Career

Monday, November 1, 2010

30 Employee Engagement Communication Tips

By Sarah Perry

Job Vacancy Indonesia, Employee, Vacancy   

High levels of employee engagement in an organization are linked to superior business performance, including increased profitability, productivity, employee retention, customer metrics and safety levels. Hence effective employee engagement communication is a key part of any internal communications strategy.
Tip # 1 - 60% of people communicate visually. Use interactive visual screensavers to portray company values and vision. A picture paints a thousand words. Use screensavers to show a positive view of the company. Broadcast it round your organization to capture people's imagination in an appealing, visual way.
Tip # 2 - Visual cues are important. So your CEO can't be at the meeting? No problem. Use Video to let staff see the commitment and intent in your CEO's eyes and hear the passion and empathy in his or her voice. Where possible, customize video for different groups of employees at different times and you can measure cut through.
Employee engagement communication tip # 3 - The power of small groups. Smaller face to face executive communication, such as brown bag lunches and skip level meetings, offer a more personalized and engaging format for leadership communication. Multiple time slots and venues can also help maximize the chances that employees can attend executive briefing sessions.
Tip # 4 - Customize engagement communications for different target audiences. Work with managers to make engagement communications as relevant as possible to different groups of staff.
Tip # 5 - Expand awarenesss. Make sure employees understand how the unit they work in contributes to the overall success of the organization. Expand their awareness beyond their own performance and extend it out into their team.
Tip # 6 - Highlight best practice. Include articles in your staff magazine that show how employees are modelling organizational values or supporting wider company initiatives.
Tip # 7- Reinforce understanding and develop local context. Use the pop-up Staff Quiz to ask scenario questions to reinforce understanding and local context. For example, "When I see a colleague working in an unsafe way, I would: A, B, C, or D or all of the above?" or "In XXX situation, how would you apply our company values?" Offer prizes to encourage staff to take part. Include humorous or trick questions and answers that make the quiz fun and build employee engagement.
Tip # 8 - Provide employee helpdesks. Set interactive online helpdesks to let staff ask questions about any aspect of the business and their role within it.
Tip # 9 - Get respected managers and staff to blog about various aspects of the business. These people can, answer questions and provide context to staff regarding any aspect of the business.
Tip # 10 - Encourage and help senior managers share ideas with their staff.
Tip # 11- Show that you're genuinely concerned about employees' opinions and use social media as a communications tool to build engagement.
Tip # 12 - Let staff tell their own stories to build engagement. Encourage them to tell their own stories in the staff magazine about what they are doing to support company strategies or embody organizational values.
Tip # 13 -Show how feedback is being used. Articles in staff magazines, updates on scrolling news feeds and even interactive corporate screensavers can be a great way to demonstrate to staff how their feedback is being used.
Tip # 14 - Involving employees builds engagement. Use Staff Quizzes to involve people. For example, by asking them to name new ways of working (e.g. new systems, projects) or suggest improvements. Offer prizes for the best ideas and recognize them using targeted corporate screensavers and articles in the staff magazine.
Tip # 15 - Promote employee development programs. Interactive corporate screensavers and articles in staff e-magazines can be effective ways to raise the profile and perceived value of employee development programs.
Tip # 16 - Promote employer brand. Internal brand messages can be lost if they are buried in email or on the intranet. Bring brand messages to life with interactive, visually engaging Communications channels such as messages on screensavers. Involve staff in creating brand values using staff surveys and discussion forums. Find out what staff know and think using fun staff quizzes.
Tip # 17 - Actively promote organizational effectiveness, reputation and ethics. Use all the internal communications channels at your disposal to raise employee awareness. Employees want to feel good about their leaders, where they work, the products they sell and the reputation of their company. Hence these types of engagement communications can valuable.
Tip # 18 - Communicate value. Screensaver images can be a very effective way to promote 'free goodies' available to staff. Anything from staff parties, discounted gym memberships to health checks, fun runs and fresh fruit can be promoted easily and effectively on corporate screensavers. Raising awareness of additional staff benefits can help employees feel more valued and engaged.
Employee engagement communication tip # 19 - Department highlights. Often people don't see where they fit into the bigger picture or why a specific department is working so hard on a particular initiative. Use screensaver messages and short articles in the staff newsletter to provide project updates and progress reports.
Tip # 20 Tell managers first. This gives them time to plan how they will react when their team hears important news and time for managers to prepare answers to the questions that may be unique to their team.
Tip # 21 Get managers to share ideas with one another. Social Media tools allow managers meet online to discuss strategies, share ideas and plan. This is especially useful when managers work in different locations.
Tip # 22- Measure how well managers are communicating. Help Managers see the importance of effective communication in order to increase engagement.
Tip # 23 - Not Communicating or Communicating late can damage employee engagement. Hearing about an important update from media, colleagues or family and friends can have a negative impact on employee engagement. Ensure employees hear these messages from the business as soon as possible. Desktop Alerts can achieve fast, effective message cut through. Reporting options let you check which recipients have opened the message. Message acknowledgement options allow you to ensure communications compliance.
Tip # 24 - Deliver localized content. Setting managers or their PAs up as internal communication assistants is a good way to make sure staff get information that is directly relevant to them as soon as it is available.
Tip # 25 - Measure understanding and impact on behaviors. Measure employee understanding and the impact of engagement communications on behaviors.
Tip # 26 - Celebrate both financial and non financial achievements.
Tip # 27 - Highlight success visibly. Interactive corporate screensavers are great engagement communication tools. Use visual communications to highlight and celebrate successes.
Tip # 28 - Document local success. Encourage employees to submit articles to the staff magazine that talk about what they have achieved (e.g. simpler ways of working, important milestones met).
Tip # 29 - Catch dissatisfaction early. Two way internal communications channels such as Staff Surveys and Social Media channels make it easy to regularly gather feedback from staff and to catch dissatisfaction early - to understand what's really going on.
Employee engagement communication tip # 30 - Promote opportunities for staff. Include a section in the employee newsletter promoting internal vacancies. Promote training opportunities and staff support schemes on interactive screensavers or as articles in the staff magazine.

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