Communication consistency is what distinguishes successful organizations from less successful ones. It is marked by a reliable flow of information in a discernible tone throughout the organization. According to a survey, effective and consistent communication is critical to ensuring workplace productivity and employee confidence. On the other hand, inconsistency can be damaging to organizations:
- Overall employee tendency to be non-receptive to important communication,
- Reduced workplace productivity and morale,
- Rising employee skepticism and non-compliance,
- Apathy and disinterest among employees,
- Diminishing trust in internal messaging,
Yet, what exactly are the aspects that cause messaging inconsistency? Let's find out.
How does inconsistent communication in the workplace arise?
Although it's common knowledge that communication works best when consistent, most of the times we end up being inconsistent without realizing. Here are some ways this may manifest:
Example 1: Consider a large microbrewery chain sending out automated newsletters to their staff detailing promotions and discounts on the items on the menu. However, they miss informing their staff which customer persona may benefit from a promotional campaign most. This results in unutilized promotional offers and missing out on cross-selling and upsell opportunities.
Find out How McColl's brought together the shop floor and boardroom
Example 2: A large manufacturing company makes it a point to communicate regularly with its production line staff. However, they fail to measure their communication impact. Turns out, the ground reality is that most individuals aren’t receptive to newsletters and are overlooking them. They’d instead prefer something more hands-on like instant messaging.
So, what causes such situations?
4 most common causes of communication inconsistency
Usually, some of the most common reasons resulting in communication inconsistency include:
- Not having clearly defined employee communication content plans.
- Following legacy procedures for sending out communications without thoughts on updates or improvements.
- Relying too much on automation and overlooking the human aspect.
- Not gathering regular feedback from employees .
How to overcome it - 4 solutions for ensuring communication consistency
It’s pretty easy to make your communication style more consistent and engaging. Here are four solutions that will help you.
Solution 1. Establish clear communication guidelines
Every organization is differently structured. Thus, ensuring communication campaigns are tailored to suit unique and niche requirements helps.
- Create clear communication guidelines to identify the optimal frequency and way of communication. For example, if most of your frontline employees prefer push notifications, account for this while drafting your communication guidelines. If you have a section of in-office employees preferring non-intrusive daily or weekly digests, make an arrangement for them as well.
- Establish appropriate tonality of messaging and preferred communication medium. For instance, you can segment employees based on psychographics and demographics to align your messaging style appropriately.
- Create an internal style guide for the kind of vocabulary you will use in your communication. You must understand that you cannot speak to all employees similarly. Acknowledging seniority, the level of vocabulary and education, age, culture, and other factors while drafting messages is essential.
Solution 2. Use communication tools
Consistency can become more straightforward if you use tools. This reduces the burden on communication professionals who must draft content and disseminate information regularly. Here are some excellent candidates for automation:
- Ccontent creation. For example, using tools such as chat GPT can help you automate the process of creating meaningful content. You can plug in responses into tools like Canva to create attractive images without much effort or design knowledge.
Content sharing and dissemination. Scheduling tools such as BufferApp, HootSuite can help you share content easily. In addition, using employee communication apps can also help you do the same - Making announcements and sending out alerts. Enabling push notifications can help send out essential alerts in real-time. However, ensure you’re not becoming intrusive.
- Measuring the success of communication campaigns. You can use analytics tools to track and interpret KPIs such as engagement levels and response rates.
Solution 3. Provide regular training
It is also essential to train employees and communication professionals regularly.
- Ensure regular training for communication professionals to use communication applications, create better content, and utilize technology better.
- Encourage individuals to be more receptive to workplace communication.
- Incentivize back-and-forth communication during training to reinforce what is learned.
Solution 4. Seek regular feedback
Effective communication depends on feedback, as communication is always a two-way process. Therefore, you must make sure to identify any bottlenecks in feedback collection and address them promptly. Here are some ways:
- Implement mechanisms to consistently collect data and seek employee feedback using various methods such as direct communication, surveys, anonymous feedback, and interviews.
- Employee communication tools can streamline feedback collection and help address gaps within communication loops.
Simplify consistent communication using modern tools
Consistent communication is essential for ensuring optimum workplace productivity and high employee morale. Ensuring it fosters an environment of clarity and trust and enables everyone to perform best. In today’s digital age, the best forward lies in synthesizing human effort with technology. This helps ensure relevance and efficiency.
Speakap offers the perfect solution to ensure communication consistency with ease. The content distribution helps admins write, edit, plan, and post curated content easily. The tool is super helpful to communicate with your employees consistently and measure the success of your campaigns.
