I've just been reading about
frustrations of a Human Resources manager. He's tired of having to answer same questions about benefits over and over again.I understand that, having been on both sides of issue, both as a consumer of benefits and in communicating about them on behalf of corporate clients. Benefits can be slippery eels of internal communication.
But, to put issue into context, this is another case of complex communication. In this case, a large volume of information that's not easy to understand.
Descriptions of benefits typically involve a high level of density: in other words, they contain a lot of information in a small amount of 'space'. Many of them resemble insurance policies -- long on legal language and short on examples and anecdotes. As a result, information is accessible to only a small proportion of whole group.
How do you deal with this kind of communication challenge? Multiple channels, multiple times. That means repeating message many times, and sending it through as many different channels as possible.
For example, when one of my clients changed its benefits package to offer more choices, it used this strategy. Collectively, overall value of benefits would work out same for company. But, individual employees would have to make choices, and in many cases value of individual benefits they received would depend on how wisely they made their decisions. In turn, that could lead to equivalent of 'buyer's remorse' and complaints.
The company took a proactive approach to changeover. It began planning well in advance of switch, and its preparations included equivalent of focus groups to identify concerns, questions, and problems.
