You want more effective employee communication.

Don’t let limited communications resources stand in your way.

Let’s face it.  Internal communication is usually not an organization’s first choice for adding resources.  Whether that is right or wrong is a debate for another time.  Right now you have to deal with that reality.

Identify the problem

Do you know you spend your time?  Is it on writing?  Stakeholder relations?  Research?  Editing?  Formatting?  Team management?  Administration?

You might have a best guess.  However, like with so many things (how much money we spend, how many calories we eat, etc.), we have a tendency to underestimate the amount of time spent on any given activity.

Get a more accurate picture by making a quick chart or tracking sheet.  List your most common activities in the first column.  Put the days across the top.  For the next 5-10 business days, keep it in a highly visible place.  Mark how many hours you spend on each activity.

Tip Keep it to half hour increments.  There’s little added value to spending the time fussing about 15 minutes here and there.

Another Tip  Jot down the time after each activity.  That way you won’t have to remember at the end of the day.  Plus, it can give you a quick visual of how many separate times you performed that activity, which reflects how many times you had to start and stop.  (That’s something that can chew up time.)

 

What does the picture tell you?

Take a close look at the two activities that are consuming the most of your time.  Find ways to streamline your processes without having a negative impact on your deliverables.

Keep an open mind and don’t be afraid to try something new!  Here are a few suggestions to get you started:

Writing

This is probably the most variable of all your activities.  We all know that sometimes the words flow like a rushing river and other times they’re harder to find than a vegetarian at a rib fest.  However, as business communicators, we can’t afford the luxury of “writer’s block”.

Try one or more of these things to reduce how much time you’re spending on writing:

  • Be brave.  If starting is where you get hung up because you’re not sure of what to write, just jump into the middle.  No one will see.  Don’t even worry about full sentences.  Flow of ideas?  You can sort that out later.  Time is of the essence!  Start writing what you know, make assumptions and highlight them for validation later.
  • Use existing content as a model.  You don’t want to plagiarize.  However, you can follow the structure of a similar piece to give yourself a framework.
  • Ask others how they write under pressure. Connect with a reporter, crisis communicator, or public relations professional to find out how they meet tight timelines and write even when the topic is new to them.

Editing

  • Don’t always re-write.  If it’s someone else’s work, especially a team member, changing a word or two here and there doesn’t take time.  However, if there’s a whole paragraph that doesn’t work, it’s faster for you to point out the issue and send it back to the writer to change.  This does more than save you time. It helps build the writer’s skills.
  • Be realistic about the value.  If the content is going into the employee handbook, which has a long shelf-life and reflects the organization, you’ll probably want to be more “picky” about the writing.  However, if it’s a short intranet news article about new signage in the lobby, it needs to be professional, coherent and free of mistakes but you shouldn’t spend much time on editing it.

Stakeholder relations

  • Manage expectations proactively.  When you start working on a project or initiative be clear from the start about timelines, scope, process and accountabilities. Address any conflicts or concerns upfront.  This will eliminate the need for many “issues” conversations later on.
  • Attend select meetings.  If you find yourself going to meetings with stakeholders “out of interest”, stop.  Ask to be included on distribution of notes and minutes and be sure to attend meetings that do impact your work or where your perspective is needed.

Administration

  • Don’t let email drive your day.  This is possibly a chronic problem for most computer-based employees.  Checking for and reading emails frequently may seem like the right thing to do but it seldom is. There are several ways to not get distracted by email including turning off alerts, setting up rules so messages you’re cc’d on go to a different folder, setting a timer to let you know the next time you’re “allowed” to check email, to name a few.  Find one that works for you.
  • Paper? Really?  There are many internal communicators that feel the need to print everything they’re working on.  They will often give reasons such as “it’s easier to review and proofread” and “I like to keep a hard copy of each version and important emails. Just in case.”  Does this sound familiar?  If so, start to break the paper habit.  The time used to print, hand-write edits, transfer edits to the electronic version and file doesn’t bring extra value. Plus, there’s the time down the road to sort and purge.

Tip  There are many schools of thought about how to get and stay organized.  One that many of Lift’s customers have found to be easy to implement and sustain is David Allen’s Getting Things Done®.

Choose tactics carefully

Sometime less is more.  This can be the case with communications tactics. Yes, you want to create tactics that cover the need for push and pull content and address the needs of non-wired employees.  However, there may be times when you’re embarking on tactics overkill.  Sometimes the “it would be great to…” factor takes over and you spend a lot of energy on tactics that won’t bring you better communications results.  Be strong in knowing what’s going to be most effective at achieving the excommunications objectives and help stakeholders understand.

Leverage technology

There are many small and effective ways that technology can reduce your workload and either have a neutral or positive effect on the communications you deliver.  Examples include:

  • Including an automatic reminder on emails that include a deadline for taking action.  Set it for 3-5 days before the deadline.  This eliminates the need for you to send a reminder message before the deadline. Benefits? Saves you from having to write and manage another message and helps prevent email overload.   Tip  Include a sidebar in the email to let recipients know about the flag.  One phrase that works well is “Don’t delete until complete.”.
  • Post content on your intranet.  Then, use a short (perhaps slightly cryptic for added engagement) email with a hyperlink,  if you need to drive employees to the information right away.

Use templates

Not everything needs to be created from scratch.  Although very little content can actually be templated for repeated use (because details change and repetition would result in ineffective communication) templates can still save you a lot of time.  They provide a framework that helps you get started and stay on track.

Create your templates for routine communications on topics such as:

  • Sales results
  • Fire drills
  • Performance review process

Hone skills

If there’s something you or any of your teams members is not proficient at doing, build the skills. Continuous learning is important to professional development and personal satisfaction.  Topics you might want to explore are:

  • Writing and editing for internal audiences
  • Negotiation skills
  • Stakeholder management
  • Software (advanced word-processing, image manipulation, document libraries, web content editor)
  • Time management

A closing thought

Sometimes you really don’t have enough resources to do what you’re expected to do and you’ll want to ask for your budget to be increased. When presenting your business case for more communications resources, your credibility will increase if you can demonstrate that you’ve already become as effective as possible with current resources.