THEN:
Competing priorities, flooded channels, zero engagement
NOW:
Prioritized comms, optimized channels, increased impact
Challenge
After one client learned their employees had received 37 company emails in just one week, they knew it was time to coordinate their communications, especially for their diverse, dispersed employee groups.
Many employees of this company work in the field and on various shifts — as home health aids, maintenance workers, therapists, and culinary staff. Their people likely weren’t reading 37 emails during work hours. And off the clock meant just that…not reading work emails.
Reigning in the communications and effectively reaching all employees would be a challenge.
They needed a playbook that walked them through how to reduce the noise and increase the impact.
Solution
We sat down with several key stakeholders and started to unwind the ball of string that had become their communications process — which uncovered that they had no prioritization of messaging and no structure for proper cadence or timing.
We worked through a better way of doing it…
First, we identified the traits of the four main employee groups and how they likely preferred to receive messages.
Second, we talked through their existing channels that touch all employees and which would be most effective for each of the four groups. We also noted gaps in channels and advised on possible fixes.
Third, we reviewed months of communications to discern three categories of information, and assigned a limit for each:
- Job-related — no limit
- Employee-related — one per week
- Company-related — two per month
Finally…the Communications Playbook!
We helped the client create a playbook to guide stakeholders through the communications process. It shows them how to:
- Reduce the noise — learn about and use the correct channels
- Be sure they’re being heard — learn which category the message falls under
- Keep the message simple — learn to write clear and concise communications
The document is colorfully designed and uses simple language to easily help anyone craft effective messaging and deliver it through the optimal channels.
Ready to build your playbook? Let’s talk
Sample Playbook
