Know your audience
Whatever it is you want to communicate within your department, or to the wider University community, you鈥檒l need to start by thinking about your audience. There are several questions you should ask before you get started:
What do they need to know and want to hear?
There鈥檒l be key messages you need staff to know to do their job efficiently and effectively. These can vary from very practical messages about creating a safe working environment to much more strategic messages about the University鈥檚 vision and strategy.
Then there鈥檒l be information that colleagues want to know and actively seek out - which may be the information you want them to receive or may not. It鈥檚 important to have a balance between the two, so staff don鈥檛 feel they are frequently having messages pushed out to them. Asking the 鈥�what鈥檚 in it for me鈥� question and making your communications active with a 鈥�call to action鈥� can help shape your communications messages.
What鈥檚 their preferred way of receiving information?
Think about where your colleagues are based. Are they generally office-based, sat in front of a computer or are they frequently out of the office? This will influence how you provide information to them. Office-based colleagues are more likely to pick up an email quickly, but for non-office based staff, team briefings and printed communications may be more effective.
Is there anything that will stop them listening?
Generally, the more information people receive, the more likely they are to switch off, so it鈥檚 worth thinking about how much information you鈥檙e sharing with staff and how frequently. For example, once embedded, a weekly (or fortnightly, or monthly) email can be useful as people will get used to receiving it regularly. However, if lots of people are sending out department-wide emails, the regular one may get lost in the 鈥榥oise鈥�, so it鈥檚 best to coordinate as far as much as you can.
And how will you know they got the message?
Providing opportunities for colleagues to feedback will help you understand if they鈥檝e taken onboard your communications. This can be done informally through chatting with colleagues and collecting anecdotal information or more formally through online feedback forms or face-to-face at team briefings and meetings. Focus groups, where staff are not in the room with a line manager, can also be effective.