By Adam DiPaula, Mary Bacica and Julie Winram

If you’re a manager or supervisor you probably spend time trying to figure out how to best communicate with your employees – how to get your message across.  If you’re like most, you fret over what words to use, how to deliver your message and what will maximize its effectiveness.

But step back for a second. Have you ever thought about how many employees actually listen to your message? The first step toward effective communication in the workplace is getting employees to listen to your message. As it turns out, despite the ever-expanding channels available, employees who listen to your carefully worded messages are not in abundant supply.

If I Don’t Believe You Why Would I Listen to You?
While there are a variety of reasons why employees don’t attend to your message, there is one factor that lies at the core of much of employees’ inattention—many simply don’t believe what you have to say.

In Sentis’ Canadian Employee Benchmark survey, we found that over one-third of employees did not believe that their immediate supervisor encourages open, honest two-way communication. We also found that 40 per cent don’t believe that their organization’s senior leaders communicate honestly with employees.

It is tempting to view this positively: “Hey, we’ve got the majority believing what we have to say.” However, such figures are not the picture of organizational health for two primary reasons.

First, given the time, effort and money spent trying to communicate with employees, the fact that four in 10 employees don’t believe what management has to say should trigger a significant rethink in management’s approach to communications. Second, whether or not employees view management as communicating honestly has a huge impact on employee morale, retention and support for the organization.

The Disparity of Distrust
To illustrate the this impact, we compared two groups on key measures from Sentis employee benchmark survey. One group, the ‘Trustfuls’, agreed that supervisors and senior managers communicate honestly with employees. The other group, the ‘Distrusfuls’, disagree. The chart shows the percentage of employees in each group who feel proud to say they work at their company, support the direction their company is taking, feel that they are treated fairly, and who would recommend their company as a good place to work.

The disparity in the attitudes and behaviours of ‘Trustful’ versus ‘Distrustful’ employees is striking and drives home how important it is for organizations to focus on establishing the conditions that will make employees believe you, and believe in the organization’s vision and mission.

How Do You Move the Needle on Believability?
Our research and that of others points to two approaches that managers can take to improve their credibility. One involves managers following some basic principles, “communication fundamentals”. These are the table stakes for creating a culture in which employees believe what you have to say. The second encourages letting the customer do the talking and brings the customer experience closer to the employee.

Establishing Communication Fundamentals
People are more likely to believe things when they hear them from other people, not from organizations. In other words, communications should be personal and come from a person or persons. “News from the HR Department” or “A Senior Executive Team Update” doesn’t cut it. Name names and take ownership of the message. Employees want to know who is talking to them.

In several employee engagement studies, we have also found that employees respond well to ‘face-time’ with senior management. However, ‘face-time’ should take the form of regular dialogues with employees, not ‘talking heads’ at the front of the room.  Fred Hassan termed this approach ‘leading from the front’ in his May 2011 Harvard Business Review article.

Hassan discussed the positive impact of CEOs and other senior managers interacting directly with small groups of frontline managers on a regular basis.  Employees perceive these unfiltered exchanges as sincere actions on the part of management to listen to employees and take what is learned to inform decisions.

Motivations Should be Pure of Heart and Focused on the Intended Audience. People can usually sense the underlying motivation of communications. Before crafting your communications piece, ask yourself: “Why do employees need to know this?” and “What do I want them to think upon hearing this?” Remember, you need to be generous in your motivations; this is about them, not you.

Muster Up Your Courage, Tell it Like it Is and Own It. No one wants to hear bad news, but sometimes that’s the story. It takes a lot of courage for organizations to be upfront and transparent in their communications, especially when the news is not good. Given that some bad news can reach employees and beyond extremely quickly through social media channels, it’s best to err on the side of transparency. When you own the bad stories and stop trying to control them, you can own the good stories too.

Bring the Customer Experience Closer
There is now a growing body of research illustrating the benefits of bringing the customer experience closer to the employee. These benefits include enhanced credibility of the organization in the eyes of employees, as well as big increases in employee motivation and listening skills alike.

In fact, research by Adam Grant and his associates reported in Harvard Business Review shows that employees feel that their organization’s customers are more credible sources of information than their organization’s leadership. Whenever possible, managers should get out of the way and give employees direct access to customer feedback.  Grant calls this “outsourcing inspiration”.

For the greatest impact, employees should be given direct unfiltered access to customer feedback.   Employees will buy into making the customer happy – not because management wants them to—because they want to.  Seeing how their work affects customers affirms that the job they do matters and that gives them purpose.

Grant has illustrated the powerful impact that outsourcing inspiration can have on employee motivation.  In one study, a university scholarship recipient visited with fundraisers responsible for soliciting donations by phone for the university. The student explained how the fundraisers’ work had paid for his scholarship and how much he appreciated their efforts.  The student’s five-minute interaction with the fundraising staff led to a 142% increase in call volume and a 171% increase in donations. The fundraisers were inspired by this first-hand account of their impact.

There are a few basic steps organization can take to ensure the customer experience is kept close for your employees.

Open Up and Share the Data. Ironically, while most organizations collect customer experience data, little is shared with the front line employees who had a big hand in creating the experience. When data IS shared it tends to be in the form of general performance scores that tell employees very little about the kind of impact they’re having.  Giving employees greater access to the voice of the customer – be it positive or negative – will enhance management’s credibility and inspire employees to find ways to improve the customer experience.

Determine If the Middle Man is Really Necessary. Organizations often benefit when managers get out of the way and let employees hear the voice of the customer directly. However, many organizations have practices in place that prevent these opportunities from happening.

Consider a very common approach organizations take to understand the customer experience and how to improve it—the focus group.  The observers behind the glass are typically managers who have very little direct contact with the end-users in front of the glass.  Moreover, the workers who do have the most contact with end-users are typically not invited to these sessions.

What if they were? What if employees could directly see and hear customers telling their stories?  While it’s not always appropriate to bring customers in front of your employees in such a direct way, consider how you might build better bridges. The insights and affirmations they offer to your front line go a long way towards anchoring the ‘worth believing in’ status of your organization.

Sentis founder Adam DiPaula, MBA,  VP Mary Bacica, CMRP and managing partner Julie Winram, CMRP merge their passion for employee research at Sentis Research (www.sentisresearch.com).

(PeopleTalk Summer 2014)