Open Enrollment season is coming soon for many organizations. It’s not too late to leverage best practices in order to help employees better understand their benefits options. 

One way to create better awareness and focus has nothing to do with the content you develop and everything with what you choose not to communicate in the coming weeks.  

Internal communicators are the hub for most corporate information. The role carries heavy responsibilities. One of our most important obligations is to prioritize information in order to respect and protect employees’ attention.  

When we reduce the noise, we can strengthen and streamline company messages. That makes it easier for hard-working, well-intentioned managers and employees to focus on what’s most important. 

Per a Dynamic Signal study in 2019, pre-Covid, 80 percent of the U.S. workforce says ineffective communication at work is causing stress. That’s a 30 percent increase from the year before. Meanwhile, in 2021, the Society for HR Management estimated that companies as small as 100 employees lose about $420,000 per year on miscommunication. And companies with 100,000 employees lose about $62 million per year.  

I have seen it too often. It is open enrollment season and plans for a new acquisition have been announced just as the CEO introduces a new business innovation strategy.  

Performance reviews are changing, which requires new training, and the cybersecurity team wants to promote phishing scams awareness this week.  

Plus, the uncertainties of remote or hybrid work and the need to keep communicating about plans to return to office are also important. 

All of this has to be managed alongside the fact that day-to-day business must continue – don’t forget the new aggressive sales and customer service goals we set for the quarter! 

Even on a normal day, the number of clients and requests that internal communicators manage can be daunting. People who work in our field are by necessity good at assimilating high volumes of information. Which begs the point: if that volume is starting to overwhelm us, how will it land on the general employee population? 

If you feel overwhelmed by the volume of information and change, Soteres Consulting can help you make information more memorable and digestible so that frontline managers and employees can translate messages into activity into productivity and results. Learn more and schedule a free consult today.