June 26, 2006

Beat the Heat:
5 Cool Tips for Better HR Communication

It's hard work to communicate human resources topics—benefits, compensation, performance management, HR policies, etc.—because you have to be complete and correct. Plus, let's face it: These issues are extremely complex. But, despite the degree of difficulty, HR communication doesn't have to be dry, dense and dull. By building on today's best practices in both external and internal communication, you can dramatically improve your efforts—while staying cool, calm and collected. Here are 5 ways:

1. Meet your audience's needs
Take a page from the best consumer marketers (like Procter & Gamble) and spend time analyzing who your employees are and what they need. Then create communication to meet those needs. For example, if a segment of your employees don't have easy access to a computer, supplement online communication with simple print pieces they can read during break or take home to review.

2. Keep it simple
Just say no to HR jargon and legalese. Instead, learn from leading advertisers who write copy at the 7th grade reading level, not because their audience is uneducated, but because content at that level is easy to digest—with plain language and simple sentence structure. Use technical terms and acronyms sparingly, and always define a word or term that people won't instantly understand.

3. Sum up first, then provide details
Great Internet sites—on every topic from breaking news to home improvement—provide users with an opportunity to quickly skim content, then go into more depth if they're interested. In HR communication, you're required to provide detailed information, but you don't have to do so all at once. Whether you're communicating on line or in print, follow the lead of web sites by using descriptive headlines, summary paragraphs, subheads, sidebars and clearly marked “details” sections to give employees the chance to get the point. Then employees can decide if they want to go further, all the way down to reading summary plan descriptions.

4. Use graphics to convey content
Instead of relying only on words to get your message across, leverage the same techniques used by USA Today, The Weather Channel, ESPN and other cutting-edge media to take complicated concepts and convey them in tables, charts and other graphics. Busy employees don't have time to pore over information; they want to absorb it quickly. Distill your data into at-a-glance nuggets.

5. Make communication action-oriented
Employees always want to know: “How does this affect me? What do I need to do? When do I need to do it?” Help them by emulating financial services companies who market their “products” to consumers at the appropriate time (like just before taxes are due) to make it easy to take immediate action. In addition, highlight “what you need to do” so that employees don't have to wade through a lot of background material to take the next step.