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In a workplace study conducted by Qualtrics, 67% of workers revealed a high level of trust in information coming from their organizations.1
Compared to other sources of information, such as the news media, which scored a dismal 30% trust level, CEOs and executive leadership teams should feel great about their ratings.
Unfortunately for these executives, a study from Gallup showed that only 13% of U.S. employees strongly agree that their organization’s leadership communicates effectively.2
So what’s going on here? On one hand, you have employees proclaiming that they trust their workplaces for sources of information. On the other hand, internal communicators, especially executives, are doing a poor job of communicating that information. Why aren’t executives owning their role in providing effective communication to employees—especially when the majority of those employees are ready to buy into their messaging?
A major component of effective internal communication is the frequency and speed at which information is conveyed to employees. The COVID-19 pandemic truly tested the limits of internal communicators, especially executive leadership teams who were not accustomed to delivering information in a rapidly changing workplace environment. Certainly, there were flurries of emails, and perhaps town-hall-style company meetings at crucial points to convey messaging around COVID-19 mitigation, temporary facility closures, and return-to-work planning. But to the average worker, those messages from leadership teams were few and far between. In fact, a 2020 study found that a majority of employees actually desire daily updates during the COVID-19 pandemic.3 That kind of tempo simply wasn’t there in many workplaces.
The serious nature of the pandemic led to painstakingly crafted internal messaging that often came out at a snail’s pace. While internal communicators have a duty to convey complete, verified, and prudent information, especially when that information pertains to the safety of employees, this mindset doesn’t allow for rapid, frequent communication. After all, how many 2,000-word emails and hour-long scripted “town hall” meetings can be produced or consumed? What’s missing is what should be happening in between these masterpieces of internal communication: visibility.
Many think of visibility in terms of the complete sharing of information. However, there’s another interpretation that’s equally important—the visibility of executives themselves. Think of visibility in terms of “being present.” Employees need to see their leaders. No, not physically in front of them, although there are plenty of reasons why that’s a great idea when social distancing rules are eased. Being present can simply mean that your message is always there. It goes beyond the one-and-done email or company-wide meeting. The problem is that many internal communicators have trouble envisioning what this could look like, and they often mistake this level of messaging as being overwhelming or too difficult to pull off. Fortunately, the opposite is true with the right tools.
If virtual visibility (in the form of omnipresent communication) is important, how can executives pull it off without overwhelming both their audience and their internal communications teams? Here are just a few ideas that have been put in place within organizations of all sizes:
With just a few tweaks in internal communication strategy and the right tools, workplaces can give their employees the frequency and quality of information they crave. And CEOs and executives can embrace their roles as trusted communicators in the workplace. Employees are ready for this change. Are you?
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