A Career of Engagement - Triboarding
There is surfboarding, skateboarding, wakeboarding and snowboarding, all highly engaging activities. But now there is Triboarding, activities designed to engage an entire employee population. Triboarding sets the foundation for a career of engagement.
There is surfboarding, skateboarding, wakeboarding and snowboarding, all highly engaging activities. But now there is Triboarding, activities designed to engage an entire employee population. Triboarding sets the foundation for a career of engagement by creating robust, day one onboarding experiences, coupled with cultivating a work environment that intentionally re-boards or re-recruits every employee, every day, reminding them why they joined the organization in the first place. And finally, transboarding employees as they transition from role to role, opportunity to opportunity, by proactively investing time and resources in preparing them for success as they embark on their next career milestone.
Triboarding provides the strategic framework for enhanced and sustained employee engagement throughout the employee lifecycle. Employee engagement is not a project created as a result of survey results. It is a competitive advantage to be strategically planned and cultivated. To help you gain that competitive advantage in your organization, our next four updates will highlight each element of this powerful, organization-wide engagement process.
To discover more about the lifecycle of employee engagement and what Cornerstone Learning can do for you, visit our Triboading page at www.cornerstonelearning.com/triboading.
For free engagement and performance resources head over to our Resource Vault!
The Unspoken Key to Engagement - Where Do We Go From Here?
The pace, means, format, content and frequency have all evolved and with that our employee communication strategies must evolve as well. So where do we start?
Here are four next-step opportunities to enhance your overall employee communications impact.
It is now clear from our last few posts that the expectations, needs, and requirements for employee communications going forward have changed and the current global environment has only accelerated an evolution in communications that has been underway for the last five to ten years anyway. The pace, means, format, content and frequency have all evolved and with that our employee communication strategies must evolve as well. So where do we start?
Here are four next-step opportunities to enhance your overall employee communications impact.
Opportunity 1: Assess the current employee communications strategy and its impact.
Is your strategy planned or ad hoc communication?
Is it primarily top-down communication or more enterprise-wise connections?
Is the primary (often only) employee communication tool email or does the organization leverage a variety of media?
Opportunity 2: Engage a cross-organizational team of employees (6-10) with a charter to assist in developing a vision for a go-forward employee communication strategy.
Opportunity 3: Based on the Communication Engagement Teams’ recommendations and vision, develop an initial six month employee communications strategy that can be used to inform, educate, motivate and gain ongoing feedback but, most importantly, better connect with every employee in the organization.
Opportunity 4: Once started don’t stop. Continually evolve the communication strategy and vision. Trust us, it will be missed if not continued.
To discover more about employee communication and what Cornerstone Learning can do for you, visit our communication page at www.cornerstonelearning.com/engagement-communication.
For free engagement and performance resources head over to our Resource Vault!
The Unspoken Key to Engagement - Corporate vs. Employee Communication
The speed and form in which we are accustomed, and now expect, to receive information and updates has completely altered how we communicate with our employees and how our employees should be communicating with either other. And that is what we are going to breakdown today. What is the difference between corporate communication and employee communication? Both of which are crucial for organizational success.
If you have been listening (or reading) along, depending on how you like to consume the information we discuss on a weekly basis, you will have likely caught on to the stark point that communication within our lives, and particularly within our organizations, has changed dramatically. And the speed and form in which we are accustomed, and now expect, to receive information and updates has completely altered how we communicate with our employees and how our employees should be communicating with each other. And that is what we are going to breakdown today. What is the difference between corporate communication and employee communication? Both of which are crucial for organizational success.
We'll start with corporate communication. This is the type of communication that, while employees can get company information from it, is primarily directed toward external stakeholders. It gerenates a positive image of the organization and is used to influence or control the external messaging and public perception. This, in return, attempts to build relationships with customers, albiet not authentic ones. And lastly, corporate communication disseminates all pertinent stakeholder information such as ongoing organizational direction and relevant financial information.
All of this is important for an organization to project, but it is only part of the communication that should be produced within an organization. Does any of what was described scream 'engaged employees'? Not really. And that's where employee communication comes in. As mentioned above and in our previous updates, employees have become accustomed to and expect more frequent communication from throughout an organization and in different formats than are typically used to communicate with employees.
Employee communication is created and directed specifically for internal employees. This type of communication connects employees to the organizational vision, values and mission and is meant to motivate and engage employees through that connection. Employee communciation is also used to disseminate organizational information to both educate and inform. Lastly, and this one might possibly seem foreign to many organizations, but employee communication is used to enable a culture of both top-down and bottom-up employee interactions.
Again, both of these organization communication types are important for various reasons, and should certainly be clear and aligned with each other and supported by each other, but only one of them truly generates employee engagement throughout an organization by directly connecting the employees to it.
To discover more about employee communication and what Cornerstone Learning can do for you, visit our communication page at www.cornerstonelearning.com/engagement-communication.
For free engagement and performance resources head over to our Resource Vault!
The Unspoken Key to Engagement - The Communication Landscape Has Changed
With the evolution of technology, 24/7 news cycles and the meteoric rise of social media platforms, the overall landscape of how and when each of us consume our information has changed. And with that, so have the expectations each of us has on our communication needs and desires, even within our organizations.
With the evolution of technology, 24/7 news cycles and the meteoric rise of social media platforms, the overall landscape of how and when each of us consume our information has changed. And with that, so have the expectations each of us has on our communication needs and desires, even within our organizations. Now we expect and get frustrated if we don’t have near real-time information at our fingertips.
Effective employee communications have always been lacking in most organizations, even prior to this evolution occurring. In all of the employee feedback surveys we have administered rarely do employees answer positively when surveyed on the timeliness and effectiveness of company information. The results always show a need and desire for more timely and effective communication and connection by and from employees.
But now, the expectations and requirements for better communications are even greater. With this global pandemic, organizations are having to communicate more frequently and in different ways than ever before. So, what was a slow evolution has quickly become a fast-moving revolution. The challenge will be as things settle to a new normal the desire for more communication now becomes an expectation. You can already hear the comments, “We used to get a lot of communication and information but that has all but disappeared”.
It will not be acceptable to go back to how we communicated with our employees before and a new approach and commitment to developing more effective communication strategy will be required. This landscaped has changed more rapidly than anyone could have anticipated, what is your plan to meet the ever-increasing employee communication expectations?
To discover more about employee communication and what Cornerstone Learning can do for you, visit our communication page at www.cornerstonelearning.com/engagement-communication.
For free engagement and performance resources head over to our Resource Vault!
The Unspoken Key to Engagement - Reimagining Employee Communications
Communication tools and how we communicate has been evolving, however our current environment has forced us to adapt rapidly in a way most of us were unaccustomed to and most likely never thought possible. So while our environment has gone 'all-in', it's time for us to go 'all-in' as well.
Zoom, Microsoft Teams, Slack, as well as many more virtual connection tools were readily available before a worldwide pandemic forced us to use them. While they were available, they were not a primary form of communicating. And today? Virtually (pun intended) every organization is using at least some form of these virtual workplace tools. It is obvious times have changed, and with that change, how we communicate has changed. And there's no going back. Nor should we.
Communication tools and how we communicate has been evolving, however our current environment has forced us to adapt rapidly in a way most of us were unaccustomed to and most likely never thought possible. So while our environment has gone 'all-in', it's time for us to go 'all-in' as well. In next week's episode we will dive into the 'why' and 'how' of this new communication landscape we must embrace, but today we want to focus on the 'what'.
What do our employees want from us, and now except from us? What does it look like today? And what will it look like moving forward?
In the past, quarterly or annual townhalls or all-employee meetings as well as the occassional employee email blasts were the primary internal corporate communication tools. However, in today’s organizations employees want and expect more from their organizations. Now people want near real-time information delivered in different ways and formats. You may have been able to hold this trend off a little while longer, but the pandemic effect has arrived and waiting will only lead to disengagement throughout an organization. And not only should senior leadership be updating the employee population about the company, but employees and teams, more than ever before, should be communicating with one another on an ongoing basis. Engaged employees are your best advocates for increasing employee engagement and letting them share their insights and stories is a great way to enable those engaged behaviors.
Constantly engaging your employees through audiocasts, blogs, videos, interactive explainers and short surveys, as well as enabling and encouraging (creating the right environment) for the employee population to communicate with each other in these same unique and engaging formats builds and sustains employee engagement throughout an organization and at levels only few organizations attain.
As we mentioned at the beginning, come back next week to learn the 'why' and 'how' to adapt to and attain this top-tier engagement through communication.
To discover more about employee communication and what Cornerstone Learning can do for you, visit our communication page at www.cornerstonelearning.com/engagement-communication.
For free engagement and performance resources head over to our Resource Vault!
Please Mute Your Phones!
Who would have ever thought the mute button would play such a predominate role in the world today?
Who would have ever thought the mute button would play such a predominate role in the world today? As much of the world remains closed to physical contact, communication, enabled by technology, keeps us connected and informed. Let’s remember when the physical world opens back up, and it eventually will, just how important communication and the art of connecting is with each other.
