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It's Thursday afternoon and time for the shift change. As usual, some dozen co-workers have assembled into a semicircle to face their supervisor for a team huddle. The shop floor is loud-filled with the din of machinery. One employee we'll call "Alan" makes eye contact with his supervisor and strains to hear his assignment for the day. In turn, the others do the same. Near the end of the huddle meeting, the supervisor flips to a sheet and reads a paragraph to the restless crew.
I'd spent the past three days on shop floors like this, observing and inquiring to document our client organization's employee communications situation for deskless workers- those employees who do not regularly check an employerprovided email account. I was aware human resources (HR) had provided the paragraph to all shop supervisors to read in these huddle meetings. I'd read the paragraph myself and knew it was intended to communicate the date of free, onsite health assessments for employees and spouses. It also emphasized that a timely health assessment would result in a meaningful discount on medical plan premiums.
Soon after the meeting, I asked Alan for his recollection of what his supervisor had read at the end of the meeting. "I didn't quite catch it," he replied. "Something about getting a physical."
Whether working on the shop floor, behind the wheel of a truck, in a warehouse, in a checkout lane, or in any number of other job venues and capacities, deskless employees can be a problematic audience for effective benefits communication.
A recent survey of employee communication best practices sponsored by Health Action Council of Ohio offers some insights into challenges organizations face when communicating with deskless employees.1 Findings from the responses of employers representing more than 320,000 employees- combined with anecdotal experience-suggest organizations will benefit from addressing four primary obstacles to effective communication with deskless employees: communication barriers, managers/supervisors as the conduit, subject matter "inexperts" and an information void for spouses.
Problem One: Barriers to Effective Communication
What are the greatest barriers to effective communication within your organization? If your experience is like most U.S. organizations, the top answers include:
1.Information overload. We are all bombarded with information, and our employees-deskless and otherwise- are no exception. Employees are being...