There are thousands of definitions for internal communication and just a handful of good case studies which demonstrate how to do it well. Too often sycophantic product is marketed as communication produce.
Employees are mostly polite. They smile, they nod. They pretend to notice and then go back to their work. Sometimes their behaviour may change. Rarely does their attitude change.
While visions, missions and values sprout from screensavers, wallet cards and portals, employees are desperately searching for something more personal.
Roger D’Aprix had a pretty good idea about what worked when he put forward his Hierarchy of Employees’ Communication Needs model. The first question we should attend to, said D’Aprix, is tell the employee about what their job is and then tell them how well they doing (or not doing).
Too often people want to hammer home visions and missions when all the employee really wants to know is where to hammer a nail.
D’Aprix’s model is a great step by step guide to a communication plan for employee engagement, especially in dealing with change. Managers may be suspicious but good leaders will catch on quickly.
Ref: Roger D’Aprix (1996). In Communicating for Change – Connecting the Workplace with the Marketplace (1996)
