For our readers who work in HR functions:
UK companies are becoming more employee-focused, according to research released today by Northgate Information Solutions. In a survey of 50 UK CEOs, 90% said a proportion of their key performance indicators (KPIs) are HR-related, compared with only 37.75% two years ago, in a survey of 200 UK companies carried out by the group in 2002.
There’s also this:
“As time passes, more and more companies are realising the strategic importance of human resources as a business function central to the successful running of the company, rather than seeing personnel departments as administrative centres.”
Read more at Online Recruitment.
One of the sites linking to CommLog is The Nub out of the UK, which recently posted a brief email management strategy that I found useful. In reading it I recalled our own advice to clients regarding email, which is best summed up in 16 words:
“If an email takes more than two minutes to write, it’s an email you shouldn’t write.”
The fact is, an email that takes more than just a few minutes to write probably involves content better expressed through different media (read: media richness), and as such, you’ll likely be better served making a call, or even better, walking down the hall for a 30 second conversation with the intended recipient. (Exception: emails you must write to document an agreement or conversation; in these cases still have the conversation via phone or face-to-face, but write the email as a confirmation after the fact.)
There’s more guidance for email management that this, of course—and here are three items worth reading:
* Staples has an article titled Managing Email here, and the author, Jan Jasper, has additional tips here at Business Know-How.
* Asset Now has a straight-forward list of email dos and don’ts here.
* Online user experience guru Mark Hurst has a free whitepaper titled Managing Incoming Email: What Every User Needs to Know here.
For our clients in leadership positions, those aspiring to those positions, or those looking to reinvigorate their leaders…a refreshing (and short) column from CIO on The Joy Of Leadership. One snippet…
bq. Understanding the company objectives and how your actions affect the results is key to making a strong contribution…How you manage your budget, achieve diversity goals, add to the bench strength of the company through recruitment and development of employees, set and meet productivity goals, and act as a visible, professional representative of the company in external activities—these are all ways to positively impact the company.
The League of American Communication Professionals has issued their list of winners for their annual Inspire Awards Employee Communications Competition. See them here. Note that there are winners from four business-size classifications, and across a range of categories, including “Most Creative,” “Best Design,” and “Most Engaging.”
The conversation around our water cooler conveys dismay that our field still does so much to recognize tactical ability and so little to recognize strategic value. We still offer no awards for categories such as “most valuable to leadership,” “most effective reduction of employee uncertainty,” or “most likely to improve business results.” Until we do, we expect many companies to continue marginalizing (or outsourcing) internal communication professionals during difficult economic times.
Attention email distribution list users: The more people to whom you send email requests for help or information, the longer it will take to get an adequate response. Why? The “diffusion of responsibility effect”:
the belief, conveyed by verbal or nonverbal communication, that others are capable of helping. Accordingly, if an e-mail sent through a discussion group is evaluated by its recipient as being sent to many individuals that are capable of responding, the diffusion of responsibility effect would imply a decreased tendency to respond.
Read more at Harvard Business School Working Knowledge, who advise managers to “keep their e-mails personalized whenever possible. It’s that simple.”
