Don’t Dumb Down Your HR Communication

Posted on Friday, November 9, 2007 by Frank Roche

The trouble about trying to make yourself stupider than you really are is that you very often succeed.
–C.S. Lewis

Don’t buy into the myth that your people are stupid. You don’t need to dumb down your HR communications — you need to make them accessible. There’s a huge gap between HR materials that can be understood by everyone and HR materials that are dumbed down. Knowing the difference is what separates the good from the pathetic.

HR Communication Hint: Employees like to learn a new phrase or twist on a word in communications. Stretch them a little with a word that they have to look up and it will make the communication more memorable because they have to interact with the piece. Otherwise, the C.S. Lewis’ quote becomes true — dumbing down backfires.

User Comments

bob cenek

Nov 9th, 2007

Well put. I have always cringed at the comment, “you need to take it down to their level.”
chrissmari

Nov 9th, 2007

oh man have i seen this
Frank Roche

Nov 9th, 2007

Bob, I’m with you. It’s a funny assumption, isn’t it, that all communication has to be at an 8th Grade reading level. It’s just not true. The same people who are sweeping the floors are reading Kafka and Ayn Rand. The know the deal. Talking down never works, and from where I grew up in Chicago, could get your ass kicked. (There’s no delicate way to say that.)

Chrissmari, it’s sad, isn’t it, that we see this all the time. Ugh.
Philip

Nov 9th, 2007

Well, my intuitive guess backed up by experience is that most large organizations have a surprising amount of contempt for the idiots that they hired to work there. What kind of hiring process ends up with a bunch of employees that can’t be trusted to behave like adults is an interesting and related question. The most effective HR communication ever was probably the Nordstrom employee handbook, though apparently they’ve succumbed to legal requirements for something more detailed like everyone else.

Along these lines, I found this nugget in a Martin Fowler essay that I’ve been quoting quite a bit:

The problem, too often, is that methodology has been opposed to the notion of people as the first-order factor in project success.

This creates a strong positive feedback effect. If you expect all your developers to be plug compatible programming units, you don’t try to treat them as individuals. This lowers morale (and productivity). The good people look for a better place to be, and you end up with what you desire: plug compatible programming units.

Likewise, if you communicate to your staff like 8th-graders, don’t be surprised to end up with staff that acts like 8th-graders.
rob

Nov 10th, 2007

For sure, avoid jargon or anything else that people need to be “in the club” to understand. Use plain English and there’s no need to dumb down.
Frank Roche

Nov 12th, 2007

Rob, you got it. That’s the formula.