Continuous communication of agency mission, vision, and direction is key to success in becoming a high performing organization. The organization must build a clear roadmap of agency direction to secure employee commitment. These and other critical messages must have communication vehicles for strategic and orderly delivery to intended audiences. OPM offers technical assistance with communication planning, communication tool development, and message distribution. This assistance includes:
Communication Pre-assessment and Audit
We will qualitatively measure current communication methods and messages to establish a baseline and identify communication planning needs. By using surveys, focus groups, and one-on-one interviews, OPM will evaluate existing methods to determine a measure of effectiveness and identify communication weaknesses and strengths. These will measure:
- How past communications are handled and their effectiveness
- Key audiences and their current knowledge of key issues or communication methods
- Current strengths and weaknesses
- Questions to be answered may include:
- What are the current goals and objectives for communications?
- How well are the current methods working?
- Are messages clear and consistent?
- Which methods have been most effective?
- Does communication support overall strategic plan?
- What would make communications more effective?
Plan Development
OPM will assist in the development of a plan and communication tools for the different messages to be communicated, how and when the plan will be launched, and how often each message will recur. These services include:
- Determining:
- Objective of the message
- Medium to use (can include more than one type per message)
- Frequency of communication
- Audience
- Owner/communicator (roles and responsibilities of each person/team)
- Determining which messages to communicate
- Establishing different plans for different groups (communication forums/house/block)
- Identifying risks and barriers and developing plans to overcome them
- Conduct crisis planning to have plans and communication tools in place for emergency communications
Training
OPM will train managers, leadership, and employees on how to communicate messages to all groups of people. This will include post-planning training of newly developed communication strategies and tools.
Measures
Included in the development of the plan are measures to evaluate the effectiveness of communication activities. These measures should be documented within the communication plan since they are of critical importance to understanding how well communication activities are working. OPM will develop measures that align with the communication methodology and message to ensure proper outcomes are being realized. These may include:
- "Hits" to a particular website
- Hash tags or Tweetdeck
- Follow up focus groups
- Amount of quality employee feedback
- Pulse survey
- Changes in employee behavior/attitudes
- Audience satisfaction with types and content of messages
- Number of employees/managers who are now using tools
- Increased in enrollment in programs
Post-assessment
OPM will conduct post-implementation assessments to measure change resulting from the communication plan. Using the measures described above, focus groups, or surveys, we will gather and analyze data and produce reports on the success of communication plan implementation.