Bridging the Communication Gap Between HR and Your Employees ...

Today's guest blog post was written by Julianna Davies

According to a recent study by Kenexa Thought Leadership, companies today are falling short in terms of human resources management. Employees surveyed for the study complained of employer practices in several areas, including workplace engagement, long-term retention and monetary compensation; furthermore, vastly different responses from business managers and HR professionals indicate a significant disconnect between employers and employees in regard to perceived workplace conditions. In response to these findings, many experts argue that widespread implementation of visual stimuli could improve these fundamental deficiencies.

To compile accurate data for its annual Compensation Outlook Survey, Kenexa surveyed HR professionals nationwide and then compared their answers to those of business managers (courtesy of World Norms from Kenexa?s Employee Engagement Database) and employees (courtesy of Salary.com). The findings revealed a sizable divide between HR professionals and employees in virtually every category. While Kenexa noted that ?inherent bias? may have skewed some of the answers, the report?s findings strongly suggested that ?HR?s perception of employee attitudes is off the mark.?

In the category of ?employee engagement,? Kenexa found that 69 percent of HR professionals believed that their workforce was effectively engaged; while employers largely agreed with this statement, only 34 percent of employees reported satisfactory engagement levels and 49 percent characterized their workplace engagement level as ?unfavorable.? When it came to ?workplace retention,? 81 percent of HR professionals believed that employees would recommend their workplace to a close friend, while 83 percent thought the majority of their employees would remain with the company for at least one year; only 38 percent and 41 percent of employees, respectively, agreed with these claims.

The narrowest gap between HR professionals and employees was found in the category of ? monetary compensation,? with 53 percent of the former and 30 percent of the latter in agreement that their companies awarded fair wages. The study?s authors noted that this relatively small difference demonstrated that HR professionals understand the strain that cuts to the company budget can have on employee attitudes. Meanwhile, 71 percent of HR professionals felt their companies provided employees with a ?competitive benefits package,? compared to 48 percent of employees who felt the same way. This disparity, Kenexa said, is somewhat explained by the skyrocketing cost of corporate healthcare; while employers and HR professionals have firsthand knowledge of cost-effective benefits packages, employees may have a different perception of what constitutes a ?fair? plan.

The Kenexa report concludes by calling attention to the immediacy of these problems. If the World Norms and Salary.com figures are aggregated (to offset much of the supposed ?bias?), then nearly half of all employees surveyed will leave their company within one year?s time; in other words, a ?retention crisis? will have taken place. The report also notes inconsistencies with many of the answers given by HR professionals. ?While 53 percent of HR professionals think pay is competitive, 69 percent think they have high engagement and 83 percent think they will retain employees in the coming year,? the report states. ?Are we as HR professionals saying that pay isn?t critical?? Ultimately, Kenexa suggests that improved communication between HR professionals, managers and employees would greatly mitigate the disparate levels of workplace perception.

But how can companies improve communication? Matt McKay of Chron recently wrote about a potentially effective solution: ?increased use of audio/video aids in business communication.? He cites several reasons for this idea. First, according to the U.S. Department of Labor OSHA Office of Training and Education, employees are able to retain information up to six times more effectively when data is presented using an audio-visual template, compared to information that is exclusively oral. Second, he notes that visual stimuli ? such as spreadsheets, pie charts, graphs and animated shorts ? present information in a succinct manner that ultimately saves time for all involved. He adds that audio-visual components, such as live speakers and printed handouts, serve as effective supplements that negate the need for employees to schedule subsequent meetings or consultations with managerial staff. Finally, he writes that audio-visual materials stand to increase employee engagement in the long-term. ?Participation in games, Q&A sessions, team and whole-group activities not only breaks up the monotony, but encourages and reinforces learning, management and team building skills,? he wrote. ?Employees that are engaged in the process of business training and communication are better equipped to put information to use in real-life business situations.?

Miranda Brookins of Chron also notes several advantages of using visual aids in the workplace. First, since each employee processes information differently ? some thrive on oral communication, while others fare better with audio and/or visual stimuli, for instance ? multimedia supplements increase the collective level of understanding among a group of workers. Graphs, pie charts and other visual aids also reduce ?information overload? by condensing a large amount of information into an aesthetically pleasing pictorial presentation. Other advantages of visual aids include reduced language barrier, long-term data retention and saved time that can be devoted to other, more integral tasks. By incorporating multimedia into the way information is presented at the workplace, company executives can greatly improve the level of engagement among workers, and this can lead to added perks like higher retention rates and positive perception of wages and benefits.

However, Eileen Rojas of Chron notes a couple of disadvantages to using visual media for workplace presentations. First, she argues visual aids that are poorly executed stand to hinder ? not assist ? workplace communication; for this reason, the presenter must base his supplementary materials on the size of his audience. Larger groups require images projected on a screen that are visible to every person in the room, while smaller groups can get by with condensed visual aids. She also notes that visual aids can serve as distractions if irrelevant information is included. ?For example, a discussion of a company's U.S. manufacturing plants might be accompanied by a map showing the location of these plants within their respective states,? she writes. ?But if you include irrelevant information, such as tourist sites, it can distract the audience from the purpose of the map ? to show the location of manufacturing plants.? However, Rojas also acknowledges the importance of visual media in terms of improved group understanding and more effective oral communication.

HR professionals and business managers should be concerned by the findings listed in the Kenexa report, but many of these disparities can be mitigated by increased attention to inter-office communication. And while each company will amend these problems with different means, many experts agree that increased use of audio-visual aids ? though a seemingly small change ? can have a big effect on workplace satisfaction.

Julianna Davies, longtime business analyst, joins the SmartDraw blog today to talk about a few of the ways in which visual communication can be used to solve leadership problems. This conversation builds on prior posts about how technology and dynamic documentation can improve business processes across the board, though Julianna?s argument is focused almost entirely on personnel. She is most interested in how modern business -- both in graduate school and in practice -- is shaped by individual experiences, and writes a lot about the pros and cons of getting a leadership MBA on the web.

Source: http://www.smartdraw.com/Blog/archive/2012/11/08/bridging-the-communication-gap-between-hr-and-your-employees.aspx

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