There are a lot of changes taking place in the workplace, and even how we define theworkplace. The biggest shift has been remote working -something most companies assumed was a temporary measure to cope with the pandemic. However after two years of working from home, many people found they actually wanted to stay home. People also grew more comfortable meeting over platforms like Zoom or Teams, opening up opportunities for hiring people who were not only off-site but out of state or even in a different country.
The importance of keeping a high level of team engagement cannot be underestimated in an age of ‘quiet quitting’ or just plain old quitting. Even in markets where it’s easier to find new employees, integrating them into your organization and getting them up to speed has a cost -which more companies are hoping to avoid.
One of the challenges that leadership faces is how to create those traditional and all-important bonds amongst colleagues that used to be easier to establish when everybody was in the same physical place.
You can't simply talk to your team the way you talk to your customers ... There needs to be a very direct, personal and ongoing dialogue with the people behind the business.
“I think it’s easier than ever for a workplace to feel somewhat generic. That’s the big fear for many companies.
“We are seeing a few things that can really make a difference in fostering an ownable culture and making those meaningful connections. The first is onboarding. So many employees are being onboarded virtually and it’s critical to create a seamless, robust and inclusive employee experience. In fact, many companies are not just reevaluating, but reimagining their onboarding process,” said Martha Marchesi, CEO of JK Design, a consultancy that helps companies attract and retain the industry’s best talent, as well as create a positive and powerful culture that fuels innovation.
Welcome to Our World
The key in creating a winning onboarding experience rests on immersing the new hire into the company culture, not merely introducing them to their other team members.
“You can’t simply onboard new employees just to your team, you’ve got to give them a snapshot of the entire business. You need to take the time to have them meet senior leaders, and have them understand the business and give them an overview of how the company is positioned. You’ve really got to plug them in to the entire organization, not just the team that they’re working on. We have found that really makes a difference,” said Ms. Marchesi.
Fundamental to this is the importance of having a strong employer brand. More leaders are understanding that you have to engage with employees in a very different way than you do your customers.
“You’ve got to share your values, your culture And you’ve got to clearly communicate to employees the role they play and their role in the company’s success.
“You can’t talk to your employees the way you do your customers.
“Also, there’s no one-size-fits-all. As we know with fashion, garments sized that way don’t actually they don’t actually look good on everyone. So you need to communicate with new hires -and also existing team members.
“There needs to be a very direct, personal and ongoing dialogue with the people behind the business.”
Creating a Winning Internal Communication Strategy Companies can start by looking at how they communicate outwardly with their clients since that messaging must be communicated to all team members.
However, leadership also needs to make sure team members understand the company’s core values -as well as the product or brand story. “You’ve got to look inwardly and examine your values, and you’ve got to make sure that those values are really clear, so that they can be telegraphed to employees.
Take a hard look at your culture and make sure that you’re conveying the powerful points ofyour culture. “Too often, companies are looking outward, but they’re not looking inward enough. They’re not creating enough of a story around who they are and what they stand for. If I’m an employee, you’ve got to give me something to connect to. Those stories have to be very different from the ones you’re telling customers,” said Ms. Marchesi.
A Layered Approach to Engagement
Sometimes it’s a combination of initiatives that leads to the greatest success. This approach offers the flexibility that helps make interaction with team members more personal.
“We see that creating a layered approach to making connections can also have a big impact. For example, at JK we are a hybrid work environment, and so we create engagement in a number of ways. At the macro level, we have agency wide events and are scheduled throughout the year. These are mandatory and they bring the whole agency together. The goal is to harness that collective power of all being together. “However, laid over that we have monthly social events. Some of these are virtual, some of these are in person, and employees can choose to be a part of these.
Then at the micro level, we give our leaders budgets so that they can create shared experiences with their individual teams. It can be events, workshops, outings, whatever it is that they think is important and that they think will be most important to their team members. So this layered approach lets us make macro, middle and micro connections. And we’re seeing that that’s highly effective,” said Ms. Marchesi.
Seen and Heard
Another area where disengagement occurs is when team members feel excluded from decision making processes.
“Employees, especially key stakeholders, need to understand the company’s vision and where they’re headed. They have to be privy to what I call the ‘why behind the work’.
Senior leaders also need to have a voice when it comes to decision making. I can’t stress how important this is. They need to know that their input and their perspectives are valued, key stakeholders must have at least some role in the decision making process.
“Companies need to trust their senior leaders to be effective leaders, and empowered to move the business forward. Even if you don’t always agree with their decisions, they’ve got to feel that you trust them and that they can perform the roles that they’re in and do them well. Trust is so critical right now. It’s a make or break for a lot of senior talent,” said Ms. Marchesi.
Building A Trusted Workplace
Even employees who are not in leadershiproles need to feel that they have a voice. Simply feeling that you are heard can be game changing in how a person perceives themselves to be valued by the company.
“A regular feedback mechanism is incredibly important to give all employees the opportunity to weigh in and to share their opinions. It also gives leadership the opportunity to continually take the pulse of the company, and then listen to that feedback. “Then you’ve got to take the right action. You can’t give everyone a voice and then not act on what you’re hearing. If you don’t respond to the feedback it erodes the very trust that you’re trying to instill. So you’ve really got to listen. And then you’ve got to take meaningful action so that employees and key leaders feel that their voices are heard.”
More comprehensive onboarding, creating a strong employer brand, making sure team members are heard and giving senior leaders more autonomy can all help with making those critical connections that companies are really looking to make in today’s very different workplace environment.
