Reinforce the message
Management, including the CEO and other senior leaders, has a lot of clout to encourage certain or desired behaviors from employees.
“They have to see senior management, that they are here and around and are working right alongside them to try to get the organization to be as successful as possible,” Hill says.
He says he and his chief operating officer take opportunities during the year to sit down with employees and allow them to ask any questions they want about the hospital.
“We sit there and talk to them without managers to see what’s on their mind,” Hill says.
The best way to get people to take advantage of this opportunity is to be open and honest and to keep your answers to the point.
“I’m very direct,” Hill says. “I like people that are direct. I don’t like to waste words, so my goal is to try to communicate as directly as possible no matter what form of communication so it’s direct, short and to the point.”
By sitting down in a setting away from the day-to-day grind, employees can talk about issues they may be facing on the job and get an idea of how to deal with it. They can learn about the challenges others are facing and find out how they can better meet the expectations of the company’s mission. The dialogue is also helpful in revealing solutions to problems that may be affecting the entire organization.
You have to not only get out and interact with employees, you also have to make sure your senior managers are clear on the mission of the organization.
“The hires that we have made have come from people in the organization that we saw living it every day,” Hill says. “The best training ground and the best recruits are the ones you grow in-house. They have the ability to communicate to the employees that they are training the issues we want them to understand. It all starts with that true belief in what they are teaching.
“I look for people that seem to have similar ideals and want to obtain the same thing that I want to obtain in my career.”
When you communicate your vision and values to your leaders, your message gets passed on to your employees from the people they are most comfortable talking to.
“I don’t come in contact with them on a daily basis,” Hill says. “The people that affect their lives more importantly than I do are their direct supervisors. ”
This type of ongoing dialogue between supervisors and subordinates will become vital when your organization experiences a difficult period.
“If you have built up the trust in the organization with the people that work for you, they’ll follow you through those tough times,” Hill says.
