"My goal is to make employees feel proud and committed"

"My goal is to make employees feel proud and committed": with this quote, Ann Dobbeni opened our workshop in Antwerp. And who could disagree with Ann? Proud employees are happier and perform better. But how can you stimulate commitment and employee engagement?  

‘Managers need to interact more with their team.’

Why do employees leave the company? Managers, their communication or the lack thereof play a major role. Managers expect their employees to be motivated, but they often forget that employees also expect something in return: interaction. And interaction is often lacking.

• Tip: use the Gallup Q12 questionnaire. With these twelve questions, you question the relationship between employee and employer and at the same time measure employee engagement. One of the questions is: "Have you received praise for your work in the past seven days?

‘Company values shouldn't just hang on the wall.’

Communication and information aren’t synonymous. And yet 90% of all communication goes to informing co-workers (announcing events, distributing newsletters and filling communication channels). Or just think about the company values that hang on the wall, while employees aren’t really experiencing them. Communication often is too operational and too focused on short-term goals.

• Tip: HR and internal communication should also think in the long term and strategically, rather than operationally. And they can only do this by changing (research, measure and steer), involving (coach colleagues in their communication and design interactive meetings) and connecting (use interactive platforms).   

‘Let me know what your concerns are.’

Euromaster asked Ann to supervise the implementation of a SAP system. During this change process Ann visited some tyre centres with an important starting question: "What are you looking forward to working with a different system in the future? Tell me your objections/concerns".

Ann received many tips and concerns and used this feedback to design an interactive training course that not only familiarised employees with the new system, but also facilitated dialogue and exchange about it. By organising the training well in advance of the launch, there was still an opportunity to pass on comments and wishes from the training room to the development team in order to fine-tune the application. Despite the major change, the employees felt that they had an impact because they were listened to and taken into account as much as possible.

• Tip: connectedness = solving problems together, working groups, co-creation. Consultation with your internal communication colleagues = we want more involvement, commitment. The more interactive your communication is, the more connected there is. Make the mission together, ask for a name for the cafeteria plan.