How to Create an Employee Communication-rich Environment

When it comes to communication practices, many Dealer Principals and GM’s don’t understand the impact they are having on their own organizations.

Let me give you some statistics relating to — and the costs associated with — poor communication. Then I will offer some suggestions on how to make some subtle changes that may have a profound effect on your organization!

Stunning ROI (Return on Investment) Statistics

It is estimated that, on average across the United States, the benefit to the bottom line for EACH additional engaged employee is about $17,000.  According to Gallup, two-thirds to three-quarters of U.S. employees are not engaged.

Communication Barriers

According to Internal Communications expert, David Grossman, communication barriers result in the loss of about $28k per worker per year due to productivity losses.  This breakdown in communication results in loss of productivity, conflict, missed opportunities, schedule slippages, wasted resources, damaged relationships, unclear or unmet requirements and more.

Downtime

A dealership with one hundred employees spends an average of seventeen hours a week clarifying communication; that is, the time spent clarifying something that was previously misunderstood.  For that one hundred-person business, this translates to an annual cost in excess of $500 thousand according to recent studies.

Turnover

Any successful business manager will tell you that retaining great talent is a key to business success.  The cost of replacing an average worker is half a year’s salary, and that figure skyrockets to 150% for highly skilled workers according to HR experts.  What’s more, those highly skilled workers are the very ones who have the greatest opportunities to move to a new organization!

Effective versus Weak Internal Communications

According to Towers Watson, companies with highly effective internal communications experience 47% higher returns to shareholders over companies with the least effective practices.

Here are 5 things you can do to improve your internal dealership communications:

1. Include and engage a cross section of people who drive content weekly – from the CEO to the front line.  Include many perspectives. Often the most elegant solutions come from people on that front line.
2. Make it easy for employees to access information (and No, that does not mean yet another email entitled “Effective Weekly Communication” and it does not mean a bulletin board either.)
3. Use human-interest stories to carry the critical messages about strategy. The former will attract people to learn about the latter.  In addition, it may show them that you actually care!
4. Measure the effectiveness of your communications.  STOP assuming people are reading your reports OR listening to folks drone on during sales and service meetings.
5. Leave fear out of it.  Communicate honestly sharing what you know today.  If something does not happen as you thought it might, then share that info too.  Employees expect a lot from their employers; however, a crystal ball isn’t one of them. Your honesty will build trust over time.

PDP can help you deliver with ease highly effective internal communications.  Call us today to learn how!  We want to help!!