Bong OsorioExcerpted from the Philippine Star’s “Commonness, ”named Best Business Column in the 34th Catholic Mass Media Awards engaging a company’s employees—earning their trust, enabling their best work and inspiring their loyalty—is now a business imperative. This is the major conclusion derived from the 2013 ROI Communication Benchmark quantitative survey among senior leaders responsible for employee communication at 697 companies on the Fortune 500 and Global 500 lists.

The study, which was shared in a paper in this year’s International Association of Business Communicators (IABC) world conference in New York, explored performance in three areas: communication infrastructure, open communication culture and leader and manager communication.

An open communication culture is defined as a working environment in which employees feel safe and confident about being open and honest, are encouraged to contribute ideas at every level in the organization, and receive the information they need to excel at their jobs.

“Nearly one in three companies surveyed reported lacking an environment of open communication, and nearly one in four lacked an environment of trust. Significantly, only 36% of companies agreed that employees feel they can share their opinions honestly. This is a problem because open communication and trust and engagement are integrally related, and a fear of speaking freely undermines both. Ultimately, this damages business performance,” the report revealed.

Room to improve
On the aspect of leader and manager communication, only 33% of companies reported that their managers regularly ask employees for their ideas and opinions, and approximately 44% did not feel their company has multiple channels for employees to provide feedback to managers and leaders.

It’s in this area that the survey exposed significant opportunities for improvement. While managers have a critical role to play in day-to-day employee communication and engagement, many managers lack awareness of that critical responsibility and receive little training for it.

Since companies rely on managers as key communicators, and employees prefer and rely on managers for information and feedback, these results suggested that companies should clarify managers’ communication roles and responsibilities, provide them with communication training, and establish metrics and measure their impact as communicators.

Communication is critical
According to the study, few companies regularly measure the communication factors that ROI Communication identified as predictors of higher earnings per share, including trust and engagement or the degree to which they achieve an open communication culture. To reap the financial benefits of deeper employee trust and engagement, companies should measure that engagement over time to identify the source of credibility gaps, and ways to facilitate an open communication culture. (Story by: Bong Osorio)