The Definitive Guide to HR Communication

Book excerpt: Two experienced HR communications consultants show how to dramatically improve the effectiveness of every HR message. HR professionals know their programs are pivotal to organizational success, but they also know how difficult it is to communicate those programs effectively. Hampered by legal restrictions, highly complex policies and programs, corporate politics, and old-fashioned notions about business communication, they create communications their audiences simply ignore. It needn’t be that way! Alison Davis and Jane Shannon present simple, powerful principles and techniques every HR professional can use, even those who’ve never been comfortable as writers. Davis and Shannon demonstrate how to treat employees as customers, and use the same strategies, tools, and care your company uses to sell its products or services. The authors help HR professionals understand their customers’ (and executives’) needs and motivations more clearly; package information to promote faster, better decision-making; and measure their effectiveness. They present specific solutions for safely eliminating unnecessary detail and jargon; explaining benefits, pay, and policies; improving recruiting, orientation, and outplacement communications; supporting retirement planning; and improving performance management.