Many Employee Engagement Surveys Reveal this Common Challenge: Cross-Departmental Communication

In the past two years, we have consistently noted that questions in our Employee Engagement Surveys related to cross-departmental communication are being rated less positively, regardless of the industry. A quick review of our data from 2010 – 2011 indicates that approximately 75% of all our survey clients experience challenges effectively communicating across team and department lines. For these clients, questions related to cross-departmental communication were among the lowest in the entire survey, and for many, ranked as the lowest, or second lowest.

In talking to managers and employees after we have conducted their survey, we ask for examples of where cross-departmental communication has been compromised. Many state that it is the stress of the economy, resulting in employees doing more with fewer people on the team. Employees talk about working harder, faster, and focusing solely on their own survival. Every case in which we ask for specifics, it’s apparent that teams are not trying to undermine the success of another team by withholding information they need to be successful. Rather, the issue lies in employees struggling to keep up with their job responsibilities and lacking the time to properly communicate with employees in other departments.

If cross-departmental communication issues are not addressed, over time, silos form and teams get into turf wars. In a worst case scenario, teams find themselves battling against each other instead of working together to achieve their shared objectives. We like to describe this phenomenon as misidentifying the enemy or playing against each other in a league.

Our extensive research demonstrates that almost all employees and their leaders can figure out how to communicate effectively and work well as a team within their own department. The challenge remains in communicating effectively with teams throughout the organization. The “gold standard” in our research is the Best-of-the Best, those organizations that consistently score in the top quartile of all the organizations we have surveyed with Employee Engagement Surveys. What separates the Best-of-the-Best organizations from the rest is their ability to understand how to communicate cross-departmentally, effectively unifying teams throughout the organization. Although all organizations struggle with cross-departmental communication, the Best-of-the-Best were 9 percentage points higher in 2011 when it came to effectively communicating across team/department/division lines.

One interesting side note about the Best-of-the-Best is that the average score for cross-departmental communication has decreased by 4 percentage points since 2008, indicating that even great organizations have struggled to maintain unity during these tough economic times.

To help you ensure that your teams stay united, we have assembled 10 tips that will help you increase your cross-departmental communication scores. Look back through your survey data and identify the departments that are in need of help. Then, put these tips into practice and start holding managers accountable for their communication scores. Get a head start on increasing their communication and overall cohesiveness so that by the time your next Employee Engagement Survey is completed, you could find yourself in the Best-of-the-Best category.