Feeling heard is an essential part of any successful relationship. It denotes that your thoughts and feelings matter, paving the way for a deep sense of trust. Therefore, allowing your staff to have an energetic voice in your organization is essential to keep everyone motivated and happy.
By taking a few simple steps, your organization can create a positive work environment in which everyone feels comfortable sharing their opinions and ideas. Here are a few strategies you can implement to make your employees feel heard:
To communicate openly, employees need to feel safe and comfortable. Creating a culture that encourages open communication is vital, but it can also be tricky. So we recommend initiating the process with deep introspection. What emotions are you projecting? And what are the emotions stifling in the workplace? In short, become more self-aware. The ability to accurately perceive your emotions influences how you respond to specific situations and the people around you.
Employees should always feel comfortable speaking to their fellow employees, regardless of their job title. One way to encourage this behavior is to set up an open-door policy in which you specify that everyone is welcome to come to you and share their thoughts. Such a strategy will encourage open communication as you show a willingness to take on employees' questions, complaints, suggestions, and challenges.
Rewarding your employees for offering feedback and suggestions is another excellent methodology to ensure that they really feel heard. You can, for example, award an employee or team with promotions, bonuses, or praise them in the presence of everybody for his or her work. Such gestures show that you are actively listening and taking your staff’s opinion into consideration.
Surveys can be an easy and effective way to listen to your employees, especially if there is still no culture of open communication in the organization. These surveys can be about any topic, from management to corporate events. The key is to identify the information you want to have, provide an anonymous way for employees to share their opinions honestly, record the feedback and communicate the outcomes.
But these actions don't mean much if there's no follow-up. So remember: after collecting their feedback and ideas, engage with your employees to ensure they are seeing the change they were hoping for. It's not only about what the employee can do for the company, but also what the company can do for the employee.
Giving employees a voice increases productivity and allows for positive change and growth. It is a goal that every company should have, and the strategies we mentioned can be very effective for achieving it.
And if aside from building a communication-friendly culture, you also want to acquire the best software tools to simplify your workflow, get in touch with us! We have the most comprehensive services and software for HR professionals, designed to help attract, hire and onboard top talent. Schedule a free demo and learn more about our customizable solutions!
