How Business Communication Connects Investors to Employees
Have you ever wondered if your business communication actually connects investors to employees? Ideally, the function of management aims to provide communication that bridges the gap between all stakeholders within your organization. However, this is not always the case.
While many mediums and channels exist to foster communication, the challenge is not a matter of the capability to communicate but instead the effectiveness of content and the ability to foster inclusion across all interested parties.
Modern companies succeed when management serves primarily as a catalyst to generate communication between employees and investors. This philosophy is not only efficient but also inclusive. Let’s explore in further detail why this dynamic is so effective.
Today’s employees, employees want to know the outcome of their efforts. We see common phrases like “Making an impact” or “Making a difference” becoming an overarching theme in today’s workforce. Consequently, increased access to leadership often helps employees feel more connected to the outcome. A great example of the communication landscape is Mark Zuckerberg’s F8 Developer Conference. The CEO included publicly available broadcasts which highlighted Facebook employee involvement. While the F8 roadmap showcased culture internally it also created a direct line of sight for investors and stakeholders to glean into granular operational or employee level concerns.
Understanding this dynamic, it’s important to highlight several factors that companies should consider when developing their communication infrastructure. Some considerations include:
- Developing a holistic view on communication strategy
- Embrace realism and company culture as opposed to buzz lines and PR tactics
- Eliminate practices that create silos within the organization or barriers to communication
These considerations will help your company develop communication models that foster inclusion and connectivity in all forms of messaging.
The Role of Technology in Business Communication
It may surprise you when you learn that Facebook, a company of 43,000 employees in 2019 uses simple communication technology like streaming to connect its investors, employees, and the public to its vision.
The simple truth is that business communication is the medium for which a company’s story is crafted, shared, and received. Admittedly, just because it sounds simple archetyping this synergistic environment can be challenging. After all, it’s been said that simple is never easy.
So let’s get down to the brass tacks of how business communication connects investors to employees.
- Communication is precise, transparent, and reflects the company’s present tense.
- Communication promotes accessibility, insight, and personal experiences.
- Communication connects the people doing the work to those invested in seeing it succeed.
Technology that supports these tenets focus on how the content is delivered and how the end-users are able to interact with it. Some examples of this in action include simple interactions like:
- Recording investors calls and ensuring all stakeholders have the ability to call in to ask questions or interact with the team.
- Recording employee story narratives to showcase the journey and personality of the individual employee to investors as well as stakeholders.
- Recruiting employees to partake in commercial creative
In short, the direction that a company takes also influences the technology that it uses. With so many choices on the market today it’s advisable to think narrow instead of broad. The fewer steps between the source and the end-user the more digestible and advantageous.
As we move into recommendations for communications tech, take the following questions as guidelines for your best practices:
- What overall tone does your brand communication want to exude?
- How accessible is your current system?
- Have you defined metrics to measure the success of communication initiatives?
- In order of priority what are the primary challenges associated with your existing structure?
With these questions in mind let’s explore different real-world scenarios that may help you improve the quality of your business communication.
Communication Centralization
Centralizing communication portals is essential for disseminating information. Whether you are using a highly sophisticated content management system or a private server a central point of access improves accessibility and ensures everyone receives the updates.
To achieve these methods internal portals are ideal. Additionally, because of how busy investors may be sending automated and routine updates via email although quite simple ensures content is distributed to the people who need to see it.
Social Connectivity
Embrace employee advocacy on social. For example companies like Walmart, Amazon, and LinkedIn typically use social to highlight employee narratives. A by productive of these highlights is the opportunity for other employees to engage via social. This form of transparency allows investors the opportunity to engage with employees and build stronger bonds with the company.
A by-product of embracing employee ambassadors its ability to attract like-minded talent and like-minded investors as well.
Communication Accessibility
Is there a simple and consistent way for investors and employees to access updates. Apart from an internal portal somethings to consider include a universal number to access recorded calls or a segmented newsletter opt-in section that allows investors and employees to subscribe to specific reports or updates.
The key to improving communication accessibility is to identify a simple executable and continuous method that allows all stakeholders to receive the information they need upon request. The concept is akin to personalized content on-demand. For example, if you have a large organization with multiple departments one investor may be interested in green initiatives updates whereas another investor may be interested inventory management and logistics. How can each of these investors receive systematic and timely updates that are personalized for them? Solving simple challenges like the described will help optimize your communication infrastructure.
Streamlining Technology
There’s nothing worse than a system that works in theory but fails in practice. When structuring your communication infrastructure create systems that are actually executable in the long run. For example, and individual handwritten update to 500 investors monthly may not be feasible in the long term. In contrast, a single email to 500 investors monthly with a few personalized details retrieved programmatically may be helpful.
In short, business communication is essential for creating a synergistic environment for stakeholders within your organization. Are you struggling to build an investor-friendly communication strategy?
Are you interested in learning more?
