Employee engagement is important to the success of many businesses. 

Having an employee listening strategy helps to inform and improve workplace culture, relationships and business continuity. 

Your employee listening strategy should take an integrated approach to discerning employee engagement, ideas and feedback. It allows you to understand the employee experience and align and create goals that respond to delivering your company’s objectives. 

As some businesses reopen, the key focus may be to ensure that the physical space is safe for staff and clients, planning budgets, and overseeing new campaigns. 

Another main area of focus is implementing initiatives to bring in or increase revenue. 

An important conversation that some businesses may overlook at this time is engaging with and listening to their employees. 

Employees have been and continue to be worried about job security, their well-being and how to engage in what is likely to be a “new normal” when they return to work. 

It may seem a little trivial but listening to your employees and engaging with them now is crucial to the success of your business continuity plan. 

What are the benefits of listening to your employees? 

Engaging employees includes benefits such as an increase in morale and the ability to address challenges early. It also helps with transparency and provides opportunities for improvement. 

Listening is essential because it can help you to understand what employees’ expectations are, which could result in changes that improve work culture, performance and company loyalty. 

This process also allows you to garner insight and ideas on how workers feel about products and services that are being offered and how those can be improved to benefit customers. 

While employee listening may be a function of HR, it involves each level of management and should include all departments. 

What techniques or approaches have you been using tolisten? 

Most companies prefer using surveys to ascertain employee feedback. While this is helpful, if the feedback from surveys does not prompt action or changes, employees will become wary of those surveys.  

Other techniques and approaches may include online platforms for group discussion, reviewing social media or doing quick polls. Team meetings and Q&A sessions conducted by managers are also helpful.  

What should you pay attention to now?  

Most teams have been working remotely for a few months, utilising technological platforms to stay connected with each other and clients.  

This can sometimes create a disconnect, since persons are not engaging with each other in person and miscommunication may happen at times. 

During this time, some employees have also experienced individual changes that resulted from the impact of the pandemic on their finances.  

Begin with an evaluation of the techniques and approaches that your company has been using to connect with employees. 

Ask the following questions: 

1. Has engagement on calls or in meetings increased or improved since persons are working remotely? 

2. What has employees’ responses been like to company changes, memos or emails with updates on what’s happening?  

3. What are some of the recurring concerns that employees share with managers or your human resource team? 

4. Are there noticeable changes in the dynamics of the relationships between managers and their teams, or employees and their colleagues? 

5. Has the company’s leadership been visible, vocal and empathetic towards workers? 

The answers to these questions will allow you to know what listening measures are working, need improving or changing completely. 

As many employees begin to return to the physical workspace, businesses should ensure that they feel safe, valued and empowered. 

What are some important points to keep in mind? 

This has been a traumatic time for many of us. Some persons may have contracted the virus or have relatives who have been affected.  

Working from home has also created unique challenges for some of your employees, who also have children at home during the workday. Your workers may also have seen increases in household expenses (utilities, groceries, etc.) that resulted from being at home full-time. 

Although business is slowly resuming, some of these concerns are still important to your employees as they mentally prepare to return to the physical workspace. 

Make time to have one-on-one meetings to find out what their concerns are for work, as well as personal challenges that they may be experiencing that could impact their performance. 

Your employees expect that you will act on the information that is shared, so offer to find solutions that help. 

Your employees are also brand ambassadors for your company. If they are made to think that their voices, concerns or contributions are not valued, they may become disenchanted and unenthusiastic. 

They will either be participating in or helping to execute a lot of your new business strategies. Their buy-in is crucial to business continuity since many of them interface with your clients regularly.  

If you haven’t done so yet, you may also need to review and update your business continuity plan or check out what five of Yello’s managers have been doing to keep their teams engaged. 

Sources: Korn Ferry, Harvard Business Review, Mercer, Great Place to Work and People Insight.