Engaged Employees Fuel Growth

Employee loyalty and engagement can make or break a company. Effective internal communications makes both possible.

"Engaged employees are more productive, make more money for the company, and stay longer."

Engaged, loyal, informed employees are the fuel for a growing business.

In fact, employee engagement and retention are the two biggest predictors of superior customer service. Likewise, knowledgeable employees are ambassadors to hundreds or thousands of people who come into contact with the company.

	Poor internal communication is:
	Top-down, one time events to inform employees, such as employee memos Something that the corporate communication or marketing staff owns Buttons, banners, and balloons Spin and jargon
	Good internal communication is:
	Accountability among all managers Cascading face-to-face communication throughout the organization Timely and candid information

Part of engagement and loyalty comes from hiring good people. The majority comes from the company's culture and commitment to internal communications.

Given that, internal communications is often a management hot potato passed from department to department until it finds a home. Good internal communications is a process and commitment that is ingrained into the company culture.

Effective internal communications has three elements: manager accountability, face-to-face communications, and timeliness. Used properly, these three elements create a powerful tool for driving and supporting growth.

Manager accountability

Day-to-day interaction with an immediate manager accounts for nearly 70 percent of an employee's satisfaction. Employees want to hear important information from their managers first whenever possible.

The worst thing a manager can say is, "You know as much as I do about that - which is nothing."

Cascading face-to-face communications

Cascading communications is a waterfall of information that flows down through an organization. This process has three distinct benefits:

1. It satisfies the desire to hear important news from managers.
2. It allows managers to make information and news relevant to a particular department or group of employees.
3. Managers get feedback, questions, and concerns that they can pass back up the chain of command to improve future decision-making.

We can hear it now: "That is all well and good for a small business but not for a large corporation." Kodak has used a cascading system to communicate with more than 90,000 employees worldwide. Survey results show the program increased employee comprehension of corporate changes and nearly doubled confidence levels in company management.

Timely and candid information

Employees deserve to know good and bad news before or at least at the same time as external groups, such as investors and customers. That is simply not happening in most companies.

International consultancy Towers Perrin surveyed more than 1,000 employees at companies across the United States. The results were bleak.

• Employees believe their companies are more open and honest with shareholders and with customers than they are with employees.
• Nearly 30 percent believe they get more credible news about their company from external news media than from the company itself.
• Employees put little faith in the business information they receive, including corporate strategy, financial results, and the competitive landscape.

Companies that want to continue growing will make timely and candid information an important part of their internal communications program.