How to Encourage Employees to Talk to You

For many employees, it can seem difficult to approach people in management positions with concerns. However, communication is vitally important in any workplace. If you want your company and yourself to truly thrive, you need to encourage employees to speak with you or someone else about their concerns or suggestions for the job. It’s also beneficial to create an openness in the office that makes it easier for employees to talk to you about more general topics, like how their job is going, their hobbies, or anything else. The better the communication within an office, the easier it is to prevent issues from occurring; you want to find any way possible to improve the business.

Have an open door policy

A great policy to keep in place is an open door policy. Having set office hours where employees can come talk to you and ask questions or talk about something at the company can help with office communication immensely. Many workers may feel that you’re inaccessible, so providing a time for them to simply get to know people in management encourages them to talk to you and other administration.

Share about yourself

The best way to encourage employees to talk to you is to share about yourself. Talk about your career and how you’ve gotten to where you are, challenges you’ve faced, and even a little personal information. The more you show yourself to be a regular person, the easier it’ll be for employees to speak with you.

Make sure criticism is constructive

If you’ve been trying your best efforts to encourage employees to talk to you, but feel like they are not, consider how you provide feedback and your own communication style. You may be giving criticism that isn’t constructive or delivering what you think is helpful advice in a way that alienates employees. Make sure you’re communicating in a positive and constructive way if you want your employees to do the same and talk to you.

Allow anonymous feedback

While your ultimate goal may be to have employees openly confide in you, a first step to take would be allowing anonymous feedback. Giving your employees a way to provide honest feedback is a great step to showing that you’re open to hearing their opinions and want to change the company for the better. As they begin to trust the process, they’ll be more willing to talk directly to you.

Be transparent

Finally, a major pitfall that many companies stumble into is not being transparent enough with their employees. Even when a business feels that they are giving employees enough information, too often employees do not feel the same way. Make sure to keep employees updated about changes and the reasons behind them. Also, allow for questions so there’s no confusion or miscommunication.

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5 Tips for Improving Affinity Groups

Affinity groups are a great tool, but many companies may not have the resources to actually support a group underrepresented within the company. Affinity groups can be highly beneficial to employees and lead to great employee satisfaction. Instead of shelving the idea and leaving it to die, here are some ideas on how on to develop affinity groups using a bit of innovation and outside-the-box thinking.

Redefine the group

Instead of focusing on a narrow subset of people where there may not be enough of that certain group working at the company to form a busy and functional group, it would be wise to create a less specific definition of the group in order to include more people. Now, instead of a small group without much activity there will be an effort to find topics that are more in common with a wide variety of groups and people. Instead of focusing on a narrow demographic and limiting the number of people that can participate, everyone has to work together to find a common denominator. This can apply to many different attributes.

Find a friend

Instead of looking inwards, how about looking outwards? By finding similar organizations, there is not only networking in play but a greater share of power now that more people are involved. Finding organizations within your city is a great way to help underrepresented groups of employees find others to connect with and possibly bring more employees to your company to create more diversity.

Focus on finding new leaders

Every cause needs an advocate, and focusing on looking for leaders who will advocate underrepresented groups in your business is an important part of any endeavor. By finding someone important that can speak up on behalf of others, people’s voices will be heard. Not only that, but there is now a direct leader that helps streamline any ideas the group has so the objectives are clearly defined and organized to try and achieve. There is someone available for feedback and for advice to help out all employees of the business.

Focus on the good things

Through these types of affinity groups, alternate solutions may be found to problems that have not yet been solved. It is important to work on finding these solutions so your employees see the value in creating and cultivating affinity groups. After all, not much matters if a certain endeavor does not show its value. A combination of these tactics can help bring people into the fold and create results that would benefit everyone, not just a certain group.

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How to Work on Solving Your Company’s Lack of Diversity

One of the most common problems that affect many companies is having a lack of diversity in the workplace. With a lack of diversity, it can lead to becoming limited on the different perspectives or ideas that are available within the company. Without diverse ideas and people, you’ll find it’s much easier for the company to stagnate. Diversity in the workplace has various benefits, such as providing a wider net of ideas for how to push the company forward and how to solve issues. When you want to solve your company’s lack of diversity, there are a few essential steps to take that will prove to be effective.

Welcome participation from outside networks

Obtaining the input and participation from outside networks is one of the top ways to become successful as a company. You’ll be able to expand your employees’ perspectives and obtain feedback from other people in the industry. You’ll get the chance to learn more and become more knowledgeable due to the diversity that is incorporated into your company, whether it’s from different opinions on topics or from people from varied backgrounds.

Educate your managers

Diversity can only be implemented if the managers are on board and are educated. Make it a point to update your managers and inform them of the differences between various types of people and cultures in the workplace. Providing valuable facts to the managers on how people differ in professional settings can help them understand the importance of workplace diversity and make it a point to incorporate it more into the company. Getting your managers on board will allow them to be more supportive when personnel policies are established and implemented in the office.

You can also educate yourself by learning about different cultural traditions, traveling to new countries, and staying updated on global news.

Allow everyone to have a voice

Welcoming different ideas from employees in the company allows everyone to have a voice and to hear perspectives you may not have considered. You can also get to know your colleagues on a personal level and build a greater understanding. You’ll be able to deepen your appreciation of differences and work to find common ground that enriches the culture of the company. You’ll want to promote an inclusive work environment that combines different background and cultures in one place.

Provide diversity training

Providing diversity training to ensure that everyone understands that the hiring process is based on finding the right individual rather than meeting quotas. Train your employees to remain culturally sensitive with a recruiting process that is transparent.

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