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Leading From Within the Organization Through Effective Communication

By Dr. Bridget Gilmore, a senior process engineer at Business Transformation Institute

One of the main reasons employees leave companies is the lack of effective communication between them, their leadership and within the organization. There are multiple ways ineffective communication is demonstrated. Employees say they do not feel seen or heard upon initial hiring; that leadership has not clearly articulated roles and responsibilities; there isn’t transparency in communicating the organizational purpose and their role in it; or that leadership doesn’t create an environment where employees feels there is open communication or connectedness to share their concerns or opinions. Fortunately, there are resolutions for all of this. This article presents some common issues employees have shared with the writer and solutions to create an environment for effective communication as well as reduce the risk of employees walking away from their organization.

A recent article from the Firstup blog specifically define employee communication as
“…the sharing of information, ideas, and feelings between employees and managers of a company. It can happen verbally, or electronically, on various mediums such as email, mobile applications, intranets, and collaboration tools. Employee communication is vital for the health and strength of a company. Without it, managers would not be able to properly lead the employees they manage. The more effectively a business can execute an employee communication strategy, the more successful it will be.”

Communicate You are Seen and Heard

So how does leadership integrate effective employee communication within the organization? As simple as this may sound, the first order of business when a new employee starts a new job is introductions; make them feel welcome. People come to work and expect to be heard and seen and want to be comfortable asking others for assistance. Do not bring them in, take them to their desk and not introduce them to their co-workers or the leaders in the office. Silence is uncomfortable and surely a red flag to the employee. One way to ensure introductions happens is by including this as a line item in a New Employee Orientation Guide or briefing and when that employee shows up for work Monday morning, make sure he/she is introduced to their team. To feel part of a team instead of feeling you are doing it alone is paramount.

Communicating Roles and Responsibilities

When employees accept jobs, they expect to be productive and to have meaningful work. This means the work the employee signed on to do is what the employee is actually doing for most of their time. An employee, hired as a System Administrator, meaning administering, building, and configuring workstations and servers, does not want to find out he/she is now doing a Technical Writing position instead. One part of this expectation is fulfilled when leadership takes the time to clearly explain the roles and responsibilities to the employee and the importance of the work to the mission. When this conversation doesn’t take place, employees are less motivated, unproductive, and unhappy sometimes leading them to quit their jobs. Most employees have no desire to frequently move around from job to job just as employers have no desire to continually deal with refilling positions. To proactively combat this issue, the organization should develop well written position descriptions which encompasses the role and responsibilities and be transparent. Have a one-on-one conversation with the employee and solicit feedback. This conversation will provide clarity and assurances that the job they will fill has value. This allows the employee, new hire to be clear about the work they will be doing and understand that parts of it may be mission driven versus what they’d like to do.

Communicating Through Transparency

Now that the employee has been introduced to everyone in the office and provided written and verbal explanation of his/her role on the team, employees want leadership to be transparent about: the purpose and goals of the organization, who the key stakeholders are, and if there are organizational dependencies share if there is buy-in from those other organizations. They next want to know how their roles tie into those goals. All this information provides a sense of shared purpose and the feeling of “being kept in the loop.” Even if leadership has no control over external influences but they can be transparent with that fact, they are effectively communicating.

Build Relationships Through Communication

Although employees aren’t expecting to meet and be BFF with their bosses at work, they do expect to form a rapport. Sure, you can state that you have an “open door policy,” but if you never come outside the doors this isn’t well received by employees. Relationship is about being connected to those you work with. As a leader, you want employees to help you achieve objectives. This happens when they are motivated to help you. But if they do not know you, why should they help you or feel you’ll help them when needed? There are a variety of ways to connect with employees: walk around the office and get to know them by speaking to them. Find out about their lives, find out what do you have in common with them. Carucci (2021) agrees and says leaders should be “…asking how their people are progressing with their professional or personal aspirations.” Leadership is creating an environment of comradery. Additionally, have monthly All-Hands meetings, do one-on-one meetings; and lastly, have team building activities perhaps quarterly. Don’t be that boss who finds out the employee’s name when they are ready to quit your organization.

Conclusion

Employees share complaints about their workplaces and leadership to each other. By the time those complaints make it to leadership, it is too late, and that employee is headed to a new job. This article was written to share those complaints and to provide some high level reasonable solutions so this doesn’t happen. Effective communication is the key to retention and better business processes. You have now been given the keys!

Sources:
  1. (2021, October 18). What is employee communication and why it’s more important than ever. [blog post]. Retrieved from https://firstup.io/blog/what-is-employee-communication-and-why-its-more-important-than-ever/.
  2. n.d. Introduce New Employees with “Meet the Team” Training. [blog post] Retrieved from https://blog.rise.com/introduce-new-employees-with-meet-the-team-training/.
  3. Carucci, R. (2021, October 18). To Retain Employees, Give Them a Sense of Purpose and Community. Retrieved from https://hbr.org/2021/10/to-retain-employees-give-them-a-sense-of-purpose-and-community.
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