How to keep your employees engaged through communication
Ineffective communication costs companies over $1.2 trillion every year, according to a 2022 Grammarly/Harris Poll.
When you think about engagement strategies, you might immediately think of team-building activities, flexible work policies, or career development opportunities. But research shows that the most important factor in employee engagement is communication quality. In fact, poor communication has been shown to cost companies over $1.2 trillion every year — and it’s also been linked to confusion, disengagement, information overload, and retention problems.
The good news is that there are several specific communication strategies that have been shown to improve employee engagement. And if you’re not using them, you’re probably making some common mistakes that actively damage engagement.
Why Communication Quality Matters
There’s no doubt that communication is an important driver of employee engagement. But how important? According to a 2022 Grammarly/Harris Poll, only 7% of U.S. workers strongly agree that their organization communicates with them in an accurate, timely, and open way. And yet, this lack of communication is causing huge financial losses:
A 2022 Grammarly/Harris Poll found that ineffective communication costs businesses $1.2 trillion annually in productivity losses.
Of course, it’s possible that many of these employees are working from home, which makes communication harder than ever. But even so, we can see that poor communication is hurting organizations across the board. This is because when communication isn’t effective, people get confused, disengaged, overloaded, and lose interest in staying at their jobs.
What Works: The Communication Strategies That Improve Engagement
So what do companies need to do to communicate better and thus boost engagement? There are several proven best practices that will help you avoid the costly mistakes that so many organizations make.
First, make sure you communicate regularly. Research has shown that having a consistent schedule for company updates, team check-ins, and project news helps employees stay connected to the company’s mission. For example, 67% of employees prefer to receive critical updates via email or email newsletters.
Second, personalize your messages. When employees feel like they’re being addressed directly, they pay more attention to what you’re saying. One study found that employees who received personalized messages were significantly more likely to say that they understood what was going on in their company.
Third, use employee engagement platforms. These platforms centralize all of your communication, allowing you to send personalized messages to different groups of employees. They also allow you to measure engagement across desk-based and frontline workforces, helping you find out what kind of message resonates best with whom.
What Doesn’t Work: The Communication Mistakes That Damage Engagement
If you’re not following any of the above recommendations, you’re probably making one of the most common mistakes that negatively affects employee engagement. Here are some other things that organizations should avoid:
Infrequent and inconsistent communication
Failing to understand the employee audience
Irrelevant and impersonal information
No clear internal communication strategy
Not asking for employee feedback
Wrong communication channels
Information overload
Not measuring communication effectiveness
52% of employees say they do not get timely updates from leadership.
And while those are just a few of the most common mistakes, there are plenty of others as well. It’s easy to assume that since employees are communicating with each other, they’ll be able to figure out what’s going on in the company. But that’s simply not true. In fact, the same survey found that 79% of employees said that leadership communication quality affected their understanding of company objectives.
Executive Leaders vs. Managers
It’s also important to remember that executives and managers play separate but complementary roles in communication-driven engagement. While executive leaders set the tone for engagement throughout the organization, it’s up to managers to shape the day-to-day experience of employees and connect them to the bigger picture.
Engagement strategies must start at the top. If executives don’t buy into engagement, they won’t be able to communicate it effectively to the rest of the organization. Gallup found that manager or team leader accounts for 70% of variance in team engagement. As such, engagement strategies need to be supported by both executives and managers. And although most C-level strategies affect the whole company, managers have the greatest ability to shape the daily experiences of employees.
Leaders sharing updates directly means employees hear priorities firsthand.
Two-Way Communication Is Essential
Finally, it’s worth noting that two-way communication and structured feedback channels are essential parts of an engagement strategy — not optional extras. Employees are much more likely to pay attention to what you’re saying if they believe that feedback is welcome. In fact, one study found that employees whose organizations increased listening reported stronger intent to stay, higher wellbeing, engagement, and inclusion.
Employee voice and feedback is one of the eight key pillars of employee engagement.