Answering the why is probably one of the most overlooked — and one of the most powerful — aspects of employee communication.

We might do a great job of communicating strategic messages on behalf of business leaders. These might include new products the company is launching or new markets it’s entering, investments the company is making and policies that are changing.

We might do an even better job of telling compelling stories about a team’s innovative approach to solving a problem, an employee’s passion for her job or the unique culture at one of the company’s plants.

These might make for interesting content. Employees might enjoy reading these stories on the intranet or hearing the CEO talk about them in town hall meetings. Leaders might believe they’re doing their part to create an environment of open, transparent communication. And they might be right.

But ask employees what’s missing from the information they receive about the business and often they’ll say they want to know the reasons behind company strategy, leaders’ decisions and changes in company policy and procedures.

Why is the why so important? Because it strengthens employee engagement. Sharing lots of information about the business is a good start toward engaging employees, but you can knock the ball out of the park when you start to talk about why. It helps employees put the pieces of the puzzle together and to make sense of the organization’s complexities. It helps them establish “line of sight” between what they do and what the business is trying to do. It helps them understand the reasons for business decisions, even if they don’t like those reasons.

Why is the company acquiring this seemingly unrelated business? Because it provides an entry point into an adjacent market.

Why does the company have such a stringent social media policy? Because it has a strategy when it comes to engaging with consumers and it wants to speak with one voice.

Why is the company laying off 100 people at this plant? Because bringing its cost structure in line with competitors is in the company’s long-term best interest.

Many business leaders forget that employees are investors, too. Even if they don’t invest their money in company stock, they do invest their time, energy and skills in the enterprise. Business leaders would never communicate a major business decision to investors without explaining why they made that decision — at least, if they want investors to continue investing. The same is true of employees. If you want them to continue investing their discretionary effort in your company, answering the why is essential.

That will come with time, of course — it’s only been three weeks — but I am impatient when it comes to these things. After nearly 25 years in this profession, I had gotten used to knowing how to get things done — or, at least, acting as if I do.

There is a fine line between proficient and poser and I have walked it successfully for many years now. Allow me to explain.

I know how to do certain things very well. I can write and edit other people’s writing. I know how to form strong relationships. I know how to analyze communication problems and suggest effective solutions. I know how to think strategically, to build a plan and to measure my work. I know how to teach others about my craft.

But when it comes to certain specifics, I know nothing. As a consultant, when I began working with a new client, I knew little to nothing about them. I didn’t know the culture of their organization. I didn’t know their processes and their internal politics. Often I didn’t know their industry or the products they made or the services they provided. I had to learn all of that fairly quickly.

This lack of knowledge used to rattle me. But early in my self-employment, a more experienced consultant advised me: “Never tell a client you don’t know how to do something. If they ask you to do something and you can’t do it or have never done it before, just say ‘Sure, I can do that,’ and find someone who can.”

That’s called “faking it ’til you make it.” Well, not really. It’s called providing total solutions for your client by assembling the right talent for the job and managing the project to successful completion.

Sometimes, the trick is to understand the real problem and apply your skills to it. One of my last clients, a large non-profit association, initially called about performing a communication audit. What they really wanted was for me and my partner to conduct in-depth interviews with staff regarding a difficult personnel situation involving one of their managers, to assess the problem and to recommend a range of solutions. Neither my partner nor I had ever performed this kind of human-resources work before, but we had the interviewing and analysis skills necessary to do it. So we did, and the client was pleased.

One of my new co-workers, herself a relative newcomer to the company, gave me some good advice. She encouraged me not to feel bad about not knowing anything. “Your job right now isn’t to produce, it’s to watch and learn.” She also passed along the encouragement of our department’s VP: “Today is just your first day. You have 364 more days to learn this job.”

As the length of time between my current situation and my self-employment widens, I gain greater perspective about those 12 years of my life. When I talk with friends, especially those who work in communication, the discussion often comes around to the adjustment I’m making to a new way of life. Yes, I miss the two-minute commute down the hall to my home-based office. Yes, I miss the flexibility with my time — being able to run to the grocery store during lunch, being there when my son gets home from school, the ability to schedule doctors’ appointments almost anytime during the day. But, of course, the benefits — and I mean that in the healthcare sense as well as more generally — help to balance things out.

A few people have asked me if I would recommend self-employment to someone considering it. So, with the benefit of said perspective, I thought I’d write about some of the traits of a successful independent practitioner. My work is PR and communications, so bear that in mind as you read on.

You must be comfortable with uncertainty. This is probably the greatest single trait necessary to succeed in self-employment. I mean uncertainty about everything, beginning with where your next paycheck will come from. Nothing is guaranteed except uncertainty itself. When I started my consulting practice in 2000, I (perhaps naïvely) was completely confident that I could succeed. That blind faith probably helped me more than it hurt because I simply proceeded as if I knew what I was doing and that there was no question I would make it. Even when I had to borrow money from my parents and take withdrawals from my 401k to pay a few bills in the early going. Fortunately, the clients grew and the income became more regular as I landed contract work, but there was always the chance that they would go away as quickly as they came. If you don’t have the stomach for uncertainty, don’t be self-employed.

You must be self-motivated. The first thing I did when I unexpectedly lost my job and, the next day, decided to start my business was to consult with my mentor and friend, Les Potter. He gave me some advice that I’ll never forget. “Get up in the morning, shave, shower, get dressed, go into your office and get to work,” he said. Doing what? “Anything. Make phone calls. Send emails. Read professional journals. Set up lunch meetings. The work will come.” He was right. To be successful as an independent practitioner, you must be able to motivate yourself to do those things and a lot more. It will be tempting to watch the afternoon baseball game on TV or do laundry or be distracted by any number of things. It’s fine to take time off now and then (but remember, you don’t get paid for it), but 95% of the time you must motivate yourself to work. Alone.

You must be able to work alone. I’m an extrovert. I draw energy from being around people. This was one of the hardest adjustments I had to make. The majority of my work was performed in my home office by myself. It was a gift that I eventually was part of a team of contractors working for one client because I got to be with them for a few hours a week. When Facebook came along, that became my water cooler. If you need to be around people to be productive, don’t work for yourself.

You must be willing to maintain networks of friends and colleagues. It’s more difficult to do this when you work on your own. I tried to regularly schedule lunch dates and attended PRSA meetings to maintain my professional network. It’s also important to work harder at keeping up your friendships and social life. It’s surprising how much of my social life revolved around work. I’m divorced and have dated quite a bit in the last 10 years. That was important to me, not only personally, but also because it energized me for work. That might seem weird, but it was true for me. My dad recently said that being a full-time employee with a great company that pays well and provides benefits will make me more attractive in the dating arena. I’m not sure how much more attractive I am, but he is right that what we do has a big impact on the people we’re with.

You must assess the real cost of being self-employed. Not only is your income less stable, but you incur much greater costs. You must pay quarterly taxes, buy your own health insurance, provide your own 401k, maintain your own equipment (computers, printers, software, telecommunications, etc.) and buy a lot of little things that might not be apparent. Sit down and formulate a budget — not just for your business but a personal budget as well — and determine the real cost of working for yourself. It might surprise you.

Those are five of the traits you must possess to be a successful independent practitioner. If you’ve been down this road before, please add your own in the comments below. One thing I’ve also learned is that everyone’s experience is unique.

A new study by Millennial Branding, a consulting firm based in Boston, finds that Gen-Y workers (people aged 18 to 29) “are inadvertently sharing too much with co-workers,” according to founder Dan Schawbel. Based on data mined from 4 million Gen-Y Facebook profiles, the study reveals that while these young workers primarily socialize with friends and family online, they also average 16 co-workers in their group of “friends.”

Yet, when identifying themselves in their profiles, 80 percent of Gen-Y workers list a school while only 36 percent list a job. This, according to the study’s authors, indicates that the nature of their updates is not primarily intended for professional contacts, but that’s who sees them — profanity, lewd photos and all.

This may or may not be the big faux pas that the consulting firm makes it out to be. Most of the Gen-Y workers in the study toil away as servers in Starbucks, cashiers at Wal Mart and other such jobs, and they don’t stay very long (the average tenure is just over two years). It’s not like the VP of research is sharing trade secrets with all her Facebook friends. But once again it raises the question: Do you know what employees of  your company are “inadvertently” saying about their workplace, their co-workers or their boss? And does anyone at your company care?

Social media have entirely changed the nature of public relations and branding, and they have elevated the importance of employees as brand ambassadors. What used to be a limited event of bitching about one’s job at a backyard barbecue now has the potential to go global in a matter of minutes.

If your company doesn’t take seriously the potential for disgruntled employees — whether Gen Y, Gen X or Boomer — to damage your brand, it should start doing so. Right now.

In the interview process, we talked quite a bit about my experiences as a consultant — what I’ve learned, how I’ve grown, the good aspects of self-employment and the bad. As the reality of giving up my business and joining a company has begun to sink in, I’v had even more time to reflect. I thought I’d share some of the things I’ll miss and some I won’t.

What I’ll Miss

Flexibility with time. One of the great lures of self-employment is that you work on your own schedule. That’s not entirely true; you work when your clients need you, which sometimes can be at odd hours. Still, self-employment does provide some degree of flexibility with your time. I started my business when my sons were 8 and 4; I became a single parent when they were 10 and 6. I’m so grateful that I worked in an office in my home during those years and had more hands-on time with them than a corporate job would have allowed.

Working with a variety of clients. I have had so many wonderful experiences working with so many different people and organizations — some of which I never knew existed. (Who knew there was an entire industry of equipment-leasing brokers and that they had their own trade association?) I’ve had the opportunity to work with some of the best organizations and some of the best-known brands. But it’s the people and the myriad projects that I’ll really miss.

Growing a business. It’s exciting to start a business from scratch and watch it grow. There’s a different sense of personal fulfillment that is just not the same as you get with a corporate job. You know the success — or the failure — of the enterprise is largely up to you, which can be both a tremendously motivating factor or scary as hell.

Partnering with the best communicators. I’ve been fortunate to team up with some of the most talented people in my industry: Les Potter, Steve and Cindy Crescenzo, Shel Holtz and others. And I loved assembling great teams of people with skills complementary to my own: Katrina Gill of Gill Research, Katie Casler of Casler Design and others. I’ll greatly miss working with one of the best teams of independent contractors joined together for one client: Michele and Jonathan Rhudy of Rhudy & Co. Communications and Marketing, Jennifer Pounders of J. Pounders & Partners, and Wendy Martin of W Communications and Marketing.

What I Won’t Miss

Estimated taxes. Self-employed workers get hammered with taxes, which come due every three months. I am happy to pay my taxes because even with all the government waste this is still a safe country filled with opportunity. But that doesn’t make writing those checks much easier.

Lack of benefits. The cost of my health insurance has skyrocketed over the 12 years I’ve been self-employed. Whenever I took a day or (rarely) a week off, that was a day or week with no income. It will be nice to work for a company that provides great benefits.

The cost of doing business. It’s amazing how many things you take for granted when you work for a company. Copier paper. Toner. IT support. Communication devices. Travel expenses paid up front. They all add up, even if you’re thrifty like I am, and I won’t miss them coming out of my pocket.

Unpredictable income. You can plan and market and work hard, but ultimately your monthly income depends on whether you have clients and how much work they give you. I look back in amazement that I made it sometimes, especially in the early days of my venture. Having a regular paycheck is a luxury I’ll never take for granted.

Loneliness. I am an extrovert, a “people person.” I draw energy from being around others. Although I have done my share of work in the offices of my clients, a great majority of my days were spent in this little office over my garage. The silence can be deafening. I can’t wait to have regular human contact again.

On the whole, I wouldn’t trade the last 12 years for anything. This time has been one of the greatest learning experiences of my life. But the time is right to leave it behind for the next great adventure. And I can’t wait!

The same is true in other aspects of our lives. I guess that’s why people change hair styles, eyeglasses, cars, houses and, unfortunately, sometimes spouses. (I’m not advocating the latter; in fact, healthy changes within a marriage can make it exciting again.)

I’m about to rearrange the furniture of my career. After nearly 12 years as an independent consultant, I’m rejoining the ranks of full-time corporate employment. I’ve accepted a job as employee communications manager with a Fortune 500 company based here in Richmond, Va. I’m not mentioning the name of the company in this blog because I don’t yet know what the company’s social media policy says about such things. But it’s a global business and a strong company with great people, as far as I can tell.

I’m excited about this new chapter in my life. Yet, it is bittersweet. Anyone who has poured their heart and soul into a business they’ve built from scratch knows what I’m talking about. It’s like saying goodbye to one of your kids.

I’ll write more about this change in the days ahead. That will help me process what is happening and, hopefully, will give you some things to think about, too. I don’t blog now nearly as often as I’d like, but I hope to continue even after my start date of January 3, 2012.

For now, I’m going to sit in the rearranged furniture and try to get used to it. I’m sure I’ll see some things that I haven’t seen before.

The fact is that layoffs happen even in a good economy. The macroeconomic environment isn’t the only thing that affects whether or not companies shed people. Industry trends, competition, cost management and many other factors are also at work.

Layoffs are awful for everyone involved. Of course, the people who lose their jobs are hit the hardest, but to be fair, those who are left behind and even company leaders — the good ones anyway — suffer when companies cut jobs.

Communication can help ease the pain. Let me say up front that there is nothing that can make people feel good about layoffs (unless you are a shareholder who has no compassion or regard for others). But communicating layoffs the right way can help ease the pain and facilitate recovery.

Here are some things to keep in mind when communicating layoffs:

• Develop a plan. It could be that you are given little to no advance notice that a layoff announcement is coming. (Best practice would be to have a communicator at the table from the start.) Regardless of when you are brought into the discussion, the first thing to do is to develop a communication plan — for how you will announce the layoff as well as the days and weeks following. Keep employees informed of the process every step of the way. Prepare managers for their difficult tasks ahead. Think ahead to the days and weeks following the layoff.
• Be timely. Companies are obligated to let certain groups of people know about their layoff plans first, but employees should find out simultaneously or as soon after as possible. It should go without saying, but don’t let the grapevine or, for God’s sake, the news media deliver the news to employees.
• Put leaders out front. This is the time for strong, visible leadership. Nobody wishes to deliver bad news, but employees will respect leaders who communicate openly, frequently and who don’t hide in their offices.
• Be honest and candid. Employees can see right through BS. Tell employees the business reasons for the layoff in a straightforward way. If it’s because the company has failed to manage its cost structure effectively, acknowledge it. If it’s because the competition is eating your lunch, say so.
• Be respectful. Treat employees like adults. Recognize that this news is devastating to employees, regardless of whether they will lose their jobs or not. When you make the announcement, it’s highly unlikely you’ll be able to notify employees of their individual status, so be respectful of the anxiety this news will cause among all employees. When individuals are notified, treat them with dignity. Never give them a box for them to fill their belongings and have security officers escort them to the door. Believe me, this has happened.
• Show an appropriate degree of empathy. If your management has never treated employees with respect and empathy before, this is not the time to start — it will only come across as fake. But if your management has wisely made deposits into its goodwill account over the years, acknowledge how difficult the layoff is for everyone and how hard it is to have to make such an awful  business decision.
• Remember the survivors. You should develop a communication plan not only for informing employees of the layoff, but also for the days and weeks after separations occur. The survivors are likely to be sad to lose co-workers, scared of what the future holds, and even a bit angry at business leaders. Think about communication activities and content that could help ease the transition back into business as usual.

Do you have tips of your own? Comment below.

That bit of news probably comes as no surprise. There hasn’t been a lot of reason in the last three years — the length of time the firm has been surveying workers — for employees to feel optimistic.

Buried in the report, however, is a nugget of information in which communicators should be interested:

There are a number of reasons for this general

feeling of apathy across the global workforce.

Prominent amongst them is the fact — borne out

by the Index – that leaders are still failing to deliver

one of the critical elements of leadership: effective

and clear communication. [Survey] respondents from

all corners of the globe have clearly stated this year

that while they have a renewed passion for their

roles and work, and very firmly believe they have

the skillsets and aptitude to effectively do their jobs,

they are lacking a clear idea and knowledge of their

organisation’s vision for the future.

The report cites ”an acute lack of leadership communication” as one of the most dramatic findings of the 2011 survey.

One of the best practices of employee communication is that in times of uncertainty and turmoil, leaders step up their communication. Whether the churn comes from within the organization or is caused by external forces, employees want to hear from their leaders. They want to hear their leaders acknowledge the difficulties and the toll it takes on employee engagement and morale. They want to know their leaders have a plan for dealing with the problems and that there is still a vision to work toward. They want the opportunity to express their concerns and to ask questions. They want to know that leaders hear them.

Increasing communication in difficult times is not easy for leaders to do, but it is part of being a leader.

I’ve already shared data from a 2010 Maritz Research poll that found only 10 percent of employees trust management to make the right decisions in uncertain times. The same poll found only 14 percent believe their leaders are ethical and honest, and 12 percent believe their leaders listen to and care about employees.

According to the Gallup organization, 72 percent of employees are not engaged in their work. Basically, they’re going through the motions.

Towers Watson’s Global Workforce Study in 2010 found that during the 2008-10 financial crisis, 72 percent of U.S. companies reduced their workforces. Seven out of 10 employees say this negatively affected how they feel about their work and employers.

Engagement matters, too. Three years earlier, Towers Perrin (the predecessor firm) found that return on assets in high-engagement companies was six times higher than low-engagement companies. High-engagement companies also had an average 19 percent increase in operating income and an average 28 percent growth in earnings per share year-over-year. In low-engagement companies, operating income dropped an average of 32 percent and EPS dropped an average of 11 percent year over year.

If you need more proof that engagement is important to a company’s success, here are all kinds of statistics on the subject.

Roger D’Aprix says employee engagement is “unleashing the energy and talent of people in the workplace.” Companies need engaged workforces to drive innovation, to ensure customer satisfaction, and because today’s society — not to mention today’s workers — expect it. Besides, considering the power of social media, would you rather have engaged or disengaged employees firing up Facebook and Twitter at night?

Employee communication plays a vital role in helping companies keep employees engaged and working for rather than against them. Consider some of the ways employee communication can help:

• It helps keep everyone focused on the same things by explaining business goals
• It helps build a sense of community among workers so that they feel they are a part of something important and good
• It helps explain policies, procedures and culture — the way things are done around here
• It helps demystify the complexities of the company
• It helps explain to employees why they should want to be involved in the business and how they can be
• It connects people with others in the organization who can help them accomplish things
• It helps create a sense of trust between management and employees

Unfortunately in lean times like these, employee communication is often one of the first things to have its budget and resources reduced. Yet, these are the times when employee communication is needed most — to help engage a battered and disenfranchised workforce.

Apparently, that attitude has gone mainstream. In his Harvard Business Review blog, MIT research fellow Michael Schrage expresses his astonishment that high-profile business and political leaders recently have come right out and said their employees or colleagues are no better than children needing “adult supervision.” In fact, “adult supervision” seems to be a new buzzword. Great, we needed another buzzword in the business world.

Schrage hits the nail on the head as he explains why using this phrase is a bad idea: “Condescension rarely builds loyalty or trust. Describing — even dismissing — adversaries and colleagues as ‘childish’ and ‘immature’ seems a surefire way to inspire hostility and resentment. You’d think serious leaders and healthy organizations would avoid insultingly corrosive characterizations.”

You’d think, but you’d be wrong.

It’s partly a reflection of this new age of vitriolic communication in which people feel free to say the first thing that comes to mind, disregarding that internal filter of maturity and sophistication that should set us apart from Neanderthals. For an example, look no farther than the U.S. Congress or cable TV talk shows.

But it’s a manifestation of a problem that has been around for many years. There’s a pervasive feeling among business leaders — and among politicians, too, but I don’t work in politics, thank God — that employees are unable to think for themselves, to demonstrate good judgment, to handle sensitive information (especially when it’s bad news), to self-monitor how they use their time, to act responsibly on behalf of themselves and their company, or to do pretty much anything that the guys in the executive suite can do.

To be fair, there is a minority of workers who can’t do any of those things. They are bad eggs and you’ll find a few anywhere you have a large assembly of people.

But in my 23 years of experience working in employee communications for dozens of organizations, I’ve mostly run across employees who do act like adults, who want to do well in their jobs and want their companies to succeed, and who just wish their companies’ leaders would treat them like adults.

The “adult supervision” mindset leads to a host of problems: lack of trust between employees and managers, lack of confidence in business leaders, lack of motivation to take risks or to be innovative, decreased levels of employee engagement, wasting time in CYA mode, wasting time gossiping and complaining, and many others.

A great current example of how the problem plays out is the fact that half of the companies out there still don’t allow employees to access social media from work. This is in spite of the fact that increasing numbers of prospective employees expect their employers to use the technology people use in their personal lives. Social media has tremendous potential to help employees share knowledge and information, to collaborate and to save time finding answers to their work-related problems. Yet many business leaders are afraid their employees will waste company time by using social media in inappropriate ways.

I’ve been working since before email was widely used in business. Let me tell you something: the small percentage of slacker employees will find ways to waste time whether or not social media are allowed at work. It’s a management problem, not an employee problem.

Employees will act like adults when managers and business leaders start treating them like adults. Business leaders can start by embracing a more open communication culture.