news, policy, changes in the organization as well as ensure that employees are making the right decisions; decisions that are in line with the company goals.

The biggest challenge in today's internal communication is establishing and maintaining efficient internal communication channels that are able to deliver the message to end-users, that is, the employees at various levels of the organization.

After writing out a message the author desires to make sure that as many of the intended recipients and employees will be able to read and decode the intended message as possible.

Here we take a look at strategies an organization can use when planning internal communications so that it is read by all the intended recipients.

Ask Whether the Message is Needed

It is a good practice to ask yourself one more time if intended communication is really needed in this format and at this time, and should it be shared with all employees. This means one should come up with the right message that an employee will be willing to read once they come across such a message.

This also means the message should be appealing to the employees, and also appropriate for the occasion the message is needed for. “Before and after composing a message, one should go through it and examine whether such a message should be sent to the employees because some employees would probably ignore the message once they feel that the message is not relevant,” says Mark Schultz, Public Relations and Communications Director at SolidEssay and ConfidentWriters.

When employees find the message is irrelevant, they may ignore future messages when they feel that it is not needed.

Need-to-know Basis Communication

Internal communication should be made on a need-to-know basis. This is one of the most effective ways of ensuring that communication is actually read by the employees.

When a firm communicates on a need-to-know basis, employees will be willing to visit the relevant communication channels regularly because they know any information provided by the firm is of great importance.

The right message should be targeted to the right audience to avoid cases of sending irrelevant messages to employees who may choose to delete any message from the firm. Sharing communications on a need-to-know basis ensures that when the company shares communications targeted to the proper people when a need to know arises.

This means an organization can come up with ways of making sure messages are shared at departmental levels unless a message is meant for all employees working in the firm. 

Pay Attention to Titles and Headers     

Before reading the message, many employees will go through the title or the heading and if it's not appealing or catchy then they may disregard it.

Sometimes they may delete a relevant message before going through it just because the title does not represent their department or is not appealing. Others might ignore the title but after reading the introduction they give up and this means while writing such messages one should be precise and to the point to make sure anyone reading the message will be able to grasp the message from the title or introduction.

It will be challenging to have effective communication when employees switch off their minds after seeing a certain message just because of the title yet is something they are expected to know by the administration. 

Personalize Communication 

Tailored messages are effective in making the recipients interested in communication. After identifying the targeted audience it is advisable to come up with a customized message because people will always treat any personalized message with a lot of interest.

Tailored messages can be created in such a way that it is addressed to individuals through their names or coming up with a coded language to be used for every department in an organization,” opines Kevin Dawson, Communications Associate at Paper-Research and BeeStudent.

This is a great idea because it creates a scenario where employees will get the intended message since they can relate to what is being communicated.

Personalized messages are a great way of encouraging employees to read internal communications and make them feel appreciated. Once employees feel appreciated they will be able to give you all the attention.

Speak Their Language

One of the biggest challenges in communicating with employees is choosing the right language and proper tone.

Different departments can be addressed using different languages and without the use of jargon. A general message should not be communicated in the same way departmental messages are communicated.

Using language used for a given department will make other employees have the feeling that such departments are high ranked and they may avoid such a message believing that it is not intended for them. 

Make it Short and Sweet

Few people will be willing to go through long messages which shows that the use of short and sweet messages is a great way of making sure employees go through all provided information.

Effective economic use of words can be one great way of making the employees develop the willingness to go through the entire message. 

Bring in Some Personality 

While writing messages to your employees it is important to make sure they read the messages, they will feel like the message is personally addressed to them and that the message is not dry.

The tone used in writing a message to employees should be friendly, not only professional. The use of language that is too professional may make the recipient switch their minds off.

One way to make internal commutation open, transparent, and friendly is to request the opinion of their employees. 
 

About the author
Paul Bates is an HR consultant at Data Researchers Network and SwiftPapers, advising management on the administration of different procedures related to human resources.

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