Does this sound like your staff? Let's face it: a lot of staff think emails from Internal Comms interrupt their work. Even when they've bothered to read them, they still have the problem of what to do with all those ‘internal emails' clogging up their Inboxes...
Would your employees like to see improvement in the frequency and calibre of the internal communications they receive? Have a look through our remaining five tips to get some more ideas on how to change this for the better without losing any impact.
• Message in the Headline. (see part 1)
• Critical, Important, or FYI? (see part 1)
• Consolidate Updates. (see part 1)
• Make and Manage Group Email Lists. (see part 1)
• Target Content to your Audience. (see part 1)
• Short, Simple, Interesting read more
• Manage Inboxes and Archives read more
• Right Channel for the Right Message read more
• No Email Day read more
• Think Outside the Square read more
Busy staff don't want to spend time getting to the message, or working out what the message means. Emails in particular need to be brief and clear.
Think about your reader and what you want your reader to think, know or do. In other words, what do you want your message to achieve? Decide on a logical order for your message. Then, keeping your reader in mind, write your message using Plain English.
To make your message even clearer, give each section of your email an informative heading.
If you don't have a clear idea of what you want your message to achieve, or if you don't have a clear understanding of your audience, then stop writing. And if you cannot keep it short, email a summary with a link to a pdf or webpage with all the details.
Why not invest in some staff training to improve written communications. Any easy way to reinforce training is to use Snap Quiz . 90% response rates are easily achievable when using Snap Quiz.
• Reinforce training. Statistics show that in 30 days, staff forget 80% of what they've learned
• Measure effectiveness of training (e.g. 6 months after attending training, have behaviours changed?)
• Benchmark and set standards (e.g. “How clear and concise are the messages sent out by Marketing, Finance etc”)
• Enhance knowledge by testing regularly (e.g. “When you are running a meeting, is it better to… A, B or C”)
• Influence attitudes with 'scenario' quizzes (e.g. “Under what circumstances is it appropriate to ‘cc' a colleague / manager…A, B, or C”
• Create competition. Inspire staff to reach high standards
• Engage in fun initiatives. Motivate staff with fun competitions and prizes (e.g. include a silly answer in multi-choice questions to make people smile)
Don't forget that if you have invested in staff training, you may wish to reinforce key messages using Snap Screensavers .
Have you or your staff ever failed to fully digest an important update or new information because your inbox is just too full? If your organisation does not have clear guidelines for managing emails, you may find that more and more staff have inboxes that are groaning under the weight of hundreds of emails.
This puts pressure on IT capacity, but there is a more sinister problem! Just think how much important information is buried in each individual inbox. If an employee is absent (or worse still leaves), would another person be able to access all the information required to fill in for them? Or would you lose vital information or vital records?
You could start by agreeing a folder structure, so that employees know where to save email and just as importantly, where to find them. Agree on clear rules around which emails should be kept, how long they should be kept, when and if they should be archived and which emails should be deleted once they have been read. IT will be able to assist you with some statistics which will help staff understand why some types of emails are not encouraged or even banned. You may also need to give some guidelines as to acceptable email use. For example, should staff be able to send and receive non-work related emails?
One Auckland law firm allows each employee only three emails in their inbox at one time . The firm has clear guidelines as to how their clients' emails are to be saved and where they should be saved. The result is that clients can get a quick response to a question, even if their lawyer is away from the office. Everyone deals quickly and effectively with their emails, and as a result are more productive.
One further tip is to ensure staff realise that email is not always the best communication channel. Encourage staff to think about alternative and better ways of communicating.
Snap Messaging Tools provide employees with a clear, searchable history of all active messages or content that their enterprise has broadcast to them, which automatically is cleaned up as messages reach obsolescence. Expired messages are automatically removed from the individuals' history but still made available to the company in a central, searchable repository.
Once you have developed clear email polices you could use Snap Poll, Snap Quiz, and Snap Screensavers to reinforce and test your staff's knowledge and understanding of these policies. These tools could also provide you with data to demonstrate the success of your drive to reduce email overload.
Many staff comment that they do not like receiving additional work via email. They would far rather be asked personally – either over the phone, face to face, in a meeting, or even with a handwritten note on their desk.
Regarding appropriate content for email: it is simply not good practice to use email to convey sensitive or even unpleasant messages. Tone can easily be misinterpreted or lost, resulting in unintended offense. If you find that email seems to be the only communication channel used in your company, it is probably a good time to examine and promote alternative ways of conveying the message.
Why not use a staff meeting to think about all the different communications channels? You can involve staff by asking them to discuss the benefits and drawbacks of each option.
Avoid adding to email overload. Encourage staff to explore more effective ways of communication. Use the right channel and the right tool for the job.
• Snap Screensaver – For raising awareness (e.g. brand, product releases, corporate responsibility etc)
• Snap Ticker – Targeted information updates, sign posting new and relevant information resources
• Snap Desktop Alert – Urgent and/or Important messages that need high cut through
• Snap Quiz – Measure and build capability, raise awareness of key issues (e.g. email etiquette)
• Snap Poll – Measure, benchmark, gather feedback, involve people
• Snap Mag – Collate general new s and admin updates into a one stop, easy to read format
How often do your staff send email to people sitting right next to them? How often do you send an email when a face-to-face meeting or a phone call would have been more effective?
Make sure that neither you nor your staff add to the email overload problem. Why not try a No Email Day?
A No Email Day may seem extreme, but with so many available communication channels (such as IM, SMS, telephone, voicemail, cellphones, meetings, even post-its) you shouldn't find an email-free zone too difficult to manage. It is a wonderful way to spark staff into experimenting with alternative and more effective ways of communicating information.
Snap has so many tools that can assist you to by-pass email – at least for one day!
Snap tools can assist with workflow. Snap tools allow you to prepare messages ahead of time, and to specify the release and expiry dates. This means you do not have to diary in a reminder to send out the draft, because you have prepared and scheduled your communication ahead of time.
With Snap tools you can:
• Raise awareness with Snap Screensaver (e.g. brand, product releases, corporate responsibility)
• Send targeted information updates or sign post new and relevant information resources with Snap Ticker
• Send urgent and/or important messages that need high cut-through with Snap Desktop Alert
• Measure and build capability, raise awareness of key issues with Snap Quiz (e.g. email etiquette)
• Measure, benchmark, and/or gather feedback, and involve people with Snap Poll
• Collate general new s and admin updates into a one stop, easy to read format with Snap Mag
What would you do? Having a No Email Day may force you and your staff to think outside the square.
Why not list all the communications channels open to your organisation and think about the benefits and drawbacks of each. Examine the typical types of information that staff in your organisation regularly send and receive. Think too, about the requirements each type of message may need to have in order to be communicated successfully. Ask yourself, for example, do you need visual or voice cues? Or is the information confidential or sensitive? Or do I need additional information? Or is the message urgent?
Involve staff in this process, as it will help them improve their own individual communication practices. It will also remind them that some messages, especially those dealing with sensitive issues, are not suitable for delivery via email.
You may think that phone calls and face-to-face meetings take more time, but one company that implemented email free days, noted that making a real effort to reduce email overload resulted in better teamwork, happier customers, and quicker problem solving. Don't forget that some solutions, like using desktop alerts may be more efficient and more effective.
Thinking ‘outside of the square' is the reason the Snap tools exist. These internal communications tools were originally built six years ago for 2 organisations which were really thinking creatively and wanted to find a better way to communicate with their staff, reduce overall interruptions, and increase the impact of important messages.
The suite of employee communications tools continually evolves, based on the needs and desires of our customers - forward-thinking communications practitioners in organisations across the world.
Snap Video and Snap RSVP tool are recent innovations making it easier for employee communicators to powerfully shape their organization's messages. The newest addition to our range is Snap Interactive , an innovative approach to the use of blogs and forums specifically designed for internal communications purposes.
Thank you for making it to the end!!
We welcome your comments, criticism and contributions. Please send us an email (!) or visit our external Blog or Facebook Group.
Paula Cassin
Director and Founder
Cut Through Communications, LLC
desktop pop-up alerts ensure your message cuts through the clutter
screensavers that act as dynamic billboards to keep employees connected and reinforce messages
a scrolling ticker bar that captures attention and broadcasts critical updates fast
a customizable, auto-publishing electronic update or magazine with powerful targeting capability, which can reduce internal group emails down to zero
direct, on-screen interactive quizzes with automated scoring
direct, on-screen interactive surveys which significantly improve response rate
CUT THROUGH COMMUNICATIONS | SANTA BARBARA, CALIFORNIA USA
TEL 1-805-758-3392 | EMAIL info@cutthroughcommunications.com