The Tribe Report 10. The Non-Desk Best Practices Issue | Page 8

LACK OF COMMUNICATION EQUALS A LACK OF RESPECT
When only one in five employees believe that their individual role is valuable to the company vision and one in
four feel connected to the rest of the company (according to Tribe’s research), it’s hard to imagine a strong level
of engagement. A company’s inability to effectively communicate to non-desk employees is not only seen as a
communications issue, it’s often seen as a personal affront.
I HAVE SOMETHING TO SAY
According to Albert Einstein, reality is merely an illusion, albeit a persistent one. Non-desk employees want those in
the ivory tower to understand their reality. They see things and experience things about the product, the company
and customers that corporate office employees can’t regularly see. Non-desk employees want and need the ability
to voice their ideas and opinions to corporate management. And, by the way, that’s a good thing.

Non-desk employees want those in the ivory tower to understand their reality.
Keep in mind that if corporate has a tough time communicating to non-desk employees, non-desk employees are
likely having a tough time communicating with corporate.
ALIGNING ACTIONS WITH THE VISION
The ultimate goal of internal communications is to align the actions of individual employees with the vision and
values of the company — what things should be done and how they should do it. It takes effort, but every corporate
communication to non-desk employees (to all employees, actually) should be positioned in a manner that supports
some element of the company vision. Over time, employees should be able to define how their individual role
contributes to the success of the company.

The ultimate goal of internal communications is to align the actions of individual
employees with the vision and values of the company.
So where’s the silver bullet that allows communicators to reach all of their audiences all of the time? Sorry. As of today,
there is no silver bullet.
The solution, though, starts with corporate leadership understanding the importance of having a knowledgeable and
engaged non-desk employee base. Next is a corporate commitment to providing the necessary resources and expertise
that ensure effective communications.
In practice, the goal is to provide appropriate channels and an understandable communications hierarchy that allows
efficient two-way communications and is based on your company’s unique culture and environment. At the end of
the day, good non-desk communications begin with empathetic listening to the people that are out there meeting the
customer or production challenges head-on.

8 | TRIBE REPORT

www.tribeinc.com