How to Use this Guide
This guide can help address costly miscommunication, strengthen team collaborations, and prompt conversations around communication barriers and solutions.
❖ Who?
Managers can utilize this template to provide instructions in the employee's preferred communication mode to promote comprehension, retention, and follow-through.
This template is designed to clearly and concretely communicate a short sequence of novel tasks (sprints, projects, etc.).
❖ What?
For addressing costly miscommunication, strengthening team collaborations, and prompting conversations around communication barriers and solutions.
❖ Why?
Providing instructions in the employee's preferred form helps facilitate comprehension and follow-through. Managers can avoid costly miscommunication by acknowledging each team member's communication preferences and support needs.
How to Provide Written Instructions
- Write 2-3 sentences stating the task or project and additional context for why the project is valuable from the manager's perspective.
- Provide a brief explanation of each step, including the expectations/actions of the employee.
- Write concretely in matter-of-fact terms regarding the project, and use bold to highlight critical information.
Case Study
One of the most common requests for workstyle adjustments is to have written information as a supplement to verbal discussion. This can be used to capture a higher degree of detail and greater information retention than solely verbal delivery.
In one example, an employee was delivering reports with repeatedly inaccurate elements, not retaining the corrective feedback and improving with each report.
Adding written documentation of the report instructions and corrective feedback resulted in an immediate improvement in the quality of work as the employee was able to reference the documented information when needed and ensure that it was acted upon.
Insights
Related Training Resources
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We offer these tips and more in our e-learning course,
Neurodiversity At Work: From Bias to Belonging