Speaker 1: Hey, this is Chris with Hacking your Leadership on today's
Speaker 1: discussion on employee engagement. I want to talk about something
Speaker 1: that is kind of near and dear to my heart,
Speaker 1: and this is the idea of influence through communication. And
Speaker 1: you know, I've worked in organizations in the past where
Speaker 1: I had people complain that no one reads their emails,
Speaker 1: and and you know, they want to go from a
Speaker 1: top down standpoint of like, you know, kind of know
Speaker 1: you have to read my emails. But when it comes
Speaker 1: down to it whether or not people read the communication
Speaker 1: that you put out, whether it's an email or a
Speaker 1: newsletter or anything. If it's addressed to you specifically, it's
Speaker 1: likely that it will get read. If it's addressed to
Speaker 1: a group of people, there is a good chance it
Speaker 1: won't get read, especially if you are sending it to
Speaker 1: a person who gets you know, dozens of communications, you know, emails, slack,
Speaker 1: you know, text messages a day on on what the
Speaker 1: job looks like. Sometimes people go back and read them
Speaker 1: later on other times they just get deleted. And and
Speaker 1: it's interesting when this happens, because when a person is
Speaker 1: sending out communication regularly and people aren't reading those communications,
Speaker 1: what that says to me, is that the person is
Speaker 1: not sending out something that those people think is relevant
Speaker 1: to their job.
Speaker 2: They just don't think it's relevant, because if they.
Speaker 1: Thought it was relevant, they would read it, and if
Speaker 1: it was actionable, they would take care of it. And
Speaker 1: so if you are responsible for sending out communications that
Speaker 1: are imperative that people know in order for you to
Speaker 1: get your job done, but they're not necessarily imperative for
Speaker 1: them to know for them to get their job done,
Speaker 1: then this is where you run into the issue. And
Speaker 1: so I want to talk about the different ways that you,
Speaker 1: as a leader or as just a person, can alter
Speaker 1: or make those communications better so that more people are
Speaker 1: at least aware of them, They read them, they kind
Speaker 1: of take the information in even if it's not actionable
Speaker 1: in the moment, because if it will help your job
Speaker 1: get done, the more people who know about whatever this
Speaker 1: is that you're sending out, then you you want to
Speaker 1: increase the likelihood that they will at least give it
Speaker 1: a shot or read it, or or you know, you know,
Speaker 1: see see your name come up in the in the
Speaker 1: from field and go, oh, oh, this is from this
Speaker 1: from Lorenzo.
Speaker 2: Oh. He sends out good stuff. Let me read this.
Speaker 2: You know, that's what you want the reaction to be,
Speaker 2: not oh, Lorenzo, not important. Delete delete delete, you.
Speaker 1: Know that's that's it's a big difference between the two
Speaker 1: and how you send out these communications and what's in
Speaker 1: them can make all the difference.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I can tell you. I I will typically glance
Speaker 3: through emails like exactly what you're talking about, Like is
Speaker 3: there anything in here that I see as necessary? I
Speaker 3: read a lot of emails, and I'm typically a part
Speaker 3: of large groups, but not a lot that like I
Speaker 3: don't get a lot of like kind of professional work
Speaker 3: emails so many that it's hard to kind of get
Speaker 3: through them. But I have definitely, I mean that's now.
Speaker 3: I have definitely been situations where like email was the thing,
Speaker 3: and everything is email and everything is there, uh, and
Speaker 3: then there's more corporate communications and things that you might
Speaker 3: get and then you really are trying to figure out, like, well,
Speaker 3: is there anything that I see in here that's an
Speaker 3: immediate action that's necessary or is this something that's just
Speaker 3: information that I can read whenever I want to, and
Speaker 3: I kind of skip ahead and in a lot of
Speaker 3: those spaces. But to your points, there are definitely tricks
Speaker 3: that I've fallen for. It made me read the emails
Speaker 3: or read the.
Speaker 2: Damn it I gave up that time. I shouldn't have
Speaker 2: read that.
Speaker 3: Exactly, they got me. They got me good good placements
Speaker 3: and good titling and good ways of getting my attention.
Speaker 3: And so I can tell you wholeheartedly that that these
Speaker 3: things work and if you're if you're good at them,
Speaker 3: it can be really helpful in getting people to pay
Speaker 3: attention to to what's in your content.
Speaker 2: For sure, Oh yeah, for sure.
Speaker 1: And and you know, if I think about it from
Speaker 1: a per perspective of like an HR employee, and so
Speaker 1: if I am if if I am a human resources
Speaker 1: director or leader, then my direct reports are other HR people.
Speaker 1: And the people who I'm sending this information out to
Speaker 1: aren't necessarily direct reports of me. They just could be
Speaker 1: employees that need to know certain things. But if one
Speaker 1: of the ways that you measure employee engagement and one
Speaker 1: of the ways that you you know, you you make
Speaker 1: sure that employees are happy or that they know about
Speaker 1: the benefit offerings you have, they have to want to
Speaker 1: read the information that you send out. And so if
Speaker 1: half the people in your company don't know about the
Speaker 1: four oh one K program. They don't know about you know,
Speaker 1: what mental health resources you have for them, any of
Speaker 1: those things. If they don't know about it, either you're
Speaker 1: not sending it out right and if we're in if
Speaker 1: we're talking about it from this perspective right now, it
Speaker 1: means you're already sending it out. You're sending that information out.
Speaker 1: And if you're getting the impression that no one knows
Speaker 1: about it, it means, you know, I hate to hate
Speaker 1: to be the bearer of bad news. They're not reading
Speaker 1: your communications, and if they're not reading your communications, it
Speaker 1: means that they think that it's not important. And so
Speaker 1: you need to be able to do things that meet
Speaker 1: people with they are from a standpoint of you know,
Speaker 1: not to use your words, Lorenzo, but tricking them into.
Speaker 2: Read the email so that they understand the information.
Speaker 1: So I want to go through some of the things
Speaker 1: that you can do to make sure that as more
Speaker 1: likely to happen.
Speaker 2: But first I want to get up toward to one
Speaker 2: of our sponsors. All right, if you're.
Speaker 1: Trying to increase the level of engagement with the communication
Speaker 1: you're sending out, especially to people who don't have a
Speaker 1: direct line to you, there are a couple of things
Speaker 1: you can do that real low hanging fruit to.
Speaker 2: Kind of increase this.
Speaker 1: First, people are more likely to read an email that
Speaker 1: comes from a person then comes from an inbox. So
Speaker 1: if they get the email from human resources at Company
Speaker 1: X dot com, they're less likely to read it than
Speaker 1: if they get it from Lorenzo at COMPANYX dot com. Right,
Speaker 1: people have a personal relationship with people, not with inboxes,
Speaker 1: so if it comes from an inbox, it is viewed
Speaker 1: as less personal already to begin with. So you're already
Speaker 1: starting from a deficit and getting people to want to
Speaker 1: read to begin with. So, if at all possible, send
Speaker 1: emails from you. I know a lot of people in
Speaker 1: leadership roles who they don't want to feel the incoming
Speaker 1: communication from a lot of people, so they'll send an
Speaker 1: email from a shared inbox from a team so that
Speaker 1: they don't have to be the one receiving that communication.
Speaker 1: But I'll tell you something something you should know. Those
Speaker 1: people don't have a relationship with your team, they have
Speaker 1: a relationship with you, or they don't, and so you
Speaker 1: should welcome the idea that people would want to reach
Speaker 1: out to you directly as someone they look at as
Speaker 1: a support person. If you're the wrong person to reach
Speaker 1: out to, get them the right person. But if they're
Speaker 1: reaching out to you because they have an issue, it
Speaker 1: means they feel like they have a relationship with you
Speaker 1: to begin with, and that could come from the communications
Speaker 1: you're sending out to them that come from your direct
Speaker 1: inbox as opposed to like a shared group you know,
Speaker 1: distribution list or mailbox. So that's the first thing. The
Speaker 1: second thing is you want to make sure that there's
Speaker 1: content that is relevant to them every time you send
Speaker 1: something out, not just that you think will be relevant
Speaker 1: to them. And so what do employees look for when
Speaker 1: it comes to you know, internal communications, They're looking for
Speaker 1: potential job openings. So if I'm an employee of an
Speaker 1: organization and I see an email comes from a group inbox,
Speaker 1: but I know that in all of those emails that
Speaker 1: come out it's going to be an updated list of
Speaker 1: whatever open positions are available in the company, I'm a
Speaker 1: lot more likely to look at those, especially if I
Speaker 1: want to move up in the organization. Something that you
Speaker 1: can use to get personal information from a person on
Speaker 1: the team. And so if on each communication you send
Speaker 1: out that you're also sending out kind of like a
Speaker 1: questionnaire about somebody on your team that is not work related,
Speaker 1: that is personal and related. Hey, this is introducing you
Speaker 1: to somebody else on our team. This is their favorite music,
Speaker 1: This is their favorite favorite song, favorite food. This is
Speaker 1: where they grew up, this is what's important to them,
Speaker 1: This is who their family is. You know, the personal
Speaker 1: information that you can add, people are naturally drawn to
Speaker 1: that personal information. It's it's why you know, the paparazzi
Speaker 1: is so successful when it comes to celebrities because people
Speaker 1: have this kind of innate desire to want to know
Speaker 1: what's going on in the lives of others that is
Speaker 1: not kind of scrubbed and work related only that's truly
Speaker 1: them from the heart. And then the last thing you
Speaker 1: can add is, you know, a potential survey, so it
Speaker 1: doesn't have to be a full employee engagement survey, but
Speaker 1: a question about Hey, you know, we're we're trying to
Speaker 1: get feedback on this one thing. Hey, reply to this
Speaker 1: email and give us your feedback on this one thing.
Speaker 2: We'd love to know.
Speaker 1: We'd love to hear from you on getting an answer
Speaker 1: to this question. People love feeling like their input is
Speaker 1: valued and you don't want them to get survey fatigued
Speaker 1: by giving them, you know, multiple surveys, you know, a month.
Speaker 1: But if every time, like a newsletter or a communication
Speaker 1: goes out that there's something you're trying to solve, crowdsourcing,
Speaker 1: the potential answers to those questions can really help engage
Speaker 1: your team or the people you're sending the information out
Speaker 1: to and make it more likely they'll read the other
Speaker 1: things that you send out.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: I think it's some great points in there. And I
Speaker 3: think that the more engaging that you can make the
Speaker 3: content and the more personal that you can make the content,
Speaker 3: and if you can do things that make it easy
Speaker 3: to understand what's in it, I think that for me
Speaker 3: is what usually will pull me in is like, give
Speaker 3: me a headline on something, a title, give me the
Speaker 3: quick like what's in here in the kind of like
Speaker 3: the tl DR version at the top of the email.
Speaker 3: I go, oh yeah, I go okay, I there's something
Speaker 3: in here that I definitely want to read more of.
Speaker 3: Like those types of things give me kind of the
Speaker 3: pause when I'm seeing that type of content to go like, Okay,
Speaker 3: they know that this is a lot, but they also
Speaker 3: know that there's something in here that probably needs my attention,
Speaker 3: and so they're they're showing me that through some of
Speaker 3: these types of tactics, and I can appreciate that, and
Speaker 3: then now I know that this is definitely something that's
Speaker 3: worth my time. And especially again to your point, like
Speaker 3: if there's there's content in here around people, individuals, you know,
Speaker 3: celebratory type of things, recognition type of things, those things
Speaker 3: as well get my attention because I want to know
Speaker 3: what's going on and who's doing great work, and you know,
Speaker 3: learning about other people that that are in a company
Speaker 3: or on a team. Those things are also super helpful
Speaker 3: in kind of bringing a piece of you know, maybe
Speaker 3: larger content to life when it comes to having people
Speaker 3: want to engage.
Speaker 2: With it, right right.
Speaker 1: I love the TLDR part of it because it's almost
Speaker 1: an acknowledgment that a lot of people aren't going to
Speaker 1: read it too long, didn't read I get it. I'm
Speaker 1: sending out this communication. Maybe I have to send something
Speaker 1: out once a week and it's not a short email
Speaker 1: or piece of communication. And I understand. I don't sit
Speaker 1: here thinking, oh everybody's reading everything I have to say.
Speaker 1: I understand that people aren't reading this a lot of times,
Speaker 1: and acknowledging that almost from like a self deprecating way,
Speaker 1: is a great way to endear yourself to those people
Speaker 1: that say.
Speaker 2: Hey, you know what, I get it. I get it.
Speaker 1: I've been in situations where I've gotten communications from people
Speaker 1: that I didn't read. So I understand, and I'm not
Speaker 1: judging you from being in the role that you're in
Speaker 1: and maybe your decision not to read something. So let
Speaker 1: me give you the high level in a couple of
Speaker 1: quick bit points at the top, so that because I
Speaker 1: really think these are the items that are really necessary.
Speaker 1: And then hey, if you see something in here that
Speaker 1: you that that pique your interest, then then read further
Speaker 1: because there's going to be more about it. You know,
Speaker 1: this kind of like you know, self aggrandizing, you know,
Speaker 1: you know, belief that you know, if I if I
Speaker 1: write it, they will read it is not the case
Speaker 1: because that doesn't take into account the fact that the
Speaker 1: person you're sending this email to likely gets thirty to
Speaker 1: fifty emails a day from all over their organization and
Speaker 1: they have to prioritize because they don't have the time
Speaker 1: to put in to read things. Just because you have
Speaker 1: the time to put in to write them, So keep
Speaker 1: that in mind, come at it from a perspective of humility,
Speaker 1: and give people what they're looking for, you know, hide
Speaker 1: in there the things that you need them to see,
Speaker 1: but make make the headline the thing that is going
Speaker 1: to really benefit them or something they're going to want
Speaker 1: to see, and appeal to that nature. And you'll be
Speaker 1: surprised how much more people read the things that you
Speaker 1: have to put out. Thank you for joining on this
Speaker 1: episode of employ Engagement. We'll see you next Thursday for
Speaker 1: the next one.
Speaker 2: You have a great day.