Improving Communication in the Workplace: Trust Conversations, Not Surveys

Systematic Communication Transforms Employee Engagement

Have you ever found yourself marching to the orders of the employee engagement machinery? The survey, the strategies, the town halls, the newsletter and the departmental action plan. You’re too busy, though, to have the conversations that actually engage your employees.

Engagement concerns that are reported and talked about at survey time, but are left unaddressed throughout the remainder of the year, will fester. They simmer until they turn into crucial fears and difficult conversations. By the time these issues become episodic and calamity based, there’s so much residue associated with them that they consume multiples of time, energy, and mindspace from everyone in the organization.

Employee Engagement is Fueled By Energizing Workplace Communication

We’ve worked in the engagement space for 20 years now. Here’s our experience: engagement is seldom boosted by engagement strategies. Engagement is an inside job, the natural byproduct of energizing conversations with your employees.

When you meet an employee face to face and say, “You and I both want the same thing, for you to be able to be super productive throughout the day and for you to have energy left over at the end of the day for your partner, your pursuits, your kids, and your community. How can you and I partner to ensure that happens?”

Conversations like that release powerful juices. Neuromodulators inside the brain of your employees are “miracle grow molecules”. They foster that sense of connection, they boost a sense of calm, and they boost a sense of creativity, confidence, cause or purpose.

Regular Workplace Conversations Help Employees Feel Valued and Respected

Here’s a surprising little secret. Employees don’t care about your engagement scores. They care about their lived experience at work. Our Energy Check survey data reveals that the thing that matters most to people at work in our current context, is feeling valued and respected.

If your leaders want to shift engagement scores, have short, simple, systematic energy conversations one on one and with their teams. Allow people to feel valued and respected. You will detect the leading indicators of engagement and catch issues before they become calamity based and culture destroying.

Yes, do your engagement survey for sure. But trust conversations, not just your surveys.

The Engagement Paradox

This white paper offers a new path forward – one that blends the energy employees want with the customer experience and business results leaders need.