One style doesn't fit all: to get your message across to diverse groups within your workforce, send it in various ways—each version tailored to their distinct needs - Agenda: Diversity

HR Magazine, Nov, 2002 by Patricia Digh

Ads in Spanish, TV commercials featuring people with disabilities, marketing messages using cross-generational icons such as Britney Spears and Bob Dole--all are indications that companies are aligning their communications with the interests, needs and values of their diverse audiences.

HR must do the same.

Because HR's messages deal with information about vital matters such as compensation and benefits, job performance, and recruitment and training, and because HR's effectiveness in attracting and retaining talent is key to the bottom line, it cannot afford to let its communications miss their target audiences.

When employees appear to ignore HR communications or to lack clear understanding of policies, it's often assumed that they haven't been paying attention. In fact, there can be other reasons for communications failure. For example, the sender or the recipient may know too little about the subject to explain it clearly or to understand it fully. Time pressures may have prevented the drafting of an effective message. Or there may be hostility between sender and recipient or a professional or cultural gulf between them that's too big to bridge with traditional communication.

The Search for Solutions

Although HR professionals for many years have served up innovative programs to meet diverse employees' particular needs, many in HR haven't learned what their marketing colleagues already know about communication: One style doesn't fit all.

"It means that there's no longer one solution or message that will work for everyone," says Myrna Marofsky, president of ProGroup Inc., a diversity consulting firm headquartered in Minneapolis. For example, she says, if the company wants to tell employees something about health benefits, HR should "consider not what's easiest, but what would make the value of health benefits clear to all the cultures represented in your workplace."

Knowing the cultural differences present in a diverse workplace can help HR practitioners understand how to draft and deliver their messages for maximum effectiveness. For example, some employees may get the most from detailed written communications. Others may respond better to face-to-face meetings.

Often, a message may have to be delivered in two or more ways to make sure it reaches all the various groups of recipients.

Anita Rowe of Gardenswartz & Rowe, a Los Angeles-based diversity consulting firm, suggests that HR professionals "take a lesson from marketing and hold focus groups to gather data about what employees need from HR." She adds: "We rely so much on paper and pencil, but we may be communicating with people from cultures that may be more oral, people who may not be fully literate in English, or folks who need to have a relationship with you rather than a report from you."

Most important, Rowe notes, "because culture also affects the ways in which people give feedback, always ask yourself, 'What signs do I have that people don't understand?'"

Diversity consultant Robert Hayles, based in Manzanita, Ore., suggests that HR get out and see how the experts do it: "If your organization has a sales component, go out on a sales call with one of the reps. If it is in retail, go to where business is done with the consumer and see what the sales people do that's successful. Go to listen and learn rather than to tell."

Marketers "have to sell in order to survive," says Donna Stringer, president of Seattle-based Executive Diversity Services Inc. "The fact is that HR professionals also must 'sell' in order to survive."

How We Hear and Respond

Although employees' preferences in communication styles cannot be assumed from their heritage or cultural identity, there are some characteristics that HR should keep in mind when communicating to employees:

* Many employees prefer direct communication, but some prefer an indirect style, and as a result they may not ask you for clarification on HR policies and procedures. To find out if they understand your communications, you may have to use a third party--an informal "cultural informant"--to broach sensitive subjects with them. Such mediators can be found in almost all multicultural workplaces. Typically they are employees who belong to, and understand the communication needs of, the group you are trying to reach. They also have become part of the larger workplace culture, and they have high credibility with both groups. They can help point out gaps in communication between management and the workforce.

* Some employees respond better to messages in which everything is spelled out; they don't like nonverbal cues. At the opposite end of the spectrum are those who already know a lot about the context of the message and don't need to have it detailed for them. They attach much importance to nonverbal cues, and sometimes they derive a lot from what is not said.

* Getting at the truth is highly important for some employees; they tend to focus on facts and expediency. They don't hesitate to challenge a message or say they don't understand it. Others prefer "saving face," which means they don't like to admit they disagree with the content of a message or are confused by it.