Hey, this is Chris with Hacking your Leadership on today's discussion on employee engagement. I want to talk about something that is kind of near and dear to my heart, and this is the idea of influence through communication. And you know, I've worked in organizations in the past where I had people complain that no one reads their emails, and and you know, they want to go from a top down standpoint of like, you know, kind of know
you have to read my emails. But when it comes down to it whether or not people read the communication that you put out, whether it's an email or a newsletter or anything. If it's addressed to you specifically, it's likely that it will get read. If it's addressed to a group of people, there is a good chance it won't get read, especially if you are sending it to a person who gets you know, dozens of communications, you know, emails, slack, you know, text messages a day on on what the
job looks like. Sometimes people go back and read them later on other times they just get deleted. And and it's interesting when this happens, because when a person is sending out communication regularly and people aren't reading those communications, what that says to me, is that the person is not sending out something that those people think is relevant to their job.
They just don't think it's relevant, because if they.
Thought it was relevant, they would read it, and if it was actionable, they would take care of it. And so if you are responsible for sending out communications that are imperative that people know in order for you to get your job done, but they're not necessarily imperative for them to know for them to get their job done,
then this is where you run into the issue. And so I want to talk about the different ways that you, as a leader or as just a person, can alter or make those communications better so that more people are at least aware of them, They read them, they kind of take the information in even if it's not actionable in the moment, because if it will help your job get done, the more people who know about whatever this is that you're sending out, then you you want to
increase the likelihood that they will at least give it a shot or read it, or or you know, you know, see see your name come up in the in the from field and go, oh, oh, this is from this from Lorenzo.
Oh. He sends out good stuff. Let me read this. You know, that's what you want the reaction to be, not oh, Lorenzo, not important. Delete delete delete, you.
Know that's that's it's a big difference between the two and how you send out these communications and what's in them can make all the difference.
Yeah, I can tell you. I I will typically glance through emails like exactly what you're talking about, Like is there anything in here that I see as necessary? I read a lot of emails, and I'm typically a part of large groups, but not a lot that like I don't get a lot of like kind of professional work emails so many that it's hard to kind of get through them. But I have definitely, I mean that's now.
I have definitely been situations where like email was the thing, and everything is email and everything is there, uh, and then there's more corporate communications and things that you might get and then you really are trying to figure out, like, well, is there anything that I see in here that's an immediate action that's necessary or is this something that's just information that I can read whenever I want to, and I kind of skip ahead and in a lot of
those spaces. But to your points, there are definitely tricks that I've fallen for. It made me read the emails or read the.
Damn it I gave up that time. I shouldn't have read that.
Exactly, they got me. They got me good good placements and good titling and good ways of getting my attention. And so I can tell you wholeheartedly that that these things work and if you're if you're good at them, it can be really helpful in getting people to pay attention to to what's in your content.
For sure, Oh yeah, for sure.
And and you know, if I think about it from a per perspective of like an HR employee, and so if I am if if I am a human resources director or leader, then my direct reports are other HR people. And the people who I'm sending this information out to aren't necessarily direct reports of me. They just could be
employees that need to know certain things. But if one of the ways that you measure employee engagement and one of the ways that you you know, you you make sure that employees are happy or that they know about the benefit offerings you have, they have to want to read the information that you send out. And so if half the people in your company don't know about the four oh one K program. They don't know about you know, what mental health resources you have for them, any of
those things. If they don't know about it, either you're not sending it out right and if we're in if we're talking about it from this perspective right now, it means you're already sending it out. You're sending that information out. And if you're getting the impression that no one knows about it, it means, you know, I hate to hate to be the bearer of bad news. They're not reading your communications, and if they're not reading your communications, it
means that they think that it's not important. And so you need to be able to do things that meet people with they are from a standpoint of you know, not to use your words, Lorenzo, but tricking them into.
Read the email so that they understand the information.
So I want to go through some of the things that you can do to make sure that as more likely to happen.
But first I want to get up toward to one of our sponsors. All right, if you're.
Trying to increase the level of engagement with the communication you're sending out, especially to people who don't have a direct line to you, there are a couple of things you can do that real low hanging fruit to.
Kind of increase this.
First, people are more likely to read an email that comes from a person then comes from an inbox. So if they get the email from human resources at Company X dot com, they're less likely to read it than if they get it from Lorenzo at COMPANYX dot com. Right, people have a personal relationship with people, not with inboxes, so if it comes from an inbox, it is viewed as less personal already to begin with. So you're already starting from a deficit and getting people to want to
read to begin with. So, if at all possible, send emails from you. I know a lot of people in leadership roles who they don't want to feel the incoming communication from a lot of people, so they'll send an email from a shared inbox from a team so that they don't have to be the one receiving that communication.
But I'll tell you something something you should know. Those people don't have a relationship with your team, they have a relationship with you, or they don't, and so you should welcome the idea that people would want to reach out to you directly as someone they look at as a support person. If you're the wrong person to reach
out to, get them the right person. But if they're reaching out to you because they have an issue, it means they feel like they have a relationship with you to begin with, and that could come from the communications you're sending out to them that come from your direct inbox as opposed to like a shared group you know,
distribution list or mailbox. So that's the first thing. The second thing is you want to make sure that there's content that is relevant to them every time you send something out, not just that you think will be relevant to them. And so what do employees look for when it comes to you know, internal communications, They're looking for
potential job openings. So if I'm an employee of an organization and I see an email comes from a group inbox, but I know that in all of those emails that come out it's going to be an updated list of whatever open positions are available in the company, I'm a lot more likely to look at those, especially if I want to move up in the organization. Something that you can use to get personal information from a person on
the team. And so if on each communication you send out that you're also sending out kind of like a questionnaire about somebody on your team that is not work related, that is personal and related. Hey, this is introducing you to somebody else on our team. This is their favorite music, This is their favorite favorite song, favorite food. This is where they grew up, this is what's important to them,
This is who their family is. You know, the personal information that you can add, people are naturally drawn to that personal information. It's it's why you know, the paparazzi is so successful when it comes to celebrities because people have this kind of innate desire to want to know what's going on in the lives of others that is not kind of scrubbed and work related only that's truly
them from the heart. And then the last thing you can add is, you know, a potential survey, so it doesn't have to be a full employee engagement survey, but a question about Hey, you know, we're we're trying to get feedback on this one thing. Hey, reply to this email and give us your feedback on this one thing.
We'd love to know.
We'd love to hear from you on getting an answer to this question. People love feeling like their input is valued and you don't want them to get survey fatigued by giving them, you know, multiple surveys, you know, a month.
But if every time, like a newsletter or a communication goes out that there's something you're trying to solve, crowdsourcing, the potential answers to those questions can really help engage your team or the people you're sending the information out to and make it more likely they'll read the other things that you send out.
Yeah.
I think it's some great points in there. And I think that the more engaging that you can make the content and the more personal that you can make the content, and if you can do things that make it easy to understand what's in it, I think that for me is what usually will pull me in is like, give me a headline on something, a title, give me the quick like what's in here in the kind of like the tl DR version at the top of the email.
I go, oh yeah, I go okay, I there's something in here that I definitely want to read more of. Like those types of things give me kind of the pause when I'm seeing that type of content to go like, Okay, they know that this is a lot, but they also know that there's something in here that probably needs my attention, and so they're they're showing me that through some of these types of tactics, and I can appreciate that, and then now I know that this is definitely something that's
worth my time. And especially again to your point, like if there's there's content in here around people, individuals, you know, celebratory type of things, recognition type of things, those things as well get my attention because I want to know what's going on and who's doing great work, and you know, learning about other people that that are in a company
or on a team. Those things are also super helpful in kind of bringing a piece of you know, maybe larger content to life when it comes to having people want to engage.
With it, right right.
I love the TLDR part of it because it's almost an acknowledgment that a lot of people aren't going to read it too long, didn't read I get it. I'm sending out this communication. Maybe I have to send something out once a week and it's not a short email or piece of communication. And I understand. I don't sit here thinking, oh everybody's reading everything I have to say.
I understand that people aren't reading this a lot of times, and acknowledging that almost from like a self deprecating way, is a great way to endear yourself to those people that say.
Hey, you know what, I get it. I get it.
I've been in situations where I've gotten communications from people that I didn't read. So I understand, and I'm not judging you from being in the role that you're in and maybe your decision not to read something. So let me give you the high level in a couple of quick bit points at the top, so that because I really think these are the items that are really necessary. And then hey, if you see something in here that you that that pique your interest, then then read further
because there's going to be more about it. You know, this kind of like you know, self aggrandizing, you know, you know, belief that you know, if I if I write it, they will read it is not the case because that doesn't take into account the fact that the person you're sending this email to likely gets thirty to fifty emails a day from all over their organization and they have to prioritize because they don't have the time
to put in to read things. Just because you have the time to put in to write them, So keep that in mind, come at it from a perspective of humility, and give people what they're looking for, you know, hide in there the things that you need them to see, but make make the headline the thing that is going to really benefit them or something they're going to want to see, and appeal to that nature. And you'll be surprised how much more people read the things that you
have to put out. Thank you for joining on this episode of employ Engagement. We'll see you next Thursday for the next one.
You have a great day.