Are your staff ignoring you? Here’s how to fix it

There’s a communications paradox in most businesses: staff say their bosses never tell them anything; bosses say staff are being bombarded.

What’s going on here?

Oftentimes, corporates will make all staff go through an employee engagement survey; one that asks people what they think of the company they’re working in, and how their leaders are performing.

Invariably, one of the big survey findings is often “staff feel they are not informed”.

Leaders scratch their heads, perplexed as to why what they were sharing with their teams was not getting through. At least, not enough to improve the rating in a survey. This feedback causes a flurry of activity, with weekly emails and CEO roadshows suddenly appearing in the already congested communications landscape.

And so it goes.

More communications are produced — thinking more is clearly better. Staff inboxes and calendars spill over with said communications. Everyone, leaders and staff, are left with less time to engage with what was actually important.

Sounds familiar? People complaining about being bombarded while simultaneously complaining about not being kept informed?

Communication paradox

The reality is that when staff tell you they’re not feeling informed by your communications, it’s usually a problem of perception.

You may be “informing” them but they don’t perceive it that way. A bit like Teflon, the message doesn’t stick. They ignore you.

And why? We have a problem of relevance. And that’s a result of three communications mistakes: not now. Not me. Not that.

In terms of ‘not now’, messages that are about the past or too far into the future are less likely to feel relevant, and less likely to be remembered. “I care less if it’s not about now,” staff think.

Not me? That’s when your message doesn’t spell out why it’s relevant to that person. It may actually be relevant, but it doesn’t come across that way.

And not that? Perhaps most irritating of all, a message that should be relevant but isn’t helpful at all. In fact, it may create more confusion and uncertainty than it seeks to address.

So what do we do to fix this situation?

We need to fix both what we actually do to communicate, but also how people perceive we communicate.

Here are five questions to ask yourself before you put out a communication.

Communicate less. Be understood more.

1. Why? 

   What’s the behavioural objective? What’s the behaviour we want to see once they read this message? Do we want them to do something as a result, or do nothing?  If we want them to do something, is our call to action clear and easy? If it’s to do nothing, how can we make them feel comfortable that all bases are covered?

2. Who?

   Who is this message for? Is it “do something” for some people but “do nothing” for others? If so, how do we let them know this and do we require different messages?

   Remember, we want to avoid a “not me” reaction.

3. How?

   How is the message best communicated? This includes the channel (e.g. Slack, email, meeting), tone (serious, light, urgent or relaxed) and who it comes from (the boss, HR, a department head).

4. When?

   When will the message “land” best with the audience we are trying to influence? Should we send it early in the week when people tend to be more focussed, or the end of week when they are generally more fatigued and happy to read emails? What time of day is best?

   This is about avoiding a “not now” response.

5. What?

   What’s the substance of our message? How will we pull it together to make sure it is relevant, engaging and meaningful? Here we want to combine the “who” with the “what” so we ensure our first paragraph is about why this is important for them.

   This is to avoid “not that”.

Working through these questions will at least get you started on resolving those paradoxical complaints, when your staff tell you they don’t feel informed, yet they also tell you they feel overwhelmed.

Remember: communicate less, be understood more.