Employee Communication That Drives Retention and Trust

In industries where employees spend most of their time in the field, employee communication can make or break the employee experience. Unlike office settings where information flows freely through casual conversations and messaging systems like Slack, field-based teams rely on structured systems to stay aligned, engaged, and connected.

Effective team communication drives clarity, trust, and alignment. Weak communication creates confusion, disengagement, and turnover. To understand these dynamics better, we turned to our partners, who shared their firsthand experiences of how communication impacts field-based teams.

Provide Clarity to Keep Teams Aligned

It may sound obvious, but one of the strongest themes in our partners’ responses was that effective employee communication provides clarity. When employees know exactly what’s expected, they stay aligned and motivated.

Nov Omana of Collective HR Solutions described it this way: an informed workforce is one that moves “in the same direction,” anchored by company values. Phil Harwood of Snowfighters Institute added that culture itself is strengthened only when daily work is explicitly tied back to mission and values.

That alignment, however, doesn’t happen by accident. As Jerry Flug of HRA Consulting Group put it, clarity has to be deliberate: “It affects employees from top to bottom. Get a strategy and make it a repeatable process.” That’s where a consistent employee communication strategy comes into play. Clarity is less about one-off announcements and more about building a predictable rhythm where crews know what page they’re on and why it matters.

Be Transparent to Build Trust and Loyalty

Clarity may keep crews pointed in the right direction, but it’s trust that keeps them loyal to the organization. And trust, as our partners pointed out, is built (or broken) by communication.

Clifton Savage from Roofing Service University emphasized that supportive communication keeps people engaged and makes them want to stay. Employees who feel valued and part of a team are less likely to search for greener pastures.

Kacey Levin of Powerhouse Consulting Group noted that transparency—especially around decisions that affect employees—creates loyalty even when the message is tough. She cautioned that if workers “find out through hearsay,” culture unravels quickly. She also highlighted that when good employees trust leadership enough to share that they’re being recruited elsewhere, it gives the company a chance to keep them rather than lose them to the “next shiny object.”

For Katie Magoon (People Solutions Center), trust and communication reinforce each other in a virtuous cycle: the more you communicate, the more people trust you, and the more trust there is, the more openly people communicate.

Create Connection to Drive Engagement

Engagement often comes down to whether employees feel connected to the organization at all. For remote crews or field-based teams, this sense of connection has to be built intentionally. 

Ed Laflamme of The Harvest Group put it bluntly: “Internal communication is huge! You need to bring all your people in on what’s going on.” He pointed to one company that began holding short weekly productivity meetings to ask field workers about equipment needs, delays, or bottlenecks—and within a year, they saw productivity rise by 30%.

Ross Friedman of ServiceAdvantEdge explained that when employees feel comfortable raising issues, problems get handled immediately, service improves, and productivity rises. Claire Davies of Intrigue Media added that regular updates keep teams motivated and loyal, while silence breeds confusion and turnover.

Connection doesn’t always require grand gestures; it can be as simple as recognition. Jon Gohl of Aspire Software pointed out that celebrating milestones like birthdays or anniversaries shows employees they’re seen as more than just a number. 

Jon also noted that companies who intentionally communicate their values, set clear expectations, and recognize effort “create a culture where employees feel valued”—a practice especially important for field teams who rarely see leadership face-to-face.

Lead by Communicating Vision and Consistency

Another theme that emerged is the responsibility of leadership to establish both the vision and the communication habits that reinforce it.

Alison Hoffman of The Harvest Group was clear: “Leaders need to create a vision that is compelling and communicate it to everyone. This can’t be delegated.” That vision, paired with consistent reinforcement, creates what she calls a “pride of association” among employees.

Randy Goruk of Leaders Edge 360 echoed this by saying that “the key to success is consistency and transparency.” Employees look to leadership not just for direction but for signals about what kind of culture the company truly embodies.

Poor Communication in the Workplace: Pitfalls to Avoid

When communication breaks down, the effects are immediate and damaging. Instead of clarity and connection, employees feel frustrated, overlooked, and disconnected. Partners consistently warned that poor communication in the workplace drives disengagement, turnover, and cultural erosion:

• Engagement and productivity decline: “When internal communication breaks down, engagement and productivity drop fast, and turnover usually follows.” — Jillian Burns, Influential Encounters
• Frustration grows & retention suffers: Nataly Mualem of Mualem Firm warned that unclear communication leaves employees confused and disengaged, which eventually drives them to leave.
• Mixed messages create chaos: James Harper of PowerPlacing explained that when messages are inconsistent across platforms or departments, it causes “confusion, chaos, and breakdowns in execution.”
• Employees lose their sense of purpose: Dina Allen of Powerhouse Consulting Group noted that when communication is effective, people understand the “why” behind their work, where the company is headed, and how their role fits into the bigger picture. But when it’s poor, employees check out, feel undervalued, and over time that disconnect leads to burnout, turnover, and lost productivity.

When communication falters, confusion and frustration take root. Over time, that erosion of trust and clarity pulls culture apart.

Communication Is Culture

Taken together, the perspectives from our partners highlight a powerful truth: employee communication isn’t a side activity that supports culture. It is culture in practice.

As Nataly Mualem explained, “In my experience, internal communication is the backbone of employee engagement, retention, and productivity, especially in field-based industries where workers are often spread out and disconnected from the main office. When communication is clear, consistent, and respectful of how people actually work, employees feel informed, valued, and part of the bigger picture. That sense of inclusion directly impacts whether they stay, how they perform, and how much pride they take in their work.”

The ripple effects go beyond engagement and retention. As Judson Griggs of The Harvest Group reminded us, better communication translates to tangible results: higher profits through lower turnover and lower training costs.

For field-based industries, effective employee communication is the bridge between the office and the field, between leadership’s vision and employees’ daily work. It creates clarity, fosters trust, and strengthens engagement. When treated as a core part of operations—not an afterthought or a sidebar—communication becomes the backbone of a healthy culture and a high-performing workforce.