How to communicate with remote workers

Jenni and Benjamin’s #RemotelyInterested research is incredibly useful for professional communicators. They delved into the assumptions and perceived problems to truly understand what’s going on and suggest ways to improve internal communication for remote workers.

Remote workers are one of the biggest barriers for internal communicators but this insight demonstrates they don’t need to be. Tailoring the allocation of resource and focus based on a data-driven understanding of the working patterns and communication styles of your workforce will enable you to achieve significantly more impact with the same or fewer resources.

I’m curious to know your views. How do you communicate with remote workers? If you have a story to share, do get in touch if you’d like to be considered as a guest writer for the All Things IC blog. My guidelines are online.

You can get hold of your own copy of the Remotely Interested research and findings via this website and I encourage you to do so.

Here’s the conversation I had with Jenni…

1) Jenni why did you decide to conduct the research and what did you hope to achieve?

The Gatehouse State of the Sector report has listed remote workers as a barrier for a few years so I wanted to explore what was needed to help move it off that list. I was also concerned to see priorities and barriers totally at odds with each other – it would be good to see us addressing the challenges as an industry and moving them forwards. That was the main reason.

In addition, I wanted to conduct a survey that would look at the content as well as the channels. So many of the research reports that exist just cover channels without any consideration of the content in them and I don’t think you can see a true reflection of what is needed without considering the content in them. (I couldn’t agree more with this! – Rachel). 

Further reading on the All Things IC blog: The reality of working in Internal Comms: The 2019 State of the Sector report.

2) Can you tell us how you collated the data?

This was a partnership between Redefining Communications and SocialOptic. SocialOptic delivers software that enables organisations to make better, data-driven, decisions. They specialise in the analysis of “human data” applying data science and psychology to obtain unique insights from the attitudes and opinions of employees, customers and service users.

For this research we used their platform as a quick, online survey that individuals could complete in less than five minutes on an iPad.

We were present at all the locations as we know to get the information we would need to go to sites so there are anecdotal findings alongside the survey data.

3) How did you determine what to ask?

I wanted to make sure we looked at content, channels and frequency to see if there were any gaps or trends. Working with Benjamin meant that the questions asked were going to get the right responses, not just the answers people think you want to hear.

The questions allow for cross-tabulation so we can cut and slice the data in a number of ways to delve into the detail behind the ticked boxes.

4) Has anything surprised you from the findings?

There are two things that surprised me. The first was the importance of third space as a concept for communicators. This is a terms used to describe the space between home and work, and for remote/deskless workers this is often the canteen, mess room etc.

This space is really important to the individual and teams and we tend to invade it with intrusive screens. We now know why the screens don’t get used or get switched off – it’s just too intrusive in a space that isn’t work for the individual.

The importance of line managers
The second thing was the importance of line managers. We sort of know this already but what we didn’t know was the impact that they have on everything.

If your manager is not a good communicator, you can forget anything else. That factor is so important that it doesn’t matter what you do from the centre – if you haven’t trained your line managers in how to communicate the work you are doing to give them the information is wasted.

 

5) What are the highlights IC pros can take away from the work you’ve done?

Don’t think that technology is the silver bullet – it isn’t. Invest in the hard stuff and make it manageable – this is where you will see results. The important thing here is people – they are what make the business and your investment or time and budget needs to go to them.

6) What has generated the most discussions from what you’ve uncovered?

The third space element has generated a lot of conversation as well as the need to really get underneath the challenge of relevance and personalised content. It’s interesting to hear why people have come along to our sessions about the research and for some it is about understanding whether technology is really the silver bullet people want it to be.

7) How can IC pros use this research in their roles?

It gives them data points to use with conversations with leaders. If you’re being pushed to invest in screens, this can tell you why that might not work for you.

If you are struggling for budget for line manager skills, you now have the proof you need that it is needed for the success of an internal communications function.

There is a lot in there and the insight should help you have conversations with data driven insights behind them.

8) What happens next?

We are presenting the research all over the UK and have been lucky enough to take it to Vancouver and later this year we will be in Germany too. Sitting in mess rooms and seeing the relationship between unions and employees has made me want to explore this more. I’m really keen to examine the impact of unions on workplace culture and how the role of the union has changed or should change as organisations focus more on employee wellbeing etc. So that’s something I’m going to be looking at later this year for launch in Q1 2020.

You can follow the discussions in Vancouver over the next few days as Jenni is at the International Association of Business Communicators’ World Conference, #IABC19, from 9-12 June 2019 – Rachel.

9) Is there anything else you think we should know or you want to tell us?

Delve into where the noise is coming from in your organisation, be narrow in your insight so avoid broad words like ‘information’ and make the time to listen more to those on the frontline.