Efforts to proactively communicate with employees, started with great enthusiasm and initiative, have often wrecked on the first rocky shore they passed: the question of how often to communicate.

The discussions are probably familiar to you.

We don’t want to overwhelm the employees. We don’t want them to turn us off. We don’t want them to stop listening.

Chins are stroked. Someone says “less is more” and it sounds smart.

I watched a webinar yesterday from the PRSA Employee Communications Section featuring a study done by Audacity and Social Optic. It was an outstanding, data-rich session.

What Employees Want in Effective Employee Communication

The study showed that employees were looking for three things above others in communications: the information they need, in a timely fashion, and presented clearly.

What they say they got was confusing, mistimed, and not relevant.

Nowhere did they say too frequent. In fact, taken from an overall viewpoint, the data given here can lead to only one conclusion:

The Key Phrase for Employee Communications

People don’t want less, they want better.

In fact, you can take it a step further. There’s a hunger for better.

Better is more.

I have always contended that if we put half the energy and creativity we put into brand communications into internal communications, our workplaces would be very different.

They’re tired of what we do: intentionally obtuse and manicured pieces, ghostwritten executive pieces, risk-free high-level communications and information that’s not relevant.

What Employees Want: As one respondent said, “more of the why.”

And that’s our challenge. We need to be relevant, authentic and interesting. We need executives talking in their own words and we need to be transparent about the good and bad we are facing. It’s not just transactional. They need to understand so they feel like they belong.

A couple last ideas.

• For most of you, this is going to involve significant managing up, but without a leadership commitment you’ll never change directions.

• Timely means based on events, not an established “cadence.”

• The other thing you’re probably not doing is gathering a lot of feedback. From readers.

• Bonus points if you ditch the teleprompter for a full year

Employee engagement is one of a company’s most critical metrics. It impacts sales, recruitment, community support, productivity, even media coverage.

Good data and outstanding communications can get it done.