July 5, 2005

Put Your New Knowledge of Demographics to Work

Part 2 of a two-part series

In the last issue of Smart Tips, we wrote about the importance of understanding demographics to know your audience and suggested that you should begin by gathering demographics data in three categories: geography, tenure/length of service, and age ranges. This week we’ll help you apply this new knowledge to make immediate improvements in how you communicate with employees. To do so, we’ll introduce you to a fictional company, Churchill Enterprises, and show you examples of how the employee communication director could use demographics to enhance his program.

1. Geography
   Even in this virtual age, geography still matters: Where a person lives and works is an important part of his or her identity, and an employee’s experience with an organization is shaped by:
   

   •	Proximity to senior leaders and decision makers
   •	Access to his or her manager and colleagues
   •	Whether he or she works in a headquarters or large facility, which can create a sense of camaraderie, or in a remote location (store, small regional office or transportation hub), which can create a sense of autonomy

   At Churchill Enterprises

   Geographic factor	Current communication practice	Suggested improvement
   Before the company’s recent rapid growth, 75% of employees were at headquarters or the adjacent manufacturing facility. Today, only half of employees work at HQ in the Midwest; the rest are at other major facilities on the U.S. East Coast, in Canada and France, and at field locations.	A cornerstone of the communication plan has been town hall meetings at headquarters	Communication needs to reflect the company’s growth and geographic scope, with less reliance on HQ-based face-to-face. The communication director should plan a program to support facility leaders, so that they understand their role of creating consistent and sustained communication at their location.

   
   
2. Tenure/length of service
   The length of time employees stay with an organization has both practical and cultural implications:
   

   •	A stable employee population has a long memory, which can be a positive (strong company heritage) or a negative (still seething over something that happened years ago)
   •	By contrast, if turnover is high, employees need to ramp up quickly on procedures and culture, and this information needs to be refreshed frequently

   
   At Churchill Enterprises

   Tenure factor	Current communication practices	Suggested improvements
   Five years ago, most employees had been with Churchill almost since it was founded. Now, 50% of the employee population has been hired within the last three years.	Message platforms have been created with the assumption that employees are well aware of company heritage.	Messaging needs to be more explicit about company facts and heritage.
   	The new employee orientation program has focused solely on HR policies and benefits.	New employee orientation needs to be revamped to provide employees with the opportunity to learn about Churchill on their first day at work.

   
   
3. Age ranges
   Remember that cool demographics term we introduced last week: “generational cohort”? It’s important for two reasons: 1) Our attitudes are informed by how old we are, and by the generation in which we grew up, and 2) The way people experience communication continues to be age-influenced.
   
   For example, many Baby Boomers can still remember vividly the days before computers (“Daddy, what’s a typewriter?”) and still aren’t completely comfortable with technology. But people younger than 40 grew up using technology and master new channels with ease.
   
   

   Age factor	Current communication practice	Suggested improvement
   Unless he had examined the facts closely, the communication director at Churchill might have assumed that most of the company’s employees were 35 to 55. In fact, the recent influx of new employees have skewed younger, so about 30% of the workforce is under 30.	Churchill has two communication traditions: town halls and a very effective monthly employee newsletter. Electronic communication is very basic—the intranet site is up-to-date, but it’s sparse and static.	Younger employees at Churchill prefer electronic communication. The communication director needs to keep the mix of vehicles, but make improvements to the intranet to make it more dynamic.

You can learn more about the demographics that will impact how you will communicate effectively with employees today and in the future by contacting Alison Davis at:

1.877.399.5100 (toll-free in the U.S.)
1.201.445.5100
alison.davis@davisandco.com