HR communication is all about the exchange of information between human resources teams and everyone else—new hires, job applicants, and other stakeholders. It’s how important details flow smoothly and keep people aligned.
It encompasses a wealth of information from a variety of different sources. Because of this, it can sometimes get a bit chaotic—not to mention confusing, especially when you're dealing with company-wide policies and updates.
That’s why you need a clear, effective, and actionable HR communication plan. This can ensure key messages are relayed from the HR department to employees in a timely and efficient manner.
Let's explore why your HR team needs a communication strategy and how to get this workflow up and running.
The benefits of an HR communication strategy
An effective HR communication strategy can help improve employee engagement and build trust. It provides a number of benefits for organizations, including:
Connection
Effective communication between HR and other departments or employees can be crucial to maintaining a positive company culture. It helps everyone feel engaged and informed about what’s happening in terms of company policies, initiatives, and business objectives.
When HR practices good communication with other departments, it ensures everyone is on the same page and working towards the same goals.
Trust
Clear communication demonstrates authenticity and helps to build a genuine connection between HR and employees. Your colleagues will feel valued as members of your organization if you keep them in the loop and emphasize empathy in your internal comms.
Establishing a transparent, two-way communication process in which employees can trust their HR team can foster a deeper sense of belonging, in turn boosting employee satisfaction and retention.
Consistency
A strategy enables you to build and maintain a consistent tone of voice and brand that employees feel they can recognize and trust. From the onboarding process for new employees to the offboarding process for those who are leaving, consistency is key.
A schedule of timely and appropriate communications about internal announcements and company news avoids potential misunderstandings and frustrations.
Improvement
An effective communication strategy that helps employees to understand company-wide changes and progress can reduce the risk of internal conflicts between team members or departments.
You can also use this as an opportunity to gather feedback from your colleagues on how you can improve and what they want to see for a better employee experience.
How to create an HR communication strategy
To create an effective HR communication strategy, consider the following steps:
Things to consider
Before developing a communications strategy, HR professionals should consider a number of factors, including:
- The types of communication used in your organization
- Upward communication—information flows upwards from employees to management and HR
- Downward communication—information flows downwards from HR and management to employees
- Cross-functional communications—information flows freely across different departments, breaking down silos between teams
- The different channels your organization uses to enable this communication
- Company intranet
- Employee communication tools like Slack or Zoom
- Apps or platforms you use to manage and send employee materials, like Dropbox Sign or DocSend
- Company-wide all hands or town hall meetings
1. Define your objectives
Consider the purpose of your comms and what you want to achieve with it. Are you trying to:
- Improve performance?
- Make things easier or more convenient for employees?
- Generate awareness of something?
- Request or encourage an action?
- Consult employees or refine ideas?
- Inspire and engage?
If you’re stuck for ideas, gather feedback from employees to understand what they like and dislike about the current internal communications strategy. Alternatively, you can use analytics features like Dropbox Send and track to gain insights into the comms and materials that employees engage with the most.
2. Fine-tune your workflow
No communications strategy can work without a plan of action. Within this, consider:
- Who will be responsible for its creation and distribution
- The intended audience and the channels or platforms used to reach them
- When the communications will be delivered, in order to maximize their impact
- Any follow-up actions, to allow the strategy to develop and ensure employee feedback or responses can be addressed quickly
Dropbox provides a simple, centralized space for managing your HR workflow. From project plans to sharing onboarding materials, Dropbox offers a comprehensive set of tools and features to streamline HR communications.
3. Prep your content and develop a schedule
You might want to create templates for repeatable pieces of content—like job offer letters, onboarding plans, or policy updates—to make it quicker and easier to send out comms with a consistent look and cadence. Each piece of content should have a defined audience and delivery timeline or schedule.
You can also use your engagement analytics from Send and track to meet your employees where they are. Rather than sending your comms out at inopportune moments, you can deliver it exactly when employees are most active on your chosen platform or channel.
4. Evaluate and improve
Monitor the performance of your strategy to measure its effectiveness and make adjustments accordingly.
To do so, you could conduct an audit and look at metrics such as document open rates, clicks, and employee feedback during your evaluation. You’ll want to look at a number of different metrics to get the full picture of how your strategy is being received by its audience.
Connect, collaborate, and communicate—all in one place
Poor communication between HR and employees is a surefire way to derail organizational success. Developing and maintaining a HR communication plan is essential for building employee trust and creating a positive work environment where everyone feels heard.
Dropbox has all the tools HR professionals need to develop and implement an effective communication strategy—from collaborating with colleagues on new ideas to a centralized place for all your content.
