Communicate
The whole idea of keeping employees focused and plugged into the larger organization is something that you need to incorporate into a larger communication strategy.
Communication is always a critical element of your job — possibly the most important element of your job — which means you need to decide from the top how you want your communication strategy to play out.
Even if you want to get in front of your employees and managers and engage them in person on a regular basis, you’ll still need to develop other forms of communication. It’s something that increases in importance as your business grows.
“It’s always going to start at the top of the organization,” Norcross says. “It starts with the senior executives and middle management, the people who need to understand what the vision, plan and agenda might be and how to communicate it accordingly. It’s a constant challenge to have everyone on the same page on a regular basis.”
It’s a mouthful to communicate an overarching philosophy and plan for how you want employees to conduct themselves and how the business should operate. That’s why the first seed you need to plant is a vision. You need a vision for the future and you need to clearly state it in a form that allows for easy comprehension and no ambiguity as it is communicated throughout your company’s various levels and geographies.
Once you have communicated it, you need to keep communicating it and stay connected with your managers, who also need to cascade the message.
In this process, patience really is a virtue.
“Successful communication has to start with a clear communication of a vision,” Norcross says. “You need to be able to communicate a vision that members of your staff can embrace and something that they recognize as credible. That really can only happen over a period of years. If you’re articulating a vision of a business plan that includes not only the success of the organization but also the rewards that come to employees as part of that, you mus
t implement those plans and rewards in a way that employees find credible and inspiring.”
But that doesn’t mean that you should sugarcoat the truth. It’s great to give your employees inspiration to perform at a high level. It’s great to emphasize the successes and high points that your company is experiencing. But when difficult times call for difficult communication, you need the same level of disclosure.
Once again, it’s part of a larger philosophy on communicating and relating to employees. You build a trust factor with your people by keeping them in the loop with regard to company matters. If you don’t withhold information from employees when times are good, you will reap the benefits in the form of an increased trust factor when times are more challenging.
“When you encounter difficult conditions like what we’ve been experiencing around the country in the past couple of years, you need to be honest and forthright with people,” Norcross says. “If the management of your company has built a reputation of truthfulness and honesty and enjoys a high level of credibility with the staff, you tend to be able to reap the rewards of the success you’ve had. You maintain that trust level during trying times.”
Frank, honest communication also eliminates the “what-if” factor that might be rolling around inside the minds of your employees. Even if you have bad news to communicate, whether it be budgetary cutbacks or head count reductions, the damage you will do to morale by bluntly communicating the bad news won’t be worse than the damage you’ll do by leaving your people in the dark, wondering when or if the hatchet is going to fall.
“The first thing is to eliminate the anxiety which naturally exists in people’s minds,” Norcross says. “That’s why the ability to be straightforward, frank and honest is far more important than anything else. People want straight talk. They want honesty, they want to know exactly what the circumstances are.”
Going hand-in-hand with the straightforward delivery of negative news is the need for open feedback channels.
As much as any other initiative that Norcross and the leadership at Cooper have undertaken to build for the future, feedback channels have helped to increase employee involvement and, in turn, their engagement in the health system’s future.
“In today’s environment, getting out and communicating in a way that encourages feedback is critical to employee involvement,” Norcross says. “You have to solicit and allow those opportunities for people to communicate with you, either verbally or in writing. If staff members feel that they are encouraged to contribute their thoughts or ideas to senior management, you’re going to see that kind of activity take place on an increased basis.
“You just want to continue to instill upon them that this is a team enterprise, that success is based on the contributions of many, and that everybody’s ideas and interests are important. Each employee’s contribution to the success of the enterprise builds a culture of inclusion, and that’s what really leads to a successful organization.”
How to reach: Cooper University Hospital, (856) 342-2000 or www.cooperhealth.org
