WITHIN less than a week, Christmas would have turned its back on us. We would have been standing forlornly on the front porch, waving goodbye with empty, out-turned pockets. Outfoxed yet again, lured and intoxicated by the joyous season. Oh well, we will do better next year. Perhaps now is a good time to start penning those wishes that we have for the coming year.

The business communication wishes I have are simple ones with not a lot of ‘bling’. They do not cost much so the persons to whom I make my wishes will not be sacrificing themselves on the altar of the credit card gods. They will not be going hat in hand to their banker begging for mortgages to finance the implementation of my simple wishes.

Better employee engagement

I think the most overlooked non-expense item that management can put on its to-do list for next year is a programme of employee engagement. It is such a simple thing, and in this case will not set you back the price of a diamond ring. An engaged employee has a heightened emotional connection with his organisation. He is that staff member who turns up at work early in the morning, raring and ready to carry out the company’s bidding — to the letter. He is an active employee, usually wearing his company logo emblazoned Oxfords, not because it is laundry day, but because he is truly proud of everything for which the company stands. Do not for a minute, mistake this engaged employee for the one who spends an inordinate amount of time hanging around the rumour mill or the company’s grapevine, waiting to ‘carry-go-bring-come’. The latter is just evil and a bad choice of employee. If you check it out, even as they ardently spread rumour(s) about others (including you), you will find their output woefully lacking. They are usually, the master of fast-talking and dissembling. They are usually not one and the same person as the engaged employee. The difference is always in the output.

One of the key drivers of employee engagement is something that you will never be able to buy in any shop, huge department or on-line store: honesty. Employees crave it from management as longingly as a child will pine for a new toy at Christmas. Sadly, especially in times of workplace crisis, it is scarcer than hen’s teeth.

In June 2010, the International Association of Business Communicators (IABC) Research Foundation presented the results of its second Employee Engagement Survey. There were 900 respondents in the survey which was sponsored by Buck Consultants, a Xerox Company.

Among the survey findings were that: email (83 per cent) and intranet (75 per cent) are reported as the most frequently used communication vehicles for engaging employees. Social media tools have been gaining popularity with roughly 45 per cent of respondents indicating that they currently communicate through Facebook, Twitter, and instant messaging. Compared with last year’s results, a higher percentage of participants have established external and internal social media policies. A majority of respondents (60 per cent) reported that surveys are a key method for measuring employee engagement and workplace satisfaction. More than two-thirds of respondents stated they conduct employee listening activities at least once a year.

More effective external and internal communication

I think that there is no greater nightmare that an employee can have, than to wake up in the morning to the headlines in the newspaper or on the electronic media indicating that their company is broke and going out of business, not tomorrow or next year — but today. Employees are sometimes at fault for not insisting on management’s sharing news and information about the company’s progress and profitability. Your company’s annual and quarterly reports are published throughout the year and we, the employee, see it as so much waste of money, not realizing that these documents contain the, ‘untold stories’ that will determine your financial future, especially if we have visions of a stable diet in your future. And management is not sharing information either. For some strange reason, ascendancy into the rarified air of management means that our managers are no longer accessible to ‘the rest of us’. Information is slid under the door as if the company is involved in some weird CIA-FBI plot, the kind that you see in some cheesy movie. What’s up with that? Is it that new managers take a vow of silence, like Trappist munks, when they are promoted and sworn to secrecy? I’m confused.

To be honest, also for the most part, there not always a clear line of sight between the employee performance and company performance. So even while I come to work every day and might be churning out rubber bands like the dickens in my assembly line at Rubberband Inc, I really have no clue where the rubber bands are being exported and what the worldwide demand are for said bands. So, between management and employee there needs to greater appreciation and utilisation of the channels of communication that already exist (some at great expense) within the company.

Deeper understanding of corporate social responsibility (CSR)

Basically, CSR is about how companies manage their business processes to produce an overall positive impact on society. It is not a concept

that is embraced or fully understood by some Jamaican companies. Last month marked the launch of ISO International Standards, ISO 26000:2010, which provides guidance to all types of organisations on social responsibility (SR). The new standard was announced at a special ISO 26000 event in Geneva, Switzerland by ISO Secretary-General, Rob Steele; Chair of the ISO Working Group on Social Responsibility, Jorge ER Cajazeira and representatives of potential users from industry and governments who have expressed interest and support for the standard.

ISO 26000 is the work of the ISO Working Group on Social Responsibility, which began developing the standard in 2005. The Working Group membership was the largest and the most broadly based representation of any single group formed to develop an ISO standard. Six main stakeholder groups were engaged: industry; government; labour; consumers: non-governmental organisations; and service, support, research and others, as well as a geographical and gender-based balance of participants. My final wish is that the concept will be fully embraced by more Jamaican managers and companies. Have a peaceful Christmas.

Yvonne Grinam-Nicholson, (MBA, ABC) is a Business Communications Consultant with ROCommunications Jamaica, specialising in business communications and financial publications. She can be contacted at: yvonne@rocommunications.com. Visit her website at www.rocommunications.com and post your comments.