This is a rock-solid communication pro tip: design, then edit copy.

Graphic design and layout change the essence and emphasis of words. Let the writer write. Let the designer design. Then edit the copy. You’ll end up with a more impactful communication piece.

Your younger employees will give you 10 seconds to get to the point. And if you send it in email, they won’t read it. They’re from the Text Generation.

Write short.

Profits up; wages down; employment down.

Getting more for less might be a rational business strategy, but it doesn’t necessarily reconcile with employee engagement.

Here’s a Communication Pro Tip: Don’t edit your first paragraph.

Your first instinct when you write is to keep going back over your first paragraph. Don’t do it. It contains the essence of what you want to say. Once you’ve made multiple edits, that thread of your original idea is gone.

I’m waiting for the typewriter repairman to make a house call. If I had a nickel for every time I typed that line…I’d have a nickel.

The repairman is making a house call. Let that sink in for a minute.

I’m going to write a novel on the machine he repairs. The working title is “1967.” I’ll have it done in 100 days.

Your employees don’t pay attention.

Your managers don’t pay attention.

Your executives don’t pay attention.

{Insert joke here: Your significant others don’t pay attention.}

See what I did there? I separated information into small chunks. Then I repeated myself.

It’s because people don’t pay attention.

In the mass communication business there’s an entire area of study around heuristics — the mental shortcuts people use to make decisions. Those can be decisions about politics…or how you manage your business. In essence, the Heuristic Model says that people have a limited capacity to intake information faced with an overwhelming number of choices. Ergo, mental shortcuts.

Those mental shortcuts have consequences. Your employees enter any communication event with preconceived notions. If they use a “The Man is out to get me” heuristic, then your introduction of a Lose Weight, Feel Great! plan is going to be met with significant skepticism. If they use a “managers aren’t to be trusted” heuristic, then good luck having a productive performance review discussion. If they use a “my company doesn’t care about pay fairness” heuristic, then you have a long slog to persuade them you’re doing the right thing.

If you’ve read this far you’re not a low-information person. Congratulations. Because you know a lot, people will count on you to help them make snap decisions. And that’s the answer about communicating with low-information employees: To overcome the shortcuts that low-information employees use in all aspects of their lives, use high-information employees to augment your messages. Get the smart people like you to help those who rely on scant details to make critical decisions.

TL:DR Most of your employees already have their minds made up.

Um….if you don’t know, TL:DR is Reddit shorthand for too long, didn’t read.

Hold onto your hat, this one’s gonna get bumpy.

Your open enrollment communication for 2013 and 2014 is going to be like nothing your employees have ever seen. They’ll get ads for healthcare plans saying, “Pick me.” They’ll get official-looking papers with government seals talking about insurance exchanges. And they’ll get your open enrollment materials.

Your employees will feel like they’re bull riding at the rodeo, just holding on for dear life. Rita Pyrillis, a senior writer at Workforce, puts it this way:

If employers find that explaining benefits to their employees is challenging now, then they should brace themselves for fall enrollment when workers are expected to receive an avalanche of marketing materials from insurers, health insurance exchanges and government agencies in anticipation of health care reform, experts say.

To paraphrase that old Buick ad: This isn’t your father’s open enrollment.

In your dad’s day, he just got “insurance.” You know, that good old indemnity insurance back in the day when you could go to an emergency room for a hangnail and not have to pay a penny? You still have employees who remember those days.

And you have employees who have heard lots about PPOs, HMOs, HDHPs, and all their variants. On top of that, they have to consider smoking cessation, their BMI, and whether they want to turn over their medical checkup results to get a few hundred bucks.

It’s all so CONFUSING. Now comes the rodeo.

If you don’t want your employees to get bucked off you’d better be thinking long and hard about how to communicate your open enrollment this year. You need to give your employees the decision tools they need to take the ride. No matter what, this year’s open enrollment won’t be easy. But the biggest mistake would be to think, “Ah, this is just like last year, only our employees will get a few more brochures.”

Ever been around someone who’s Medicare eligible right around their open enrollment? Ever explained the “donut hole”? Or what Part D is? And then have them ask you, “Well, what do I choose?” This year’s open enrollment will be like that…only with 100 million employees.

Youseethatguyuptherethatscolehamelsheisprobablyourbestplayeryouseehesthe
pitcherandheneedstogetthisbatteroutbythrowingstikesohmythatsnotastrikethat
wasaballitllbeverybadofrusifthisguygetsonbaseletmeholdthatdonthitthenice
peoplewithyourbatwannasitonmylapcomeoverhereminadontrunaroundtherecomes
thepitchohnothatcantbegoodthatslongohlookthatsadoubletheygotthreeruns
waitwhyisthatguygoingtoscoretoowhathappenedididntseeitsitstillsonwait
aminutethatwasahomerunnowayididntevenseeitsitstillsonputthebatdownstop
kickingtheseatwaitformommytocomebacktellmeaboutyourideadontdontdont
dontkickputthebatdownpleasechillcoolitcoolitchiilitrelaxrelaxrelax
ifyourelaxillbuyuanicecreamnnoyouneedtoeatthestraberriesfirstsitdown
putthebatdowndonthitthepeopledoyouwantositonmylapsitonmylappleasesit
lookmommyiscomingbacktherecolehamelsispitchingagainyouwanticecreamillgetyou
icecreamgoodpitchlooksoncolehamelsmadeastikestrikesaregood
letsgogetsomeicecream.

I sat in front of a guy at the Phillies game today who never shut up for the entire game.

He spent 3 hours talking without pausing to his 5-year-old son, who managed to hit Sheryl and me with his Whiffle bat at least a dozen times. He had time to hit us with the bat when the kid wasn’t kicking our seats.

And the dad? You know what it’s like to listen to a guy jabber 12 inches from your right ear for 180 minutes? Next time I’ll buy tickets to a personal waterboarding. And enjoy it more.

You know what? Too much employee communication sounds like that guy sitting behind me — just one long, run-on sentence. Here’s a hint: It ain’t communication if there are no pauses between words.

[Image source]

The best words anyone can say are hop on.

There’s a freedom in that phrase.

It’s what separates big ideas from teensy little ones.

Hop on is the concept that gets us working together.

How many people say hop on at your shop?

And if they don’t, why not?

You want employee engagement? Care about people.

I’m not talking about caring as in the perfunctory “How are you?” questions. Or having a monthly birthday cake. I’m talking about caring deeply. Like friends. For life.

You want to see what caring looks like? It involves someone I admire beyond words — the performance artist Marina Abromovic. I watched her documentary The Artist is Present multiple times and regretted not seeing her at MoMa in person.

Justin Fox at Zen Garage wrote this about an encounter at the show. Please watch the short clip. And think about what really caring means. Employee engagement is more than a couple of words.

Marina Abramovic and Ulay started an intense love story in the 70s, performing art out of the van they lived in. When they felt the relationship had run its course, they decided to walk the Great Wall of China, each from one end, meeting for one last big hug in the middle and never seeing each other again.

At her 2010 MoMa retrospective Marina performed ‘The Artist Is Present’ as part of the show, where she shared a minute of silence with each stranger who sat in front of her. Ulay arrived without her knowing and this is what happened.

Click to see the Marina and Ulay video