As we explained last week, understanding your company’s hourly workforce is critical in providing you with the right context to communicate and engage with this important employee segment. So, we’ll start our series on understanding the attitudes of the hourly workers with their thoughts on company communication.
When asked whether they agree or disagree (on a scale of 1-5, with strongly agreeing being a 5) with the statement, “You would like to have better communication with your company,” half of our sample of U.S. hourly workers said they agree (4) or strongly agree (5). In fact, only 17 percent answered disagree (2) or strongly disagree (1).
Does this indicate that, on average, companies are not communicating with their hourly employees well? Or does it mean that half of hourly employees are so in love with their company’s communication that they just can’t get enough of it?
We think you know the answer, but to back the assertion up with data, consider this: As we’ve shared previously, hourly workers report their company communicates new policies and procedures via emails sent to personal accounts, text messages and even Facebook groups. This exposes the company to a high degree of risk.
The most frequent ways companies communicate policies and procedures are via in-person communication and written memo, with company email coming in third. But we did ask how employees would prefer to receive those types of messages, and email was the most frequent answer. That’s discouraging when you recall from Demographics, Devices and Disconnection that 50 percent of hourly workers are not given company email accounts.
We also asked hourly workers how often their company surveys its employees to find out what their issues, problems and/or challenges are, and 31 percent said, “Never.” Among hourly workers with low job satisfaction, 48 percent said, “Never.”
So, there are data points that confirm that the desire for improved communications is not because the employees are so engaged they can’t get enough.
How does this data change your perception of your hourly workers? What steps can you take to improve your relationship with them based on what you now know about their attitudes toward communications? And are there solutions you can find that help bridge these gaps?
Tell us your thoughts in the comments, and share the post with your network to get input from your hourly workers, too.
Editor’s Note: Profile of the Hourly Worker’s first report, Demographics, Devices and Disconnection, was released in November 2015. It is an independent survey conducted by Edison Research on behalf of Red e App to discover insights and details about the United States’ hourly workforce.