Halloween is upon us – the season of all things mysterious, frightening and nightmarish! But that doesn’t have to include your internal communications.
Don’t scare your employees off with an overload of jargon, confusing messaging and an outdated approach to communications. There’s an art to inspiring conversations, engaging your people and getting them onboard with your reward offering.
Here are three tricks to make sure your content is a treat for your audience.
1. Creep it real and banish scary jargon
Using clear language is one of the best ways to get your communications to land. Whether you’re presenting in-person or sending an email, take a moment to consider if this is the best way you can convey your message. For example, instead of taking a ‘granular’ look, can we not look at something ‘in more detail’? Why talk about ‘paradigm shifts’ when we can say ‘change in approach’? And if you’re communicating complex details of share plans, provide clear explanations for any terms you can’t avoid using.
2. Don’t drive colleagues batty by making assumptions
Avoid making assumptions about your employees beliefs, expectations and level of understanding. Meet people where they are and invest time into learning about your audience and their needs. This is where internal audits can be useful to help you assess where you are and highlight areas for improvement. How can you tailor your communications better? How can you be more inclusive in your approach? What financial wellbeing support do they need? The more feedback you can obtain and use to your advantage, the more representative your messages will be.
3. Boo-lieve in the power of accessibility
There are 10.4 million disabled people across England and Wales according to Census 2021. With this in mind, how can you make sure your communications are accessible and include everyone in the conversation? From design considerations such as colour contrasts, font sizes and video animation, to clever copywriting, inclusive language and translations, there’s lots to consider when strategising your approach.
By making these simple changes, you’ll be a step closer to a spooktacular result. Happy Halloween!
Need our help? We offer a range of strategy, content and design services to help your communications thrive.
