The 6 Secrets to Effective Manager Communications

In times like these, when businesses are either bracing for the second wave of economic crisis or scared the employees will walk away on the road to recovery, communications professionals have the opportunity to help businesses prepare for either inevitable circumstance. And since study after study tells us that the most important driver to employee satisfaction is the manager-employee relationship, it only stands to reason that companies should be placing their bets on middle managers to hold the ship together.

There are a number of ways to help managers succeed: professional development, training courses, carrot and stick rewards. In my experience, most of these don’t work. Managers report not having time to attend training and professional development is stuck in the 1980’s; and, since when do we actually offer managers positive rewards for doing great work. More often than not, we just use the stick.

So, while our execs are focused on steering the ship, we can be focused on helping manager hold it together by putting the 6 Secrets to Effective Manager Communications into practice

[wcm_restrict]1. Treat them differently: If you want managers to act differently, you’ve got to treat them differently. Use a management cascade so that information goes to them before employees. While there is more research than can be attributed here, we know that cascades just don’t work. So, reinvent the cascade…just use it as a means to treat managers differently from employees

2. Carve out the right channels: An add on to treating managers differently; communicate to them via unique channels and vehicles. Go ahead and build a “managers community” on your Intranet and post all of the information they need to do their job, build their career, and deliver business success there. Or, if email is more your thing, set up an email alias through which you deliver all management messages. In any case, if you have unique channels for managers, they will pay attention.

3. Tie communications to the company strategy: A lot of managers today are managing because they are exceptional skill leads. They often don’t understand strategy or how it ties to a performance review (just as one example). So, spell it out for them—every time. Never miss an opportunity to connect the dots. Not only will you build your own business acumen, but you’ll be helping to teach the leaders of tomorrow that internal communications can be a strategic management tool. They won’t forget you for it.

4. Distribute information when they need it: Managers are busy. They usually spend much of the day managing their teams, dealing with executives, interviewing new hires, and often have their own workload to produce. So don’t waste their time with communications three weeks, a month or a quarter ahead of time. They just don’t have the time to pay attention; or, if they do pay attention, they’re sure to forget most of what was presented. Give them information just in time, and spell out exactly what they need to do with it. (…and don’t sweat minor typos.)

5. Keep communications short and to the point: Step into the mind for a journalist for your opening line of communication and use the 5WH (who, what, when, where, why and how) model. Don’t set up the topic, don’t spend time figuring out what to say in a fancy way. Give it to them straight.

6. Enlist an executive sponsor: It goes without saying that if you don’t have an executive sponsor who is passionate about communications and understand it as a strategic management tool, more times than not your function will not have a seat at the table. To ensure you can help your managers help your company succeed, enlist an executive sponsor to be the spokesperson for your manager communication program.

The 6 Secrets to Effective Manager Communication have proven success. In one client’s recent employee survey, employees reporting feeling more informed by their manager. While that is great, the news is bigger than just seeing an improvement in the effective communication between a manager and employees. This was the most improved question in the entire survey over the previous year. With results like these, we’ve got the proof we need to support managers in being the best communicators they can be.[/wcm_restrict][wcm_nonmember]

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About the Author

Jeremy Henderson is founder and chief client partner at Jungle Red Communication, an employee engagement consulting firm based in the San Francisco Bay Area. Working for some of the most innovative and highly regarded companies of our era, including Razorfish, eBay, salesforce.com, and City Colleges of Chicago–Europe, shaped his focus on helping his clients create happy, healthy, and productive workplaces.