Value of Informing at Workplace

When you employ people, you must communicate with them to exchange views and ideas, and to give and receive instructions. In certain situations, informing and consulting employees is required. Benefits of making your employees feel valued and empowered can include higher productivity and reduced recruitment costs. Depending on the size of your business, nature and composition, the type of information you are sharing and the input you hope to get, there are several ways to communicate with employees. Any consulting and informing you do must accept the terms of that agreement or other legal requirements.

• Unskilled –
  • Those who are least capable of informing-
  • Think informing is not important.
  • Seem to say things at the wrong time.
  • Not a consistent announcer.
  • Communicate too little or too much.
  • Inform too late; timing is bad.
  • May not be clear, may inform some people in a better way than others.
  • May not think patiently who needs to be informed by when.
  • Doesn’t explore or attend to the data needs of others.
  • May inform but lack implementation.
  • May either gather information or not see informing as significant.
  • May only have one mode – written, verbal or E-mail.
• Skilled –
  • One who can effectively communicate with his employees –
  • Provides the information employees need to know to do their jobs and to feel good about being a part of the team and the organization.
  • Provides individuals information so that they can make correct decisions.
  • Is timely in informing.
  • Lays stress on face- to- communication.
  • Match his actions with words.
  • Is clear and concise.
  • Facilitates communication.
  • Keep employees up to date and fully informed about the company, projects, trainings etc.
• Overused Skill –
  • Some leaders tend to overuse their skill. They –
  • May provide too much information.
  • May trouble people by giving them information they can’t handle or initial information that does not turn out to be true.
  • Lack ways to keep projects on track.
  • Employees suffer from communication overload, involving meaningless meetings, and an excessive number of emails, notifications and alerts that are not important.

Some Causes –

• Don’t think it’s necessary.
• Inform some more than others.
• Less and sporadic informing.
• Too busy to inform.
• Too late and not clear in informing.
• Tend to use the wrong method of informing.

The Map –

• People at the organization level can make more informed decisions when it comes to critical decision making. Things go better with information. People are more motivated. As a leader if you are too busy, communicates less, only inform to meet your own needs, you don’t gather information or think through who needs to know what by when? This can lead to some bad results for others and you. Informing is a simple and important skill that many do not do well or enough of.

Some Remedies –

• Don’t Inform Much If At All – Information leads to more efficient and adequate use of resources. It leads to improved decisions. It leads to less redo and greater motivation. It leads to less of your time considering. People need a introductory flow of information to do their jobs better. If it’s not natural to you, then the best thing to do is to just ask them what they need to know and furnish it.
• Less Is More – People are usually motivated by being aware of the master plan. They want to have clear information to do their work well. The sense of doing something worthwhile is an important motivator at work. It leads to a high return on motivation and productivity. Focus on the impact on others by figuring out who are affected by information. Ask people what they want to know and assuming it’s not secret information, tell them.
• Staying Alone – If you keep to yourself and try to work alone, if you hold back information, if you share information to get an advantage or to win favor, if you are aware of things others would benefit from but you don’t take the time to communicate, then these things will get you in trouble. Organizations function on the flow of information. Being on your own and preferring privacy are fine as long as you are informing things to bosses and colleagues, that they need to know and would feel better if they knew.
• Obscure Informer – Some people are not at all good at informing. Their communication styles are not impressive. According to behavioral researches, the most effective communicators, speak often, but for a short period of time; ask more questions; make less solution statements early in a discussion; state their points in a sentence or two; summarize often and invite everyone to share their views; usually give their views after others have had a chance to speak, unless they are passing on decisions. Compare these practices to your own and work on those that are not up to the mark.
• Inconsistent Informing – Have a detailed list of what information should go to whom. Ask direct reports what they’d like to know to do their jobs better. Check to see if you pass along too little, enough, or too much of the right kinds of information. It’s important to know what, when and to whom to pass, to become an effective informer.
• Poor Informing – Avoid disturbing habits such as using the same words too often, hesitating, speaking too quickly or with force using strongly condemnatory words, or going into too much detail that leaves listeners bored or wondering what the point is. Simplify and indicate. Vary the volume and length of time spoken to lay stress on the main points to maintain the interest of listeners. Outline difficult arguments on paper or charts to make them easy to follow. Use visual aids. Use common words, simple examples or visual phrases to transfer information.
• Selective Informing – The most common selective pattern is informing to some and not others. There is a dissimilarity among groups on informing. Some groups rate it high while some lower. That means there is not a skills obstruction. Nothing can be gained by informing one group that you lose with another. So, you should not avoid one group.
• Whistleblowing – Do you know something others should but when they find out, there will be trouble? Saying what needs to be said to the right person in a proper way takes courage. Everyone observes things or learns about things that others should know. At times the information is not positive. Something is about to go wrong. Something is being hidden. Someone is holding back some important information. Someone or something is going in the wrong direction. It’s good news and bad news. If you inform, the organization may gain, but at the same time, a person or some people may lose. Thus, you need to find the right person and inform.
• Dealing With The Heat Of Informing – Informing is not always good- natured and friendly. Sometimes it generates fieriness, prevention, attacks, blames and risks. Sometimes they want to kill the messenger. Try to avoid direct blaming remarks. Deal with people issues directly but separately. If attacked for giving bad news, you can always say nothing or rather clear up. People will usually respond by saying more, coming off their position a little, or at least showing their interests.
• Audience Sensitivity – Unfortunately, one method or style of informing does not do a good job across audiences. Most of the time you will have to adjust the tone, style, pace and even the message and the way of presenting it to different audiences. If you are giving the same message to several people or audiences, always ask yourself how they are different. Their differences include level of finesse, friendly or unfriendly, time sensitivity, whether they prefer it in writing or not and whether a logical or emotional debate will play better. Writing is usually best for very complex descriptions. You should generally tell when it requires discussion, or you are making them aware of a problem. Study each person and each audience and adjust accordingly.

Informing employees makes them highly motivated, providing a valuable, productive and cost-effective service. They make an extra effort or try very hard, making a noticeable difference to the results and the value perceived by the customers. Failure to inform will lead to a negative shift in any or all these benefits. This could have a serious adverse effect not only on the organization’s working efficiency, but also customer satisfaction and ultimately the profits and market share. For employee’ participation we have to keep them informed and engaged through regular and effective communications, which are relevant and timely.