When employees are satisfied with their jobs, customers are more likely to have an amazing shopping experience. On the other hand if they are not, then the opposite happens!
Employee’s feelings towards their job, the company and colleagues directly influence the way they show up everyday. The biggest influencer of this are their leaders. We influence the way our employees feel about their jobs by the way we Communicate, Respond, Solve issue’s, Listen, Collaborate and much more.
Culture is an important part of any work environment. Everyone knows this however few discuss this in Monday meetings along with KPI’s.
So why is this? And how do we change the dialogue and bring it back to talk about employee satisfaction, when there are so many other competing factors that we need to manage and execute on a daily basis?
Make it a PRIORITY! There is no magic formula for company’s that do this well. They make it a topic on their agenda and actively seek out feedback from their teams. Empowering people means asking for their opinions and then listening even if the opinions are not solving the companies issues, the fact is when listen and act it matters. Slow down, ask questions and listen. This means allot more than rolling out a strategic plan without their input especially in the social age where conversations are happening constantly. Opinions are being shared either with your knowledge or without.
I just finished reading “The Social Leaders Handbook” and in this book the author shares that we are now living in a social age where most people walk around with multiple communities in their pocket on a piece of technology. We are engaged in these communities and it influences the way we think, buy and engage with different products, ideas and brands.
This is so powerful and directly links to this topic on engagement. If we all hold multiple communities that we engage with in our pockets then how do we ensure our store community is one of their favourites to engage and be part of? How do we ensure a sub community does not start on a “Whats App” without us knowing about it?
In the social age satisfaction and engagement conversations are happening everywhere all the time about work environments and the leader they work for. Now more than ever with technology connecting us when we are in work or out of work through social networks its something to really think about.
He goes on to say most of us text on our for phones, and use different language on our work phone than we do on our personal devices he says the words we chose the way we communicate and our language changes which is so true!
True engaged employees are inspired and empowered when they can truly be themselves and not have to act or portray something that they don’t believe in.
So how do we engage in todays fast, tech , social age? How do we navigate through the multiple communities in someone’s pocket to ensure that we are listening empowering and creating a place where the work community becomes one of those in their pockets they are proud of, they engage with and want to participate in?
Collaboration!!!
This is more critical than ever before, asking for your team to share ideas, and then act on them to show a true community of collaboration.
Open mindedness!!!
In a spirit of true trust, be open to diversity of thought, ideas, approaches and points of view. Don’t shut people down and give them feedback that the perception of what they are saying is not valued. This can kill creativity and shut down employees faster than you know it.
Balance!!!
Recognize that work and life need to be in balance, do not judge people that actually want this. Its hard to understand this for some of us but we would all like more of it right?
At the end of the day it’s important that everyone on your team feels valued for who they are, can contribute to the bigger picture and are empowered to collaborate in ways that build engagement up so that your customers feel it.
A question for you to ask yourself daily is:
What challenges are you facing in ensuring a positive employee experience? Then work on removing the hurdles that prevent your team from having one.
