The keys to collaborative manager communications

Managers can help decipher and share messages to teams across an organization.

At Ragan’s Employee Communications and Culture Conference earlier this year, Laurie Tortorello, director of people and culture communications at RS Americas, shared a presentation on how collaboration is the key to the best manager communication. In her talk, titled “Share the Load: A Five-Step Guide for Collaborative Manager Comms”, Tortorello told the audience that the manager-communicator relationship is critical for sharing internal information.

“Managers are the people who need to communicate down into the organization,” she said. “Getting their buy-in and support is critical.”

Tortorrello continued, stating that a majority of employees report that better manager communication would make them more effective in their roles. She added that disconnects between managers and communicators can stifle managerial leadership skills.

“When we don’t have good communications with our managers, they struggle to lead,” she said. “A disconnect in communication can be a detriment to what we’re trying to do.”

Tortorello said that when she saw disconnects in communicator-manager collaboration and interaction, much of the problem was rooted in how comms pros were sharing the information.

“Our biggest resistance came when we realized that the information wasn’t being cascaded effectively,” she told the audience. “Managers were either too busy or didn’t think the information was relevant.”

Tortorello also spoke about the importance of creating a communications flow between managers and the comms department that’s rooted in a back-and-forth dialogue that encourages the sharing of opinions.

“We need to foster open dialogue where employees feel safe to voice their concerns without fearing repercussions,” she told the gathered crowd. “You can’t just send an email and check the box. You have to be engaging, open, and make it easy for people to talk to you.”

She also shared that a culture of openness around the manager-communicator relationship paid dividends for employee engagement at her organization.

“By creating a platform for open dialogue and acting on the feedback we received we saw a significant increase in our employee engagement score, moving from 72 to 76 in just one quarter,” Tortorello said. “When employees feel like their feedback leads to tangible change, it builds trust and boosts engagement. It shows them that their voice matters.”

Check out more from Tortorello’s presentation below.

Sean Devlin is an editor at Ragan Communications. In his spare time he enjoys Philly sports and hosting trivia.

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