Engaging Staff

It can be difficult to keep staff informed of the key drivers within your organisation and good communication is basis of making sure people understand their contribution to a shared goal. Here are some tips to help you improve the way you communicate with your people:
1. Communication needs to be a two way process so make sure you have a method that allows people to comment, ask questions and make suggestions on a regular basis
2. Measure how successful you are at communicating - you probably measure other aspects of your business and communication is vital to success so measuring how well you are doing is important so that you can improve
3. Use lots of different ways to communicate - verbal, team briefs, newletters, electronic messages, internal blogs, social networks (where appropriate) notice boards, posters and so on ...
4. Give leaders and managers a platform for communication - I've always found that a team briefing process works well, it shows a commitment to inform people, gives managers an opportunity to use a structured process to communicate and there is a regularity to team briefing that establishes an expectation among staff that they will be informed about the organisational goals
5. Encourage everyone to be part of the communication process - rotate the chair in meetings, get people involved by asking someone to keep time or take notes, try to sandwich good and bad news and always try to end on a positive, even if that is only to thank people for participating.
Good Luck!