Whether you’re in higher education, recreation, or a number of other industries, you want your employees to be as engaged as possible. Engaged employees do their jobs better and care more. How can you encourage this, though? It’s not as simple as a pizza party, but it’s not difficult either. Giving your employees a voice is a critical component of establishing a workforce that’s happy, productive, and of course – engaged.
What Does it Mean to Give Your Employees a Voice?
Employee voice refers to the amount of voluntary effort a person is willing to put into communicating suggestions, opinions, concerns, and ideas that can be used to make improvements around their workplace. An employee using their voice will take advantage of opportunities to provide input that will improve productivity and collaboration at your organization.
The bottom-line benefits of giving employees a greater share of voice can be significant. An engaged team is one that works collaboratively, solves problems together, and is happier and more productive. Because of that, they're more likely to remain at the organization longer. An engaged team is better for everyone – including management.
When employees have opportunities to feel empowered, they’re more likely to develop a deeper emotional bond with the company and their work, leading to higher engagement and better performance. Let’s say you manage a university’s cafeteria. One of your most recent hires, Natalie, used to work for the campus bookstore and wonders why her new schedule always takes so long to be posted live. At her past job, the schedule was ready for her on Sunday and if she needed to drop a shift, she could connect directly with her coworkers to have it picked up. With you, her schedule is constantly changing and she has no control over dropping or picking up shifts. She has a valuable suggestion for you, a scheduling software made even more efficient with Social Scheduling™, and if you give her a chance to share her voice – she will!
What Happens When Employees Don’t Have a Voice?
If employees are consistently not heard, they remain silent. If they won’t speak up, this can become a big problem. As manager, you need your employees to raise the red flag and let you know there is an issue that may otherwise be overlooked.
Let’s say Natalie doesn’t have the opportunity to share her voice with you. After a few months, she accepts that the schedule here is chaotic and she never knows when she is scheduled to work with enough notice to make plans and study. She slowly becomes disengaged and joins in on complaining with her new coworkers. She eventually quits. Not only did you lose a hard worker and a friendly face, but you don’t even know why.
If your team members aren’t given time to share their voice and feel unheard, they won’t be empowered to contribute to decision-making and offer valuable input. When a person is not heard, they simply do what they’re told without questioning or bothering to change things because they don’t think anything will result from speaking up.
If an organization continues to let new ideas fall by the wayside, employees will stop offering them. Engagement will drop and your team won’t work as hard or care as much.
Implement Employee Reviews to Give Your Team a Voice
It’s time to bridge the divide between management and the workforce. The most important thing to focus on right now is putting a system in place that ensures all employee opinions are heard, acknowledged, and addressed. An employee review is when a manager and a team member meet to discuss the employee's performance – but it’s also so much more than that. Employee reviews help you provide strategic vision, establish organization-wide goals, clarify team objectives, set up expectations, help your individual employees improve, and so much more.
While you may think they’re intimidating and that you’re doing your team a favor by forgoing these, nothing could be further from the truth. Your team wants actionable feedback, to learn more about the goals of the organization, and to tell you their thoughts and feelings about their everyday work life. Think of an employee review as a dialogue, not a lecture. An employee review is a time to allow people the opportunity to express ideas, concerns, and perspectives with their managers. The fact that employees have the ability to influence decisions at work through their feedback is huge for engagement.
After you’ve gone over a few KPIs regarding their performance, conclude the review by asking questions. This is a fantastic way to make the employee feel engaged, valued, empowered, and certain of your expectations. Ask them if they have questions or comments about their role, your role, or anything else that may be concerning them. Employee reviews create a safe and healthy space for discussion, allowing you to find out more about the needs and goals of the team members you supervise. Are they happy? If not, is there something you can do to help? These one-on-one conversations serve as a stopping point to make sure that tough, sometimes uncomfortable feedback is given the proper focus rather than ignored until it becomes a larger issue.
Implementing an open door policy isn’t enough. Do your employees have a specific time where they feel empowered to speak up and share their honest feedback with you? In order to effectively encourage employee voice across your workplace, you need to set aside time designed for employee reviews. The SubitUp platform makes this easy! Our new employee review tool aggregates everything a person does into one view for you to see. This “snapshot” makes it easier than ever to:
- Schedule the Review
- View Their Certifications
- Assign and Track Goals
- Understand Trend Lines
- Hear and Save Their Feedback to Future Use
SubitUp Makes Employee Reviews Easy and Effective
Close the communication gaps between employees and managers by regularly collecting employee feedback. Knowing how your employees are feeling about their jobs can create better schedules, reduce high turnover and improve overall results. Do your employees believe they have a voice in the workplace? If not, your first step is to reach out to SubitUp for a consultation. We’ll learn more about you and your organization’s needs, while you learn more about our employee management software.
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