Improving Manager Communications

Staff would rather communicate with their immediate manager or supervisor than any other level of management, and this is particularly true during uncertain times. Staff may start to distrust the ‘corporate mouthpieces’ such as the intranet and they turn to managers for interpretation. Line managers best understand employees’ personal circumstances and can tailor information to suit staff. They are the people staff feel most comfortable approaching with questions and feedback.

So how can we bring managers onboard as a critical part of effective internal communications?

Schedule Internal Communications to Reach Managers First

Advance warning. From a manager’s perspective, nothing is worse than not notifying them of an important communication ahead of their team. Advance warning allows them to consider the impact, ask questions, provide feedback and to allow them to put local context around messages.

Targeting and scheduling features let you use a desktop staff alert or scrolling news feed to update managers with communications before their staff receive the information. This gives them time to plan how they will react, pull together other useful information (e.g. context) and prepare answers to questions staff are likely to ask.

Manager Specific Communications Channels

Communications tools for managers. The Snap internal communications tools make it easy to set up manager specific communications channels. By showing a commitment to better communications tools to support managers, managers are more likely to be open and supportive of the wider internal communications process.

For example use Snap Interactive to set up manager only secure helpdesks to allow managers meet online to discuss strategies, share ideas and plan. This is especially useful when managers work in different locations or time zones.

An internal communications helpdesk for managers can also provide the means for managers to access communications support and ask questions such as:

“I just read this, what does it mean?”
“I just saw this on the intranet, what is it about?”

Snap Interactive can be set up to send desktop alerts to helpdesk moderators which can ensure managers receive fast and effective internal communications support.

Measure and Improve Information Cascade

Measure how well your managers are communicating. Use a staff survey to check how well each employee understands important messages, map this information back to individual managers, and use this feedback to show managers what they are doing well and where they can improve their communications.

Snap Poll’s targeting features make this easy, plus Snap Poll’s unique scheduling and recurrence features ensure high staff participation rates.

Make effective employee communications an overt KPI, reward good performers publicly to create competition and focus or use the feedback to target training and help managers understand what they are doing well and how they can improve.

What gets measured gets done. People tend to do what they are held accountable for as their reputations and jobs may be on the line.

Related Resources

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