A fuzzy nicety or an organisation's life blood
23 July 2009
For many, internal communication falls into the fuzzy realm of
Marketing, Advertising or PR which are generally addressing an
external audience.
Over the last 10 years or so however, it
has become commonly accepted that Internal Communication is as
important as External Communication. After all, if your own employees
don’t believe what is written or said about your organisation then
why should your customers?
FEIEA (the Federation of Business
Communicator Associations in Europe) has announced the headline
results of its latest survey among nearly 5,000 practising workplace
communicators. Internal communication was reported as a key success
factor for 79% of the organisations.
When Deloitte and Touche
Human Capital conducted a survey among American CEOs who were asked
which HR issues are very important to the success of the
organisation, 95 percent of them said “effective internal
communication.” Simultaneously, only 22 percent agreed that they
thought it was being delivered effectively…
Internal
communication isn't some warm and fuzzy optional nicety it is the
lifeblood of any organisation. If blood of the right quality doesn’t
circulate at just the right pressure and speed to all parts of the
human body, those parts slow down and could stop working altogether.
The body could then become sick and die…
An organisation
where communication doesn't flow freely is no different.
Internal
communication isn’t limited to vision and mission statements from
the top; its not just news releases publicising financial results or
new product announcements; it is not just internal or client
newsletters, annual reports or video streamed messages to the troops.
These are all important, but they form just a fraction of the
communication and miscommunication that takes place every day in the
workplace.
Internal communication is written, spoken and
non-verbal interaction among people in the organisation that get
things done, for instance;
- It takes co-operation to create a product or a new service.
- It takes collaboration to open up a new market.
- It takes teamwork to implement a strategy.
It
takes effective internal communication to oil and run the machinery
of any organisation. And when that machinery breaks down, as it often
will, a great deal of profit can be lost.
What is the
impact of poor internal communication?
How much would
poor communication cost an organisation over a twelve months period?
Most organisations would have no idea, and it is highly likely that
it would be more than they can afford.
Financial statements
from an organisation at the years end or even monthly budget versus
actual departmental reports rarely indicate such things as;
- Lost productivity due to poorly run meetings,
- Missed business opportunities through poor cross functional understanding, or
- 35% employee turn over because we say one thing and do another
Do
the arithmetic on poorly run meetings
Regardless of
its purpose, a meeting is an exercise in communication: you speak,
you listen, and you interact. It is rare to find anyone in business
who has not complained about meetings at some time: too many, too
long, and too boring. You could add to that: too expensive.
Consider
meetings that are supposed to last an hour but somehow expand to use
up most of the afternoon. Calculate the hourly cost of total
participant time and multiply by the length of the meeting. Keep in
mind that the more senior the participants the more expensive the
time. The result may not sound too alarming, until you consider how
many of those meetings take place in your organisation every day,
every week, every year. Work it out for yourself.
What
is the cost of unproductive meeting time across your
organisation?
Consider the cost of
correspondence
Letters, reports, memos, and now the
wonder of e-mail: Written communication is an integral part of doing
business and the volume of communication is increasing, most people
tell us.
Unfortunately, studies demonstrate that employees
spend too much time writing it, and do not write clearly and
concisely, so that those on the receiving end spend too much time
reading it…
If an employee spends just two hours a day
reading, writing and managing e-mail, that equates to a cost of 20 to
25% of their total remuneration. What is your total wages bill?
What
is the cost of creating and reading poor communication across your
organisation?
Let’s take recruitment as an
example
The actual cost of recruiting and training a
single new hire can be between three to seven times salary when you
factor in the cost of recruitment, induction, training and the lost
productivity from having a new member of the team. The higher the
staff turnover the more this also de-stabilizes the corporate
culture.
Effective internal communication plays a
valuable role in both retention and professional development.
Some
research suggests money comes second as a reason why employees opt to
be part of an organisation. A high percentage of the time the primary
reason was found to be a sense of direction clearly communicated by
the top management. Explanatory comments suggested this was because
of a desire to belong to the team and a felling of responsibility for
the future of the company.
Successful organisations build this
loyalty through effective internal communication
What
about the cost of lost opportunities?
Day after day
in the workplace, millions of people go through the motions of
talking with their colleagues in person and on the phone, constantly
connected through technology, and yet never truly communicating with
one another. Every one of them is an opportunity for your
organisation to learn, to improve and to generate profit.
Study
after study tells us that respect and trust are more important than
authority in getting things done, and one of the best ways to show
people they are valued is to listen to them. The sages from the ages
from Socrates through Carnegie to Steven Covey have said “Listen
first you’ll understand better and increase you chances of being
understood” Sadly, listening is probably the most underused of all
the communication skills.
Typcial impact of poor
internal communication
Long-term impact
- Spread of misinformation.
- Misinformed employees can make wrong decisions.
- Erosion of employee trust and confidence.
- Conflicts between employees and management.
- Internal brand image suffers.
Short-term impact
- Lack of coherent and shared vision.
- Low employee morale results in lower productivity.Dissatisfaction among employees leads to higher attrition.
- Impact on company share price.
- External brand value suffers.
What are the benefits of effective
internal communication?
Whether an organisation has
two or 200,000 employees, its ability to achieve its business
objectives depends on how well it engages, aligns, and motivates its
employees.
Depending what research you buy in to, somewhere
between 30% and 80% of all corporate change initiatives fail to
achieve their objectives. Whatever body of research you read one of
the principal reasons will be poor communication within the team and
or the enterprise at large.
Effective internal communication
helps the organisation to meet its objectives. It is the vital link
that encourages everyone to deliver on their
responsibilities.
Communication is not just the language; it
involves trust, relationships, control and delegation. It can be used
to create transparency within the organisation and through this help
in raising the morale and motivation of employees which tends to
increases productivity. Internal communication also helps stimulate
much-needed feedback from employees to top management. Some benefits
could be listed as;
- It provides information and encourages sharing by driving and supporting the organisation’s short-term and long-term goals and objectives.
- It ensures that these initiatives are implemented and followed at a local level.
- It ensures that knowledge sharing and communication processes are part of the daily workflow across all functions of the business.
- It helps drive ownership and shared engagement.
The ability of a
company to carry on an effective dialogue with its employees directly
affects the bottom line performance, driving such objectives as
productivity, quality, safety, customer loyalty, and employee
retention.
Most experts on organisations, management and
leadership, assert that effective internal communications is a key
factor in the effectiveness of any type of organisation.
Most
CEO, HR professionals and consultants agree. How about you?
Share this on 
Mike Klein - Saturday 6 March 2010 13:09
Agree--and I'd go farther. As much as you've described a rationale for current best practice, what's emerging is a need for organizations to enable and support employees as voices and participants in the external communication picture as well--particularly around sustainability issues, and even around the public affairs agenda.
This doesn't make the current emphasis of internal communication on internal productivity less important--but the need to share the bandwidth will require some new approaches beyond what's currently considered excellent.
Mike Klein--The Intersection, Brussels
http://intersectionblog.wordpress.com
Wedge - Wednesday 16 September 2009 12:53
I work within Internal Communications and I facilitate and create communications - so I'm biased and already on board with you!
Many people look for tangible results and assume that internal communications are transient and ephemeral - but the impact is real. It's just so hard to measure on a daily basis, although I appreciate that reports like the ones you've mentioned highlight the numbers.
