Build a foundation of communication. The foundation for good communication with employees needs to happen in the good times, too. You can take action when times are tough right now, kind of right the ship, but having a culture where you’re talking to employees regularly, sharing the direction of the organization and encouraging feedback, it’s going to help your business continually improve. That’s a habit that will carry over and help you during difficult times, as well.
Share as much as you can. That helps front-line people understand why decisions are being made. If they don’t understand why decisions are being made, sometimes the interpretation and implementation can be fuzzy. Employees understand what is going on with the economy and how it affects them, and it’s good to share with them what steps the company is taking to focus on the core competencies of the business, why it’s important, so they’ll be much more motivated to accomplish those goals.
How you communicate depends on the size of your company. It might be that they have a morning meeting before they head out for the day, they can gather all in one room. That’s great, because they can ask questions. That has to be part of the culture — can I walk up to someone and ask questions. That is as important as being able to ask questions in a meeting setting.
That is an aspect of the culture that you have to work hard at creating. There are several ways we do that here. Management is very approachable. We sit in cubes just like everyone else sits in cubes. We don’t have offices. We also interact with all of the employees regularly, including a suggestion box, regular meetings where they can ask questions.
You need a philosophy in which every employee has a right to ask a question and get a real answer. Then, when you get suggestions, you have to give feedback on that. It can’t just be a suggestion that goes unanswered. If you do that, it will hurt the culture because employees will think their efforts are futile. You need to offer feedback, even if it’s a suggestion you can’t really implement. You reinforce that through your actions. It’s how you demonstrate it, how you receive that feedback and what you do with it. If you don’t pay attention to it and you don’t act on it, it won’t work. You can talk about being a company that has an open-door policy, but if you’re not doing anything with it, it won’t sustain itself.
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