SquareSpace, a website-development platform firm based in New York, prides itself on open communication between staff and executives. According to the firm's CEO, Anthony Casalena, “You have to do a lot of work to communicate what we're going for, what ‘good’ looks like, what ‘bad’ looks like, what the values look like.” The company is dedicated to ensuring all employees have a say and keeping the quality of their culture as it grows, which they feel they can do by keeping layers of management to a minimum. Says Casalena, “The challenge is to get all 500 employees on the same page in terms of thinking and believing. That's why the culture focuses so heavily on communication.”

Employees at Intel in Santa Clara, California, use a wiki that resides on the company's computer servers to collaborate together on projects and to keep notes from meetings. The wiki has been edited more than 100,000 times and has been viewed by employees more than 27 million times.

Joe Farrell, manager of McKesson's Carol Stream, Illinois, distribution center implemented Focus Meetings for members of the facility's warehouse, office, and management teams to meet biweekly. They discuss issues and improve communication up, down, and across the organization.

Herbert Construction Company in Metro Atlanta used to have weekly meetings that only foremen and crew leaders would attend. These people managed groups of three to seven laborers. Company president Doug Herbert says:

After we realized that company information and safety messages discussed in those meetings was not communicated to our laborers, we changed our approach. Now we have a short weekly meeting that includes every foreman and laborer in our company. Morale has improved, and laborers feel involved because they receive the information directly and can ask questions or make comments.

Johnson County Government seated in Olathe, Kansas, encourages their employees to share goals, priorities, and learning and development interests with each other. “This information, such as the Pillars of Performance One Sheet, is displayed throughout county buildings from common areas to conference rooms,” writes Teri Northcraft, human resources senior partner. The government shares results from their Citizen Survey—gauging resident satisfaction—with their employees as well as the general public. They also share budget and financial information on how tax dollars are spent, other survey results, and their annual report.

Every two weeks at Screwfix, a UK-based hardware company, employees can give feedback to managers on any topic or issue. The implementation of a new customer card was an outcome of one of these sessions.

Employees at Customlnk, an online retailer in Fairfax, Virginia, use an internal real-time messaging system called The Circuit to improve communication. They can send feedback for any issue that arises.

In the spirit of transparency and trust, Netflix encourages employees to interview at other companies and to talk to their managers about what they learned during the experience. Patty McCord, former chief talent officer has found this practice can help employees learn how much they're worth, clarify professional goals, expand their network, and can help employees find people to recruit to the company.

New York City–based Investopedia, an online source for financial information and education, has a monthly book club to spread best practices and build relationships across functions. They have been named Best Publisher to Work for by the Business Intelligence Group for two years in a row.

Every morning at incentive company Achievers, each of the company's employees attend a nine-minute meeting called To the Point. Employees discuss the progress their departments have made and make a personal commitment to their coworkers about what they will focus their energies on that day. Employees are energized and excited after attending the meetings, and the amount of email among employees has been reduced by half.

On their first day of work, employees at Piscines Ideales—a swimming pool designer, builder, and maintenance company based in Pefki, Greece—are given the mobile phone numbers of the company's CEO and managers.

To help maintain a small-company culture at Belgian shoe retailer Schoenen Torfs, each store is assigned a coach to facilitate communication between workers and managers. These coaches solicited employee opinions when the company was deciding whether or not to sell children's shoes.

PepsiCo, the beverage conglomerate based in Purchase, New York, knows the value of responding to survey data. Results from a global survey showed employee satisfaction scores were highest at locations where employees said that results were shared and followed up (78 percent). Satisfaction scores were lowest at locations where employees reported that results were not followed up (51 percent). For one division, there was a link between following up on survey results to bottom-line performance. Sites where the majority said there was follow up had lower turnover, fewer safety issues, and fewer lost days due to accidents.

According to Tony Sablo, senior vice president of HR at the National Geographic Society, the organization uses broad communications practices to improve its culture. The intranet, NG Connect, was completed overhauled to be more personal. To improve the site's user-friendliness, the director of internal communications collaborates with a staff-led advisory council. The site hosts videos recognizing employees' achievements, both internal and external to the Society. The CEO writes his own blog and facilitates informal weekly coffee meetings with up to thirty employees at a time.

Circle, a social enterprise delivering health care through a number of centers in the United Kingdom, established a communications working group to find more effective ways to communicate with the workforce during a change initiative. When it was found that many employees did not have computer access to read emails from managers, they set up bulletin boards throughout the facility. The system supports upward communication from employees, who are given wide latitude to lead change efforts. Employees report feeling valued and seeing that their contributions count.

After former CEO Dave Cote of Honeywell held an electronic town hall–style meeting each quarter to review the company's performance and goals, Honeywell surveyed employees to check their understanding and concerns for the company's future. Cote believed that “people are the ultimate differentiator.”

IBM held a three-day electronic brainstorming session to develop ideas that would move the company forward. Employees generated 37,000 comments, which are now being prioritized according to greatest market and social impact by employees at all levels. IBM has turned the concept into an ongoing program to collect ideas from all employees, the ThinkPlace program.

Every quarter, Taj Hotels in Mumbai, India, evaluates midlevel managers, not just by their bosses or peers, but also by their immediate subordinates. Employees receive feedback and counseling to overcome flaws and sharpen skills.

We schedule videoconference meetings longer than they need to be to recreate the informal discussion that you would have in the office. We're okay having our meetings run 30 to 40 percent longer to foster closer relationships.

Julie Heneghan, founder and CEO of human resources firm The Steely Group, has good ideas to enhance employee engagement: Assign new hires a work buddy and/or a mentor. Ask the buddy/mentor to check on the new hire often. Match the physical setup of the employee's home office to the company's work environment. This also includes company-logoed clothing and office items.

At 3M, senior vice president of human resources Angela Lalor reports:

Leaders share priorities and expose as many people as possible to the planning process by holding frequent employee meetings and through both systematic written communications, including personal emails from the CEO to the entire employee population, their internal website, leadership classes, and in employee orientation.

One highly successful use of new technological avenues for communication comes from Deloitte, which has moved away from company-produced videos toward user-generated content. With its own YouTube channel showing staff-produced two-minute videos, Deloitte has an opportunity to glimpse into how employees view their place of work and allow management to learn from the insights and experiences of those in the trenches.

At Wynn and Encore Resorts, 1,300 supervisors were retrained to learn how to evoke a story. According to Steve Wynn, short, daily meetings before their shift starts include asking supervisors:

Who can tell us about something that happened yesterday with a guest? The supervisor calls a storytelling hotline. We then put the story on the in-house internet and plaster it on the walls. We make the storyteller a hero and do this hundreds of times a week.

Serco, a UK-based service company, knows the strong correlation between customer satisfaction and employee engagement. When they reorganized internally, company executives clearly communicated the rationale for the change via an advertising campaign that included face-to-face communications, internal magazines, and posters. Employees were asked for their input during the face-to-face meetings. An employee engagement survey, which included items to identify areas to improve, was also administered. The results: greater role clarity and improved commitment to the vision and mission. Employee engagement increased along with a 12-percent increase in customer satisfaction. Substantial business growth occurred over the subsequent three years.

Pinnacle PSG, a manager of social housing complexes in Essex, United Kingdom, underwent a reorganization during which the company used regular team meetings and two-way exchanges between management and employees. They found that employees were much more prepared to move away from the old way of doing things to try new methods. Previously, employees had cleaned streets as part of one large team every month. The organization was restructured into smaller teams, each having a defined area to cover. The result: Cleaning frequency increased from once per month to every twelve days. The quality of the cleaning improved, as did overall employee engagement.

Kier Group, a leading construction, development, and services group in the United Kingdom, asked 1,200 newly transferred employees to develop icons that depicted different aspects of their ideal organizational culture. Icons represented, among others, “Can-Do Attitude,” “Inspiring Leadership,” “Us and Them,” and “Poor Communication.” Employees responded to quarterly surveys about business performance and the desired changes, and improvement groups were set up to follow up on employees' responses. The result: Employee engagement scores improved to almost 90 percent.

WSFS Bank in Delaware came out of the recession stronger than before. They attribute their success to making engagement part of their daily lives. Says Peggy Eddens, chief human capital officer, “Six or seven years ago, everybody in the bank started wearing a nametag. People are much more willing to engage you in a conversation if they know your name. Nametags are conversation starters, and when conversations happen problems get solved, differences get eliminated, opportunities get pursued.”

LiveOps provides virtual call centers to large corporations. To motivate call agents, the company uses gamification to help them collaborate and carry out business tasks. Agents receive points for completing training, share knowledge, coach, or network with others. Participating agents outperformed their peers by 23 percent in average call time and customer satisfaction.

REI has created a “company campfire” social network where employees and managers are free to gather, debate, and even argue on terms. Nearly half the company's 11,000 employees have used the tool to gain a voice in issues affecting the company and their jobs.

Daily tiered huddles occur on every level at Baylor Scott & White Health in Dallas, Texas. Through these interactions, which start with frontline teams and end at the executive level, critical information ascends within a few hours. Responses and other important information descends to midlevel management and the front line on the following day.

Another medical organization that incorporates huddles into daily work processes is Harvard Vanguard Medical Associates. For example, at their Kenmore Clinic in Boston, Massachusetts, the teams meet for ten minutes to address issues in their work environment. Then the issues, improvement ideas, and metrics are posted on bulletin boards and tracked.

The owners of Great Harvest Bread Company encourage franchise owners to learn from one another. Franchise owners and employees visit other franchises for new ideas and are reimbursed for half the cost of their travel. The amount is subtracted from franchise fees.