As every person who attended school will tell you, there are always engaging and exciting classes while others would make you fall asleep! What is it that made our favorite classes impact us where others did not? It was because we were enjoyably engaged in that experience, causing us to listen and learn while having a great time doing it! This positive feeling can also be translated into employees as well to create highly successful and happy teams for your business.
Reducing Employee Fears by Promoting a Culture of Open Communication
Have you ever had a boss who caused you to feel that your complaints or fear of your words will be misunderstood? Alternatively, maybe you had a leader in the company that used fear to motivate his employees? Perhaps you've been afraid to ask your leaders a question for fear of them not listening or "shutting you down"?
These issues can be apparent within leadership which causes uncertainty within the employees and can lead to turnover and can lower morale. The key to getting high-level employees and a positive culture within your business is to listen to your employee's fears and promote understanding without unnecessary judgments while helping to solve the initial issue.
Fear is a detriment to success and creating an open communication management structure is key to changing your culture to one of openness and understanding. To create this structure, you must make sure employee issues are being heard and worked through by their leaders. Consistent one on one’s and an open feedback loop to increase the communication between teams and their leaders can lead employees to be more engaged in their jobs. Make sure to take feedback from your groups as well and enroll your people into your vision by discussing the change in a way that invited your people to add to your plan rather than tells them directives.
Be sure to find the "currency" that your employees find valuable, which means that you can see what your people care about within the job and helping to use that to enhance the quality of their employee experience. Knowing what people are working for will help you to establish what dreams, goals, and ambitions your employees have which allows them to feel heard and genuinely cared for. The loop of feedback between employees and company leaders will cause your people to feel more comfortable in coming to you about any negative or uncomfortable issues that are affecting them along with showing them that you care for them as people & not just as employees.
