Measuring the Quality of the Communication Experience

 

I’ve recently started researching the connection between employee engagement and communication. Now, I know that many of you are thinking that there is an obvious connection between engagement and communication and probably a significant factor (if not the most significant factor) in engaging employees. I agree. 

Even so, I wanted to dig deeper and understand just exactly how communication connects to engagement. What is the role of communication? What types of communication work better than other types in fully engaging employees? Communication is a broad concept and the communication field has numerous theories. Just what is it about communication that compels engagement in employees?

In researching communication and engagement, I came upon the concept of “quality of communication experience” (QCE). Formulated by Leigh Anne Liu, Chei Hwee Chua, and Gunter Stahl (2010), QCE is a construct first used for understanding intercultural negotiations. QCE consists of three parts:

Clarity – “the degree of comprehension of the meaning being communicated.”
Responsiveness – “the norm of coordination.”
Comfort – “a condition of positive affect [sic] of ease and pleasantness when interacting with each other.”

After reading these definitions, I thought that these parts are also equally applicable to employee engagement. To test my assumption, I am currently analyzing government employee workplace surveys for the United States Federal government, the United Kingdom national government, and the UK National Health Service. After my initial analysis, I will do a factor analysis of the survey items to validate a QCE Index.

I also plan to create a QCE survey instrument to be used with project management teams. First, I want to measure the overall engagement of the project team. Then, I will administer the QCE survey to determine if there is a correlation and how strong the correlation is. The final step is to do a quantitative analysis to determine if a causal connection between engagement and communication does exist and the strength of that causal connection.

In upcoming posts, I will update you on my findings and research.

Reference: Liu, Leigh Anne and Chua, Chei Hwee and Stahl, Günter (2010) Quality of Communication Experience: Definition, Measurement, and Implications for Intercultural Negotiations. Journal of Applied Psychology, 95 (3). pp. 469-487. ISSN 0021-9010