Solving Communication Overload for Employees

Solving Communication Overload for Employees 

More than 70% of workers say that the amount of communication they receive makes it hard to get any work done. Recent Gartner research ⁽¹⁾ indicates that 38% of managers feel overloaded by information.

Digital tools have made communications faster, easier, less intentional, and more numerous. Yet communications overload is not caused as much by volume but rather by the burden of sorting through and processing repetitive and irrelevant messaging.

How can you overcome or prevent communication overload for your employees? Let’s take a look. 

What’s the cost of communication overload? 

In two words: Lower retention. Gartner finds that excessive communication has real consequences: “Nearly one-half of heavily burdened employees report a low intent to stay with their organization.” ⁽¹⁾ Communication overload negatively impacts worker productivity, job satisfaction, and a company’s bottom line. And being interrupted by chat, email, and alerts makes it difficult for employees to focus.

As technology accelerates the speed at which we work, this also heightens the demands companies place on their people. The more technologies, platforms, and apps required, the faster, more demanding — and more reckless — the work can become.

Minimizing communication overload for employees

Given the risks and negative consequences of communication overload and app overload, how can you minimize the potential impact on your employees?

1. Reduce the number of communication channels you use. According to a RingCentral, Inc. report, employees use an average of four communication apps to complete their daily work, with 20 percent using six or more. With email, team chat, text, application notifications, and project management tools, continuous communication about work can lead to communication overload and digital exhaustion. When it comes to channels, less can be more. Gartner says, “To reduce the burden, executive leaders must better design and govern their organization’s information ecosystem” and “To identify which areas require the most urgent intervention, consider which channels and sources are contributing most egregiously to the information burden.”
2. Train employees on effective communication and preferred channel utilization. Encourage employees to consider whether something can be a chat message, email, phone call, or meeting. While there are times when it’s helpful to have a written record of a conversation or meet face-to-face, a phone call is best other times! Calling someone for an answer can be refreshing if you have a quick question. And better yet, a quick call can minimize app usage and chat messages — especially if the question requires back-and-forth correspondence.
3. Encourage employees to minimize notifications and disconnect. Encourage employees to consolidate notifications and turn off nonessential alerts to minimize disruptions. Additionally, if employees at your organization tend to work extended hours — even if it’s “just responding to chat” — remind them that it’s essential to set and maintain work boundaries. Depending on the nature of your work, leaders may want to encourage employees to remove work email and chat apps from their personal phones.
   
4. Segment audiences and send targeted communications. Whether you’re sending a reminder to folks who haven’t participated in open enrollment or distributing a newsletter to remote employees, segment your lists. No one needs to receive every email. For example, you might want to create three separate lists: remote employees, in-office teams, and field staff. By sending relevant emails to each list, you can minimize email overload.

5. Let employees set communication preferences. Some communications are not optional, but many are. Enable employee on/off times and opt-in/out preferences.

• Ask employees for their preferences on channels for specific types of content.
• Let employees follow or subscribe to specific authors and publications.
• Provide a way for employees to bundle all policy or HR messages into a weekly digest.
• For newsletters, offer topic preferences or interest selections and a frequency setting.

6. Stick to an effective cadence. It can be helpful to consolidate communications in one message rather than sending separate emails. Consider sending a weekly newsletter on a regular cadence. A newsletter doesn’t need to be long to be effective; It’s the opposite. PoliteMail data shows that after 250 words (about one minute of read time), readership declines by 11 percent for every 500 words.

Communication overload

The negative impact of communication overload and tech overload is well-documented, but there are proven ways to minimize the effects on your people. Reduce the number of communication channels you use, use channels strategically (and train employees on strategic usage), consolidate notifications, send targeted communications, let employees set communication preferences, and stick to an effective cadence. These efforts can help you protect worker satisfaction and productivity.

⁽¹⁾ Source: Gartner, Information Overload Is a Strategic Risk — And You Can Reduce It, Communications Research Team, 2 February 2023

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