Communication Plan

Clear communication between managers and employees boosts engagement, trust, and performance. Poor communication often drives employees to leave. This guide outlines a 10-step plan to improve communication and keep your team aligned.

Why It Matters 

Companies spend billions of dollars on recruiting and interviewing, hoping they’ll hire the very best. Every day, business owners face the challenge of having competitors find ways to lure their most valuable employees away or face losing great employees because of a disconnect with a manager. That disconnect occurs due to a serious lack of communication between the manager and the employee.

In recent Gallup research:  

• Employees whose managers hold regular meeting with them are nearly three times as likely to be engaged. 

• Managers who use a combination of face-to-face, phone and electronic communication are the most successful in engaging employees. 

• Engaged employees report that when they leave a message for their manager, they receive a response within 24 hours. 

Gallup also found employees valued communication from their managers about “what happens in their lives outside of work.” Neglecting to acknowledge and give praise for a job well done will make employees look somewhere else.  

• Tell your people what they’re doing well.  Be sincere and be specific.  They’ll be motivated to do more of it. 

• Everyone deserves commendation for something.  When you learn to identify, recognize and praise those achievements, you bring out the best in people. 

People leave managers, not companies; if a company is serious about keeping their best people they need to make sure they are giving them reasons to stay.

When I run into this issue at companies I'm working with, we set up this 10 Step communication plan.

People leave managers, not companies.

Implement a 10 Step Company Communication Plan 

Step 1: Determine what information needs to be communicated

1. For your company’s current stage of growth, what are your top 5 challenges? 
2. Who are your top 3 competitors and why? 
3. What is your Vision, Mission and Values? 
4. What is your growth strategy? 
5. How will each employee impact that strategy? 
6. Daily key indicators by division and by total company

Step 2: Determine how that information will be communicated (email, formal memo, meetings, newsletter) 

1. NEVER allow negative information to be sent via email 
2. Reduce your communication via email and increase your communication with face-to-face meetings

Step 3: Design a program, such as one-on-one meetings between supervisors and direct reports, that encourages consistent and intentional communication with all employees 

1. Managers should meet weekly with direct reports 
2. Encourage dialogue around 3 key areas: feedback, employee development, employee performance 

Step 4: Develop a protocol in your company for ALL meetings – company meetings, team meetings, division meetings, one-on-one meetings 

1. Weekly manager/employee meetings 
2. Monthly company meetings 
3. Weekly division meetings 

Step 5: Determine what information needs to be transferred to other people in your company 

1. Solutions to problems encountered 
2. Success stories 
3. Introduction of new employees 
4. Immediate change in critical key indicators 
5. Project updates with milestones met and missed 

                 These steps lay the foundation for clear, intentional communication that keeps everyone informed, connected, and focused on shared goals.

Step 6: Determine how you will capture and transfer that information 

1. Customer Relationship Management and/or ERP solution 
2. Notes from meetings posted on intranet 
3. Newsletter 
4. Weekly email updates 

Step 7: Determine what the CEO/Partners know that others need to know

1. Status of sales compared to projections 
2. Status of expenditures compared to projections 
3. Gross margin updates on all revenue groups compared to projections 
4. Successful new client acquisitions 
5. Competitor updates 
6. New opportunities 
   

Step 8: Determine what the CEO/Partners know that others need to know

1. Project updates compared to projections 
2. Capacity planning, workload planning 
3. Division and department updates 

Step 9: Determine what the CEO/Partners know that others need to know

1. What is working and what isn’t working 
2. What their contacts are saying and responding to 
3. Success stories 
4. Solutions uncovered, problems solved 

Step 10: Determine what the CEO/Partners know that others need to know

1. What worked and what didn’t work 
2. Project milestones 
3. Success stories 
4. Customer’s input 

Make sure the whole team is on the same page

Conclusion 

A company that is serious about intentional communications, sends a strong message to all employees that can far exceed the short-term effect of a salary increase, or a bonus check. People want to understand what the company is doing and why and we all know that when there is a communication void, that void will be filled, and it will be filled with negative information. The art of communication isn’t something that can be left to chance.