Happy, engaged, and motivated employees stay working for you. And after the past two crazy years, keeping employees working FOR you is just as important as finding the right employees to fill open positions.
Some studies show that engaged, happy employees are 20% more productive.
That statistic is really eye-opening – how much more could your business do, could your shop output, could your customer service service if your employees were very happy??
People are engaged, happy, and motivated when they feel like what they do matters and that it makes a difference. While some industries and businesses can see a direct correlation drawn between what they do and how it impacts the customer and their life, other times it’s not quite so clear to see. If you focus on ways to articulate your business and it’s impact to society, not only can you keep your current workforce happy and engaged but you can also focus on attracting new talent, like millennials. 84% of millennials say they want to really feel like they are making some kind of impact on society.
So what can you do to ensure that your employees feel valued and see that their work directly impacts the end user?
Tell them they are important. Communicate the importance of their job to them often.
Communication in the workplace is something that can’t be taken for granted – it has to be something that is worked on every day and will continue to be a focus for leaders in any size organization. Employees need to feel connected and like they can voice their opinions and concerns. It all ties back to employee happiness (and why happy employees are so important to any business!)
What are some of the perks of open and constant communication with your staff?
When you have clear and open communication, your employees will feel more connected to their job and to their business. That kind of connection will make them feel invested in their job and create loyalty to you. This loyalty and desire to do what’s best for the business and the customer can even cause your employees to become really creative in the way they solve problems.
Creativity in solving everyday problems could mean more effective and efficient procedures, interesting ways to save time, and more ways to stay safe in manufacturing plans. Creativity in the workplace can even mean more collaboration, teamwork, and team bonding.
Effective communication can also create a great environment that helps recruit and retain employees. Happy employees become recruiting tools for businesses because they are proud of where they work, and want others to join them. It’s a win-win really! Building great teams with employees who are motivated, engaged, and eager to collaborate creates a better environment for them and a better organization to work at.
How can you communicate more clearly, effectively, and efficiently with your employees?
Consider communication to your employees through group town hall meetings.
Town hall meetings invite larger groups of employees together to discuss any topic they want. This is a great format if you have general updates, some high-level discussions, or just want to discuss changes in company structure. These are a great way for your highest level executives, business owners, or other C-suite members of the leadership team to address your workforce in a way that makes them feel like they are getting some good time with executives.
The key to making this work effectively is to plan it out. Plan the time and topics to be addressed and provide to your employees before so that the meeting doesn’t get derailed. It’s also good practice to send out an update on what was discussed after the meeting is finished so that people have a recap for their own review.
One-on-one meetings are an effective way to communicate with employees about more sensitive topics.
These kinds of meetings should ideally be done once a year with every employee you have on your team. A meeting where the employee knows they get a managers undivided attention can show that (and all the other) employees you truly want to give them time to ask questions, provide feedback, and just listen to what they have to say. This is a great way to get feedback from those who may be a bit more reserved in bigger meetings.
Make sure to schedule these far enough in advance so your employees have time to prepare what they want to talk to you one-on-one about.
Invest in the right technology to aid in seamless communication.
Collaboration doesn’t always happen in meeting rooms and during scheduled times, it’s often times more organic. Having the right technology available to your employees can make real-time collaboration and communication easier and faster. While meetings, emails, and phone calls have their own place on the communication spectrum you want to consider ways you can equip your staff to communication when they need to.
Collaboration tools, like Slack or another chat app is a great way to allow your employees to talk to one another right when they need to. It also allows someone to have more of a “face-to-face” without being in the same room. It cuts down on distractions, meandering around the office, and starting various other tasks on the way to someone’s office to ask them a question and other similar scenarios.
An employee-only dashboard or portal type of intranet can also be very useful. You can store information, files, and other types of content for your staff to search and review, potentially cutting down their time seeking out answers to questions that were already answered!
Working on communication in the workforce will help your business grow because it keeps your employees engaged. There are so many advantages to engaged employees!
All of these are great for your business – so take the time to invest the time and resources required to make sure your communication channels are open.
GTR is here to help you find the right talent for your open jobs so you can continue to find those star employees that are a great fit for your organization. With 17 years of experience we know a thing or two about what it takes to recruit and hire top talent. Contact us today.
GTR is here to help you Build A Workforce That Works.
