“Put on your listening ears!” That’s one of Judge Judith Sheindlin’s favorite lines to litigants who find themselves in her reality TV courtroom. Some organizations
deserve to stand before the no-nonsense Judge for failing to put on their listening ears. I think she can teach them a lesson or two on the value of listening to their employees.
deserve to stand before the no-nonsense Judge for failing to put on their listening ears. I think she can teach them a lesson or two on the value of listening to their employees.Employees as Ambassadors
In her blog, Deborah Zanke wrote about turning employees into ambassadors. Her post focused on improving internal communication as a way of turning employees into ambassadors. I agree with Zanke that organizations seem to be doing their best in encouraging feedback from investors, customers and other external publics but tend to ignore their internal publics. Too much energy is put into relationship-building with external publics, forgetting that there are internal publics without whom the company cannot succeed.
Allowing feedback in internal communications is important. After all, communication by definition is incomplete without feedback. Employees are a company’s most loyal public. Who else can better speak of your organization than those who work there? They need to believe in what you do and what you stand for to serve as good ambassadors of your company. If employees lose faith in a company, other external publics get affected by their negative attitudes. They need to be encouraged to speak and the necessary channels have to be provided.
Listening also involves acting on what you’ve heard. Some companies do a good job conducting employee surveys. Not too many of them do a good job implementing changes based on the results. When management takes time to address issues raised in surveys or through other channels, employees know they have been heard.
Bennett Simonton who has 34 years experience managing people, describes listening as the key to employee commitment. By listening, you get the best from your employees. This is what Simonton said:
The sad thing is that many bosses, high and low, are so busy giving direction and orders that they fail to listen, and subordinates decide to leave their brainpower at the door as they enter the workplace. People with suggestions are too often viewed as troublemakers or complainers.
In this mode, no one can participate, be involved or be committed. They can only be a number or a pawn, and they think that no one cares. In this state, the boss loses the employee’s brainpower, the source of their creativity, innovation, productivity, motivation and commitment.
Strategic internal communication should be the policy of every organization.
When organizations fail to listen to their employees, they set themselves up for failure. Successful companies ensure that there is two-way symmetrical communication between management and employees. They build mutually beneficial relationships with their employees as much as they do with other publics. Woo your employees like you do other external publics.
When organizations fail to listen to their employees, they set themselves up for failure. Successful companies ensure that there is two-way symmetrical communication between management and employees. They build mutually beneficial relationships with their employees as much as they do with other publics. Woo your employees like you do other external publics.
Open up the channels of communication. It pays to listen.
Thanks for mentioning my post Foluke. I completely agree with you regarding the importance of listening to employees. Often we think of communication as the information we pump out to our publics. The listening part is equally important both for engagement/morale and for feedback that can improve the organization.
Thanks for the blog devoted exclusively to internal communication. I’ll be adding it to my reader.
Thanks, Deborah. You did a great job writing on the need for organizations to examine their internal communication. Organizations can achieve a lot more with their employees if they take the time to do this.
Hi Foluke. Your example using Judge Judy is effective. She is a strong and powerful source to back your point. When I was younger, I use to go over to my grandfather’s house often after school and the first thing I would notice when I walked inside was that his television set was tuned into Judge Judy’s show. I would then accompany him in watching her intense court cases. In fact, she even intimidated me a little just by watching her. Even though I was not anyway involved, I kind of felt like I was. Anyways though, my point being is that I picked up very quickly on how she stressed the great importance of listening. Yes, communication may be the key to any relationship, but that key cannot be used unless one listens first. In the workplace, a manager must be able to listen to his/her employees first before he/she can begin to properly communicate with them. It’s kind of like making a call on the telephone. You can’t just pick up the phone and start talking without having someone on the other end who is willing to listen to you. The conversation would then be pointless if you were talking to yourself. The importance of internal communication should be stressed in all areas of the workforce, with willing individuals to not only continuously communicate with each other, but to also listen to each other equally as often.
Hello. I completely agree with your blog on internal communication in the workplace. At the job I work at internal communication isn’t implemented very well. We have issues on getting in contact with our boss. However there is an open-door-policy, it is difficult to meet if you are only working after normal business hours. We try e-mail, but we don’t receive any feedback for a couple weeks or even not at all. We have staff meetings every month and that is basically our only chance to discuss issues. It is difficult when you try to implement a certain policy to a patron, and find out that the person who worked a different day told that same person something different. If we had better internal communication, things would run a lot smoother and we would create consistency with our policies. We have not filled out survey’s on our experience in working, however we do have evaluations once or twice a year. That is mainly evaluating yourself and not your experience with working there. Well, I just thought I’d share with you a few effects that take place in a workplace that does not implement internal communication.
As an employee of two different businesses, I completely agree with your blog. It is important for the employees to be happy with a company in order for things to continue running smoothely. It is also important to take in the comments of employees and actually make changes. If a company doesn’t listen to its employees, how can customers and clients trust a company to listen to them. Listening is key to a business, internally and externally. Every idea or opinion matters and can help in some sort of way, no matter who the person is.