Steve Ragiel is always looking for innovative ways to improve his business. But it’s
not just better recycling
processes that he seeks —
Ragiel, founder and CEO of
Greenstar North America, is
constantly in search of better
ways to communicate with his
employees.
“We actually sat down and
laid out a communication strategy for the internal part of the
company,” Ragiel says. “That’s
our channel, our pathway, for
building the culture and communicating with employees.”
Greenstar uses many of the
common methods of corporate
communication, such as e-mail
blasts, newsletters, town-hall
meetings and employee surveys, and Ragiel says the key to
using them effectively is to
develop a compelling message
and have a plan for how to disseminate information to your
people.
“You have to establish what
your major themes are, which
should be in tandem with what
your goals are for the business
for the year,” says Ragiel,
whose 600-employee recycling
services company posted fiscal
2008 revenue of $100 million.
Smart Business spoke with
Ragiel about how to create lines
of communication that keep
everyone engaged.
Talk about communicating. Make
it part of what you discuss in
terms of the overall business at
quarterly meetings or your
monthly business reviews.
Understand what the major
themes and goals are of the
organization and what information needs to be sent out to the
field. Make sure there are open
channels for information and
questions coming back.
We look at the whole communication inside of the company as an actual deliverable,
rather than something that just
happens. A lot of times, companies will say they are going
to have quarterly town-hall
meetings, and it ends up being
twice a year, and it ends up
being rushed.
We take care to spend time on
the agenda, and we make sure
to have a clear pathway for the
employees to feel comfortable
asking questions. Be a little bit
disciplined, and be scheduling
out three or four months in
advance when you’re going to
do things. Encourage participation. We have a schedule to
make sure we’re out meeting
with the folks face to face a couple times a year. As part of those
visits, you really need to make
sure you are asking questions
and asking people to speak up.
Walk the talk. The most important thing is that if we’re making
a decision to change what we
do in the business and business
processes, that we actually walk
the walk on that and get it done.
Employees feel like they are
being heard and they are being
responded to.
That’s something that evolves
over time. People just get more
comfortable with their ability to
ask questions. If they see the
company being responsive to
their questions, that helps.
We have a monthly e-mail
blast that talks about short-term
wins and issues in the company.
The key thing is identifying the
questions employees have
asked, whether they are in the
survey or town-hall meeting,
and then communicating back
to them. ‘Here’s a question that
came from an employee.’
If we can name the employee,
we do. If it’s more confidential
than that, we just say it’s a general question. We respond with
an answer.
A very simple concept, which
probably can’t be overemphasized, is to overcommunicate.
We’ll be speaking about the
same things in our town-hall
meeting and newsletter and on-site business. At the end of the
day, that is probably one of the
best ways to make sure the major themes and major goals
are being talked about.
Work at it. Force it to be a
high-profile business issue. One
day, it will bear fruit with your
employees’ morale.
