“There’s a time and place for everything”. Consider this in today’s world of BROADCAST EVERYTHING TO EVERYONE via as many platforms as possible.
That’s the communication approach in fashion right now, but I encourage everyone to be careful about what results you may get with this approach.
But Kirsten, you say, Twitter (or Yammer in a business setting) is a great way to get information out to a lot of people. Sure, but you’re primarily scatter shooting. Pushing your information out there and hoping that your followers want the info and will pass it on.
Email may be a great way to distribute a set of facts that just primarily need to be read, but email is not great at explaining complicated situations and heaven forbid communicating touchy subjects or anything that has emotion in it. Simply adding a 😉 at the end of an email apologizing to someone just might not do the trick. ;-p
Should we have:
- Teambuilding via Facebook?
- Onboarding programs via email?
- Performance reviews on conference call?
These are things I’ve heard proposed. What? Who comes up with these ideas? Maybe as an element of an overall program, but certainly not as the end all be all for these type of events.
Some folks probably proposed these ideas based on wanting to be “current” or “maximizing technology”. And maybe not exactly thinking through what is being compromised by using a different media. Some ideas definitely stem from cost cutting measures. Do your onboarding online so that the company can save travel costs. Well, it may save travel dollars, but is the associated lack of effectiveness being quantified in that cost?
I have a client who has resisted spending money to create training simulations for their business process and system training for major initiatives that they have tried to rollout. So, some Yammer messages, minimal training via ppts and emailed procedures later = ineffective training. Which then leads to non-standard execution on customer facing processes. This led to a high number of help desk calls (read $$ spent on their call center) and profits lost through mishandled customer opportunities (read more $$$ lost). So did they ultimately save money, or just lose the opportunity to effectively reach their ROI?
You get what you pay for. Be sure you are fully aware of what the reasonable expectations and outcomes are for your approach!
Until next time … wishing you business readiness success!
Kirsten Jordan is a Partner at PeopleResults. She can be reached on Twitter @Kirstenkbdb. Sign up to receive her and her colleagues’ blog at Current.
