Senior Leaders Improve Their Communication with Employees, Towers Perrin Consortium Finds; Employees Want to Hear Company Vision, Market and Competitor Information from the Top

Business Wire,  Sept 7, 2005  

Tags: leader, Towers Perrin, vision

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STAMFORD, Conn. -- Results from the 2005 Communication Effectiveness Consortium, a collective of leading organizations brought together by Towers Perrin, a global professional services firm, suggest that senior leaders are doing a better job in communicating with employees than they were 12 months ago.

Nearly two-thirds (63%) of respondents say senior leadership effectively communicates the company's progress in meeting business objectives, up nine points from 2004. Sixty-three percent also say that leadership has communicated a clear vision for the company's long-term success, an eight-point increase from 2004.

"The data from this year's study show a real improvement in the perceived effectiveness of senior leadership communication," said Katherine Woodall, a principal in the firm's HR Services business specializing in communication and change management and one of the chief architects of the study. "This is especially significant given that employees in the study also identify senior leadership communication as one of the most important elements of communication effectiveness overall."

The Consortium, whose member organizations survey their employees annually about their views on internal communication effectiveness, was launched in 2004 as an efficient way for member organizations to share in the cost of conducting a survey, establishing hard-to-find benchmarks on communication and exchanging best practices. The 2005 survey, titled The Communication Effectiveness Survey, includes more than 18,000 employees at multinational organizations across a diverse set of industries, including financial services, manufacturing, technology, energy and health care.

"Executives are also making themselves more visible and relying less on distributing printed materials," Woodall noted. "For instance, this year's study shows an increase in group meetings taking place via video or Webcast. Fifty-nine percent of employees report that these are now high quality, compared to 54% last year. Town hall meetings and presentations via Web links have also improved. Perhaps as a result of this more personal outreach, 50% of employees say they believe senior leadership demonstrates a sincere interest in their satisfaction and well-being, up from 42% in 2004.

"This is a particularly key finding since Towers Perrin research on employee engagement consistently shows a strong link between higher levels of employee engagement and the belief that senior management is concerned about employees' well-being. It is, in fact, the number one driver of engagement," Woodall continued.

Credibility Also on the Rise

Overall, the study shows an increase in the credibility of communication. Seventy-one percent of respondents say they trust information from company sources more than from the news media, up from 66% in 2004. Survey participants also report greater consistency of messages from varying sources. Seventy-two percent say accuracy improved, compared with 67% in 2004.

"Over the past two years, we've clearly seen an increase in the effectiveness of employee communication," said Woodall. "Fifty-two percent of participants said communication has strengthened in their organizations during that time. In fact, one of the reasons organizations join the Consortium is to help validate their belief in the link between communication and improved employee performance, and to obtain hard data to evaluate their ongoing efforts."

Employees Are Hungry for More

Although the image of a company's executives may have improved, and employees may have a better understanding of the company's vision and goals, employers still need to improve their communication around the marketplace, competitive environment and customers. Twenty seven percent of respondents maintain that information on competitors' products and services is not widely available within their organizations. Almost 40% say there is too little information on competitors and 60% feel it is not at all effective. Communication about customers receives low scores as well, with 45% saying there is too little information and a further 24% saying what they do receive is ineffective.

"Employees get the message that they are fundamental to driving company performance," said Woodall. "But these data tell us that one of the most important tools for them -- getting detailed information about competitors and feedback from customers on what it takes to win -- is still lacking."

Supervisors: Doing Better Than Expected?

Not surprisingly, the study confirms that supervisors are still critical to overall communication effectiveness. However, in contrast to general normative data on supervisory effectiveness, respondents in this study gave supervisors relatively high marks in some critical components of effective communication. For instance:

--70% of respondents say their supervisor is effective at explaining complex ideas in plain, understandable language.