forward.
✔ Take questions in advance of a meeting or allow them to be written on index cards, anonymously.
✔ Record meetings and distribute the proceedings to those who are unable to attend.
✔ Set up a blog site for your CEO, especially if you have satellite offices and/or your employees travel regularly. Doing so enables even distant employees to receive immediate feedback around key issues and updates.
Communicating bad news and dealing with rumors
One of the most common errors many organizations and managers make is not sharing adequate information with employees. In some instances, top management doesn’t share information because they’re uncertain themselves about something. In other instances, managers feel that sharing information with employees may undermine their own power and job status. So management tries to “protect” employees from fears regarding the potential of job loss or frustration related to the ability of senior management to effectively handle a pending crisis.
Employees aren’t looking for a sugar-coated delivery of information. The best way to explain the state of an organization is in a clear, concise, and honest manner. If sales are declining at a rapid or steady pace, every member of the staff has to know. Sharing this information inspires in all employees the collective ownership of the organization’s performance. From frontline staff to mid- and upper-level management, everyone shares a portion of the responsibility for an organization’s revenue, performance, and future.
When you arm employees with more frequent and relevant information, they’re more likely to act on that information in ways that can best help the organization. Honest and open communication shows that you as a manager have both trust and respect for your employees. You can build on that foundation by explicitly requesting and encouraging your employees to get involved in helping the company. This alone can lead to profound results, from improved daily operations to a better bottom line.
According to a survey I conducted of employees in a variety of industries, 92 percent of employees want their managers to ask for their opinions and ideas at work, and more than 89 percent want their managers to involve them in decisions that are made at work. This section explores ways for you to become a more engaged manager with engaged employees who share their ideas and opinions and have some input in decision-making.
Guiding employee focus
Today’s managers are discovering that they have to create an environment that encourages employees to contribute their best ideas and work, to help seek out new opportunities, such as new sources of revenue, and to overcome obstacles facing the company, such as cutting costs, wherever possible. Workers are discovering that, if they expect to survive the constant waves of change sweeping across the global business marketplace as well as hold onto their current jobs, they have to join with other employees to contribute to their organizations in ways that they’ve never before been called upon to do.
Managers need to discuss the following topics with their employees:
✔ Employee impact: Are employees aware of how they impact the company’s bottom line, that is, how their jobs financially impact the organization?
Revenue-generating ideas: How can the company generate additional income? Whether it’s new fees, cross-selling, or up-selling, what new ideas could be tried?
✔ Cost-savings suggestions: How can costs be trimmed, delayed, or eliminated? Which expenses are critical and which are optional and could at least be cut temporarily?
✔ Process improvements: What steps in the organization’s processes can be streamlined, saving time, resources, and money along the way?
✔ Customer needs and requests: How can employees help others in the company who are focused on customer needs and requests? How can customers’ needs be further explored?
✔ New products or services: What ideas exist for new products or services? How could those ideas be better developed and implemented?
✔ Morale and teambuilding: Who is interested in helping to improve employee teamwork and morale? How can this be done at little cost?
✔ Virtual employees: How can virtual employees be better utilized by and integrated into the organization?
Asking employees for their input and ideas
I have yet to see an organization that doesn’t have an open door policy, in which employees are encouraged to speak to their managers about any concerns, ideas, or suggestions they have. In practice, however, this policy doesn’t always work very well if, at the point of interaction, one’s manager is not receptive to the input.
Soliciting ideas needs to be a constant, ongoing strategy. Conducting employee surveys and asking staff questions in a meeting is a start, but to maximize buy-in and motivation, you need to challenge your employees to identify ways to improve on an ongoing basis. Employee engagement should be both a philosophy and a practice. Employees need to understand that you need their efforts now more than ever before, and then you need to create new mechanisms that inspire their ongoing involvement to improve.
