I’m speaking tomorrow to the local chapter of IABC, the International Association of Business Communicators.  My speech is titled Why Communication Doesn’t Matter if…

The speech starts by going over the “5 Questions”: 

• you don’t know what workforce engagement means
• you don’t know why workforce engagement impacts employee behaviors and actions
• you don’t know where communication impacts employee satisfaction and retention
• you have to decide when to be honest
• “you know who” cares more about style than substance

The impact “communication” has on your employees is borne out in the results from our last national benchmark study on workforce engagement:

• When employees feel positively about the Communications Index (a compilation of 12 questions from the national survey), they are 3 1/2 times more likely to be Fully Engaged than employees who feel neutral or negative (76% vs 21%).
• When employees feel negatively about the Communications Index they are 8 times more likely to be Unengaged than employees who feel positive (51% vs 6%).

In fact, how employees perceive the communications from their employer has a bigger impact on their level of engagement than does their relationship with their supervisor or their feelings about “fairness”.

So, looking at those “5 questions”, how many do you fail to answer, or answer wrong?