Print edition: 
Engaging your employees during a recession and making them part of the solution can build a measurable competitive advantage.
Specifically, investing in better communication skills for leaders can pay dividends in the short and long term. Benefits consulting firm Watson Wyatt (now Towers Watson) outlines results of a recently published study, "Capitalizing on Effective Communication: How Courage, Innovation and Discipline Drive Business Results in Challenging Times."
Here are key findings from the study:
* Effective employee communication is a leading indicator of financial performance and a driver of employee engagement. Companies with the most highly effective communicators had 47 percent higher total returns to shareholders over the last five years compared with firms that had the least effective communicators.
* Despite all of the organizational and beneficial changes employers have been making in response to challenging economic conditions, only 14 percent of the survey participants are explaining the terms of the new employee value proposition, or EVP, to their employees.
EVP helps employees determine how their gifts and talents contribute to the company's objectives, how they can feel fulfilled and find meaning in their work, and how their work fits into the bigger picture.
* The most successful companies invest in helping leaders and managers communicate with employees. While only three out of 10 organizations train managers to deal openly with resistance to change, highly effective communicators are more than three times as likely to do this as the least-effective communicators. The core competencies of effective communication are the ability to connect, motivate, and resolve conflict with diverse types of people across an unexpected and changing landscape.
* Despite the increased use of social media, companies are still struggling to measure the return on their investment in these tools. Highly effective communicators are more likely than the least effective communicators to report that their social media tools are cost-effective (37 percent vs. 14 percent).
* Measurement is critical. Companies that are less effective communicators are three times as likely as highly effective communicators to report having no formal measurements of communication effectiveness. Contrary to popular belief, communication "soft-skills" can be observed, measured, and taught. This sets the stage for accountability.
For those organizations seeking to improve communication skills among their leaders, these tips will be the best investment of your time and money.
* Your communication skills goals will not be achieved in a one-hour motivational speech. Like any organizational skill set, leadership communication skills take time, effort, and persistence to master. Flavor-of-the-month methods, different consultants every year and reliance on high octane instead of high value only make real change efforts more difficult.
* To make your investment pay off, chose a process that offers built-in metrics to track progress, measure proficiency and help hold each other accountable for applying new learning.
* Be prepared for resistance. Effective communication is hard. It challenges existing structures, traditions and habits. Be prepared to make difficult decisions with people who sabotage forward progress.
* Support it from the top down. Unless top leaders invest, model and show the benefits of better communication, it is virtually impossible to make it stick further down in the organization.
You may not be ready to hire yet. But while you are waiting for business to pick up, it's a perfect time to invest in the leaders you have now.
