Internal Communications - Employee listening

February 26, 2025|Kim's Blog, Management Skills, Psychology|

Listening model - employee listening - internal communication

As a long-standing member of the Institute of Directors I was surprised to learn that there is special interest groups for Marketing Communications | Institute of Directors. So I attended one of its webinars yesterday: “Are you really listening – Unlocking innovation and engagement in the workplace” which focused on employee listening. Internal Communications – Employee listening.

From client listening to employee listening

Client listening is, of course, an established function in most professional services firm. So a focus on employee voice felt relevant – for leaders, human resources and marketing/business development.

It’s also an interesting perspective as too often internal communications focuses on considering what and how to communicate to employees. Rather than what employees might want to say.

And whilst internal communications is a core part of marketing in professional services firms, I was interested to learn the extent to which it might help in our ongoing challenge of partner and fee-earner engagement and buy-in. And its role in change management and innovation programmes.

About Dr Kevin Ruck – internal communications expert

After introductions by joint chairs of the Marketing Communications group (Jeremy Duncan – partner at Reggie London and Trudy Lewis – director of Colinear) they introduced the speaker Dr Kevin Ruck.

Dr Ruck is a leading internal communications researcher, thought leader, author, lecturer and academic. He was also co-founder of PR Academy – the largest provider of Qualifications CIPR

Dr Ruck has researched the topic for over 15 years – interviewing 2,000 employees in the UK and publishing four reports between 2019-2022. This, together with two surveys of communications managers (140 and 500 respondents) and workshops, culminated in the publication of the 2024 book “Leading the listening Organisation” (Routledge). Leading the Listening Organisation: Creating Organisations that Flouri

Dr Kevin Ruck | LinkedIn

Why is employee listening important?

Dr Ruck’s argument was that organisations that listen to employees flourish by creating sustainable and long-term success. It embodies the idea of employee voice.

“Essence of good listening is the ability to understand the perspective of others. And respond appropriately”

It results in higher levels of employee engagement – which means that the business and employees are more successful and employees experience less stress and better well-being. Engagement is acknowledged as having a positive impact on retention and productivity. He argued that when you involve employees in how to do things better it leads to innovation.

He also mentioned the increase in employee advocacy – which is an important element of brand communications. People often trust employee views more than those of senior people or the media. In professional services, employee advocacy is also important for cross-selling.

Unfortunately, time constraints meant he did not elaborate on employee listening as an element of social justice in the workplace.

Principles of employee listening

He talked through the principles for effective employee listening:

Recognise the right for employees to speak out
Be fully present during the listening process
Give emotional commitment to listen to what’s not said
Understand what others are thinking and feeling
Consider what is said
Interpret what is said
Respond appropriately

And the need to do this on an ongoing basis: “By listening to employees on an ongoing basis, leaders create better places to work, in which employees are highly engaged. Listening organisations are also better innovators”.

He described the two dimensions of leadership listening:

Systems and processes
Personal listening skills and capabilities

“Leading a listening organisation involves creating an environment in which people feel safe to speak up, leaders at all levels are open, responsive and empathetic and use multiple methods to recognise, acknowledge and respond to employees. Listening is taken as critical to decision-making and performance”. There was acknowledgement of the importance of psychological safety for both leaders and employees. He suggested training and coaching for managers who go out to listen to employees.

He said leaders who listen well:

Are genuinely interested in what employees have to say and are open to ideas and suggestions
Appreciate that they don’t know everything and don’t jump to immediately defensive answers
Show empathy and compassion for employees
Take personal responsibility for considering what is said and responding

State of employee listening

He reported that not surprisingly, big surveys dominate – but many employees and practitioners are dissatisfied with the time it takes to issues results and take actions.

There was a low level of use of interviews and focus groups – despite high levels of agreement that there were very effective methods.

And a low level use of digital listening – despite digital platforms being highly rated for providing feedback and suggestions.

He concluded that good basic practice is a combination of regular senior leadership listening sessions, regular pulse surveys and ongoing analysis of digital forum discussions.

The listening spectrum

He described how organisations move along the listening spectrum from passive to active, sensitive and deep listening. And how the objectives, characteristics and tools might vary on this journey.

Listening spectrum – employee listening – employee communications

He talked through an example where passive listening might be one annual employee survey. The first step might be to supplement this with regular, smaller pulse surveys. As an organisation becomes more active it might introduce additional methods such as focus groups. He said that deep listening was rare and more likely to take place in start-ups which are collaborating to develop their organisation.

During questions, he explained that survey questions were set by the leadership and management team. Whereas focus groups where more likely to reveal the areas that employees felt needed discussion.

Leadership listening model

He remarked that less than a third of organisations have a listening strategy. And noted that internal digital platforms are one of the least used methods for employee listening. There were questions about whether employee engagement might be better away from digital platforms as some might be nervous about the confidentiality of online surveys.

His leadership listening model was elegantly simple.

From client listening to employee listening