Empower your work force
While keeping in touch with your customers will help you through a tough economy, you can’t lose contact with your employees. When you keep employees informed, you empower them to do a better job, which is crucial in tough times.
“Everybody loves to know what is going on in their company,” Buell says. “I believe people are intelligent, and I believe people are well informed and sensitive. Whether it’s good news or bad news, I think giving them a very complete picture of where the company stands in performance, how management is thinking about this difficult time, and how we’re going to prepare and continue to share that preparedness with all employees — I believe that is the way to bring the whole team along with us.”
Buell tries to communicate once a month to keep employees informed on how the company is prepared to handle the economy and to give insight on how management is thinking about the problem. Even if you think you are a strong communicator, you should step it up in downtimes.
In Catalina’s case, senior executives use e-mail and voice-mail communications more frequently, and the company has invested heavily in videoconferencing so Buell and his team can make the message available to all employees around the world in a personal way.
“What we are going to do there is people will get to see their executives more,” he says. “It will just be done in a more efficient way.”
It might not be face-to-face, but in stressful times, you need to be seen communicating the message in that more personal way.
“It’s people’s uncertainty and anxiety that exists when you don’t have information,” he says. “We always say bad information is better than no information because at least you know how to handle it and what to do about it. We don’t want any employee … to not have an understanding how the company is doing, how our industry is behaving and how all of that will impact not only our company but them.”
When you are communicating, you shouldn’t only focus on what the company is doing to fight through the economic times but you should talk about how the work the employees are doing is helping the company and its clients.
“I want every employee to understand that our business model is, right now, helping consumers in a very difficult economy,” he says. “So, I am trying to get our employees to appreciate their company and the product we provide to the marketplace. It is a value to manufacturers, it’s a value to retailers, and more importantly, it’s a value to consumers.
“I want every person to personalize that. Not just generally about the company, but I want them to be motivated and inspired about what they are doing right now in a difficult time.”
Overall, full disclosure of what is going on, making sure employees are proud of what the company is doing, and keeping them motivated and inspired by reminding them of the good job they’re doing will help you empower employees.
“Those three things to me can be translated in every manager’s style and vocabulary,” he says. “If you do those three things, you’re doing everything you can to empower the people.”
HOW TO REACH: Catalina Marketing Corp., (888) 322-3814 or www.catalinamarketing.com
