Employee communication plans make good retention tools.
In the struggle to retain and recruit talented employees in all business and service sectors -- small business, multinationals, private, public as well as social service providers such as the community living sector -- employers across the country are being forced to find creative strategies to keep their current employees happy while presenting themselves as employers of choice to potential new hires.
Increasingly, those strategies include establishing non-monetary benefits such as flexible schedules, charismatic culture and other internal rewards that help employees fulfill three of Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs: a sense of belonging, esteem and self-actualization.
One way to meet those three needs is to implement an employee communications plan. While it may take a small investment of time and a few brainstorming sessions before you can implement such a plan, it's one of the most effective, and affordable, ways to increase employee engagement and loyalty.
While many community living organizations have a communications plan in place to a certain degree, much of the focus of those meetings, naturally, is on delivery of service and making sure the needs of the community are being met. By encouraging team leaders to create an environment of bottom-up idea generation, board members and executive directors will often benefit from a whole new pool of ideas on how to maintain and improve that delivery of service while making the employees feel like their contributions have merit and their commitment to their jobs is valued at the highest level.
Here are some ways you can help your employees feel like they're part of the bigger picture.
Team Meetings Getting together once a week, or as often as possible, helps to promote team building and is an opportunity to solicit creative ideas on service delivery, cost reduction and human resource management. By going straight to the source -- your partners in service delivery -- you can gain a better understanding of individual goals and ambitions while making sure those ideas align with your stated mission and vision statements.
Some people will view the meetings with a healthy dose of skepticism. That's okay. You can work to win the naysayers over by listening to their concerns and acting on their suggestions, when possible, promptly and with enthusiasm. If there are obstacles or challenges that exist for suggestions, acknowledge the suggestion, explain the barriers and let the employees know you are open to other ideas or suggestions on how to break the barriers.
Once you've committed to a meeting schedule, it's important to stick to it. Employees, supervisors and team leaders will come to rely on the regular opportunity to gain access to information and share their ideas and concerns with their co-workers and management teams.
Newsletters or "newsers" Create a schedule for regular distribution of an employee newsletter. It doesn't have to be comprehensive. It can be a one- or two-page dissemination of information such as birthdays (make sure people want their birthdays, not birthdates available for public consumption). Use this communication vehicle to acknowledge people who have gone above and beyond in their delivery of service. You can also use this opportunity to congratulate your staff on a personal or professional accomplishment such as finishing a course, moving in to a new house and having a child or relative who is graduating from high school or a post-secondary institution.
Other items of interest to include in the newsletter are personal bios of new employees (a getting-to-know-you piece) and profiles of long-serving staff members.
The temptation will be strong to include news that references the people your employees work with. When this happens, try to make news specifically about your employees the priority. It makes them feel valued and is a good team-building initiative.
Finally, once you commit to a schedule, be it weekly, monthly or quarterly, make sure you stick to it. Missing deadlines creates skepticism among your employees and sends the message that you aren't committed to initiative.
Employee Forum If your organization has a website, create a secure page within your website where your staff can post items of concern or interest, ask questions that don't require an immediate response or propose ideas for feedback, discussion and deliberation. Make sure you include a policy that gives clear purpose to the forum to avoid creating an environment that can lead to hurt feelings, misunderstandings or abuse of the system. If an electronic forum is not possible, face to face group meetings can help achieve the same goals.
Suggestion Boxes Have your house managers create suggestion boxes and make them available at each residence or in the reception area of the main office. Encourage employees to submit, anonymously, any ideas or thoughts they may have about delivery of service or team building events. Check the boxes once a week to ensure anonymity and pass the suggestions along to supervisors and directors for discussion at the next meeting. For those who don't mind associating their names with their suggestions, the tech-savvy group may want to submit their suggestions via text-messaging.
Creating a communications plan for your employees shows them you care about their livelihoods and value their contributions. When people feel like they're informed and knowledgeable about their organizations, their level of service increases and they become more invested in their jobs. And making employee communications a priority helps with both your retention efforts as well as positioning yourself as an employer of choice.
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