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Empowering Your Workforce

Too often, organizations are so focused on delivering their messages to the local news, government officials, on social media, in newsletters, and even holding special events – but they step right over their employees in order to get to all of these other channels. Your employees notice this, and they’re likely bitter about it. That is setting yourself up for failure.
 

An informed workforce leads to a more successful organization, as well as improved control over your reputation. Whether it’s the overall reputation, or building a strong enough reputation to withstand any bumps along the road – having your employees feel connected to the organization will increase their likelihood of supporting you, and making sure they are the first to know what’s going on will help to ensure they’re spreading the RIGHT messages.

Your employees are ambassadors for your organization, even if unofficially. They represent your brand in everything they do – inside the organization, as well as out in the community. It is their actions and attitude that can become your most powerful tool.

So think, do you have a few key staff members who are already “brand ambassadors,” whom you could invite to join a new initiative? If so, this will help get the effort started with the best people, and make these employees feel special because they are being “invited” and recognized for their commitment. It’s as simple as keeping them up to date with some key messages, along with giving them ideas for when and how to share the messages in everyday situations.

If you’ve got a team of a dozen or even 30 employees, it’s probably not that hard to talk with them every day. But where most leaders see a challenge (and typically give up) is when you have hundreds or thousands of employees. It seems impossible, or at least impractical, to try to talk to them every day. But it’s not impossible – and you take greater risk by NOT doing it.

The best way to do it is, once again, to empower your workforce to help you deliver your messages. Have your director of communications develop a set of simple bullet points for each day of the week, including upcoming events and taking the opportunity to reinforce maybe some training and your company’s values. Consider adding a question every couple of days too, to help generate two-way discussion.

These messages should then be delivered in the natural groups within your organization – maybe by department or by shift. The delivery of these messages AND any following discussion should be no more than a total of 10 minutes.

 

Plan to develop these messages at least one week in advance, and then provide them to a set of “group leaders” – these can be department heads if that makes sense, or any level of staff who might be interested in an increased level of leadership. Now you’ve got even more people helping you to lift the weight of organization-wide communication, and they’ve all got the same messages.

In fact, establishing and maintaining this level of communication – and empowerment – could actually help to attract and retain some of the best talent for your organization. The benefits can impact every area of your business.

Crystal DeStefano is President and Director of Public Relations at Strategic Communications, LLC in Syracuse, N.Y. and host of The Strategic Minute podcast.