What if all your employees acted like business owners…like their future depended on making the numbers… Would results improve?

They would, but too often employees lack the clarity and motivation.  Getting employees to understand what needs to be done is one-half of the challenge.  Getting them to take action with a sense of purpose and urgency is even more important.   

Engaged employees understand the goals and how they can contribute.  They promote the company’s vision and do what’s best for the customer and the business.  They trust corporate leaders and seek facts when they have questions.  They work smarter because they know why and how they do their jobs productively.   

Strategic Employee Communications Expertise

Gagen MacDonald can help you engage your employees to turn strategies into bottom-line results.  We approach business opportunities with a communications mindset because that’s how we believe you successfully run a company.  By extending strategic communication expertise deeper into management decision-making and strategy execution, the communications function helps drive the business rather than just report on it.  

We believe that planning against financial metrics and tying work to business goals enables communications professionals and management to ensure that communications adds value in a measurable way.  This planning for results approach often requires the communications team to think and plan differently. 

We’ve helped communications teams partner with other key functions (HR, marketing, strategy, organizational development, operations and business leaders) to lead the change necessary to achieve business objectives.  In this way, communications can be the “organizational facilities” to get key groups within the company working better together for the sake of the business.

We help communications functions learn to deliver Strategic Employee Communications by:

• Understanding the company’s primary business objectives.  Communications needs to ask questions, such as: Is the company trying to reduce variable costs?  Does the company need to lower absenteeism across its manufacturing facilities
• Identifying the results you can affect.  Some business objectives are outside the influence of communications, but not many.  Dig deep into each business objective and identify if the result requires employees to think or behave differently in their jobs.  If so, communications can affect the result. 
• Attacking issues and their behavioral root causes. Businesses get results from employee actions.  Employees act in a certain way based on their beliefs, which are shaped by past experiences.  To address issues in an organization, communications must get to the root cause, or the experiences that drive employee behavior.  
• Providing clarity of information. Communications can play a significant role in aligning employees to execute the company strategy and achieve objectives.  A key step is cutting through the clutter and clarifying what it is the company really wants employees to do.  
• Inspiring employees to act. All too many times, communicators focus on rational messages created to appease the sender (or executives), rather than on messages designed to motivate the recipients by giving them a reason to act. 

© 2005 Gagen MacDonald LLC