While other people are baking, shopping and wrapping, we at Davis & Company are spending the holiday season analyzing results from year-end employee communication surveys we’re completing for several clients.

I’m not complaining; we love this stuff because we get to ask employees what they think about the current program and their ideas for improvement.

If employees could ask Santa to fulfill their wishes, here are 12 improvements they’d like to see under the Christmas tree (as my gift to you, I’m linking to blogs that offer more specific advice about how to make communication better for the New Year):

1. Better email. It’s still the dominant channel for communicating with employees. So isn’t it time to make email leaner and more meaningful?
2. Less clutter. Too much creates overload. Time to streamline.
3. Less reading, more scanning. Especially on small screens, employees want to scan and scroll, not pore over long sentences in small type.
4. Fewer words, more visuals. We live in a visually mediated society where images matter most.  
5. Well-organized information that’s easy to find. 
6. Newsletters that don’t repeat old news, but offer new insights.
7. Extreme makeovers for organizational announcements. Employees do want to know who’s doing key jobs, but they don’t want to wade through corporate speak.
8. Information that helps employees take action. Two key words: How to. 
9. Fresh content. No reason to post press releases internally (so last week); employees seek unique, interesting information they can’t get anywhere else.
10. Useful social media that helps employees make connections and do their jobs more effectively.
11. Dynamic, participative town halls (that aren’t the same boring stuff every time).
12. Better big meetings. If you’re taking all the trouble to bring people together, make the experience worth the investment.