Whether you’re running a company or you’re an employee of that company, communication is absolutely essential for its overall success. If there are gaps in this communication, then weaknesses within that internal structure can arise, leaving you with a company made up of haphazardly-connected parts. In a recently published post on 15Five’s blog, it seems that employees actually place a higher value on honest, consistent communication than on receiving top employe benefits packages.
According to 15Five, a company whose software allows companies to ease and improve the communication between managers and employees, a recent survey showed that of 1,000 full-time employees that participated, a majority 81 percent expressed that they would rather join a company that valued open communication. That is to say: most people are willing to ignore the prospect of top health plans and job perks like free food, if that same company did not value open lines of communication. Despite this, however, only a mere 15 percent of those same employees said that their current employers were doing a “very good” job fostering this kind of honest communication.
2015 is supposed to be the year of smarter internal communications; with the availability of better video technology and a much greater percentage of the adult population relying on their smartphones, you’d think this issue with communication should no longer be a problem. At this year’s SXSW, WorkingOn cofounder and CTO George Diab talked about the necessity of having the right tools in place to create an environment that allows for frictionless, effective communication, and the effects of that on a company’s long-term success.
And this value in open communication seems to be more important for Millennials. In the same survey, 84 percent of Millennials preferred open communication policies over company perks, while 77 percent of Baby Boomers shared the same sentiment. This Millennial mindset is reflected much the same in a recently published guide on how to recruit and maintain Millennials, which cites an MTV poll showing that 80 percent of Millennials want regular feedback from their managers.
If you want o know some more interesting and important facts about workplace communication, check out the infographic below: