Studies show employee engagement scores are a bigger indicator of the success of your business than customer satisfaction scores. Likely because engaged employees bring in more than twice the revenue as disengaged employees. (Disengaged employees, on the contrary, may cost your business more than your realize.) Though often overlooked as a crucial employee engagement factor due to its classification as a classic ‘soft skill’ in management practices, one of the best ways to engage employees is to simply communicate with them effectively.
How can you use good communication to drive employee engagement scores up?
Communicate Often
Daily communication can lead to more engaged employees. Casually keeping up with workers’ day-to-day tasks, concerns and ideas, and showing an interest in them personally and professionally is important. Providing regular feedback is key, too. Officevibe found 43% of engaged employees receive feedback at least weekly.
Remember Communication goes Both Ways
Effective communication requires two parts: talking and listening. Hearing employees out may be as important as them hearing you when it comes to employee engagement. It’s also important that you give employees the opportunity to provide regular feedback about the company and those with whom they work. This allows you to address any issues before they become epidemic.
Follow Through
Always follow through. Always keep your word. Trust is a crucial part of the employee/employer relationship, and it requires that straightforward, honest interactions. Poor communication can lead to inadvertently broken promises and damaged trust between employees and management, or even the company as a whole.
Share Company Goals
You can’t get employees on board with your goals and aspirations if you don’t expressly tell them what those goals are and empower them to go achieve them. In addition to keeping employees informed of the company’s direction, the positivity needed to reach benchmarks should be emulated across all levels of management.
Train Managers to Communicate Effectively
With a new generation taking their places among the employed masses, employee expectations about communication have evolved over the past several years. It’s important to keep management up to date on these communication trends. Regular training can help managers communicate effectively, improving employee engagement.