Do Your Employees Know What You Want?

You may think you are communicating with employees, but are you really?  Do they really know your expectations?  Remember the game of “telephone” where you send a message through several people and it comes out garbled at the end?  That’s what happens in many companies when you don’t communicate individually with employees.

Case in point: I tried to buy some gardening mulch at a large hardware store.  When I got to the lumber pickup area, I was told they were out of stock.  The clerk said, “We got a memo about out of stock items.  Why did they sell it to you?”

“We got the memo.” Obviously someone doesn’t read memos.  Or is it that there are so many memos that no employee could possibly read them all?

Communication in a small business. Communication to employees in a small business is easier…or is it?  Communicating to employees should be:

• Continuous. You must always be communicating with employees.  You can’t just say something once and expect them to remember.  You have to keep on reminding them what you want.
• Multi-channel. Communicate with employees in several different ways.  If you are used to writing memos, try face-to-face meetings every week.  Or send them individual emails regularly.  If they don’t pay attention to one communication method, they might get others.
• Personal. The best communication is face-to-face.  If you have a small company, the best way to communicate is to get employees together at least weekly and talk.  If your business is larger and weekly meetings aren’t possible, consider a monthly meeting with everyone with personal emails in between.

The key to employee understanding is continuous personal communications through a variety of media.  The best advice I ever got about communicating with employees is this: “It is Impossible to Over-Communicate.”

Images: sxc.hu