You’ve landed here because you know that leadership communications will influence the success of your business. In fact, the way you lead your frontline employees has a strong impact on employee engagement – and that’s no surprise. But, where do you start to create a positive impact and what strategies can you adopt that’ll contribute toward employee well-being? First, let’s take a step back and look at what leadership communication consists of, before diving into trends that you’ll need to consider for employee engagement.
What is leadership communication and why is it important for employee motivation?
It all boils down to communicating about company culture and core values. Frontline employees rely on these messages and they carry more significance than you may think. Communication that resonates from leaders to frontline employees has a direct impact on employee experience and can build lasting and loyal relationships with employees. And when frontline employees feel that their leaders communicate efficiently, they’re engaged. And that means that as their leader, you’ve built trust in the workplace.
Psst…if you’re still reading this section of the post and need some further convincing on leadership communication, research shows that leaders are responsible for (a whooping) 70% of employee motivation and experience. It’s just that important. That being said, let’s explore 5 trends that will up your leadership communication game and significantly increase employee engagement.
1. Launch an internal marketing strategy
Company leaders often don’t realize the impact they have on internal marketing for employee engagement. Don’t break a sweat, it’s a common gap that exists, but also an easy fix with the right tools. We’ve guided our customers before into building a strategy and supporting its execution – definitely worth the effort. Where to start? Form a long-term plan of action that’ll ensure your frontline employees hear from you with company news and updates. And don’t forget that frontline employees are often the most dispersed.
- Communicate often, especially about goals and plans
- Create a content strategy that is relevant and personalized to employees (filter, filter, filter)
- Consider the content format you’re using (videos can be way more interactive than email for example)
2. Make information easily accessible for your frontline employees
Here’s a situation you might have encountered (once, or maybe too many times): a frustrated frontline employee that’s unable to perform tasks properly because they don’t have the knowledge they need. It’s no secret that your employees are unproductive when they’re searching for answers. So, make it easy for them to go about their daily tasks by making information accessible, which saves an incredible amount of time and increases employee motivation. And when you do make the information accessible, include it in your internal marketing strategy so that you reach frontline employees with the right information at the right time.
3. Build stronger relationships to increase employee motivation
We’ve seen that leaders who move towards creating more meaningful and impactful connections with their frontline employees foster greater employee motivation. In fact, by doing so they’re building trust and encouraging a culture of transparency. This is far from easy to implement, but by making an effort with an internal marketing strategy for instance there can be a positive effect. And once you’ve built a stronger relationship with employees and gained their trust, you can make employees brand ambassadors. Your credibility as a company skyrockets when your very own employees are engaged and share their own content internally and externally. Employee-driven content makes a huge difference in the positioning of your company.
4. Encourage bottom-up engagement with frontline employees
Two-way communication is incredibly important for increasing employee motivation. When frontline employees feel they can speak up and have the right tools to do so, you’ll see happy employees. Speaking your mind around work-related matters as an employee is tough, especially when opinions are differing and job security is hanging in the balance. Many will avoid a possible clash, but that also means that positive ideas aren’t discussed which could be an obstacle to company growth. And once you have bottom-up conversations, you’re building a more collaborative workplace culture which is what every leader needs. When employees are able to communicate clearly and respectfully, you’ll be amazed at what can be achieved. And the better the collaboration, the more likely miscommunication will occur – saving you time and money.
5. Adopt the right communication tools for employee engagement
Now that you have an internal marketing strategy to increase frontline communication, you need the right channels and tools to distribute. Let’s face it, email is not the most effective tool in the shed; you want to reach employees faster, especially with time-sensitive news. Leaders should find alternative ways to reach their employees and consider new channels and technologies. We all know that frontline employees spend much of their time on mobile devices in the workplace. Leaders can use that to their advantage and implement mobile-first communication solutions that will increase reach and employee engagement levels. What’s more is that by using such tools, they have the opportunity to measure communication effectiveness by dipping into the data pool and understanding when to reach employees and with what type of content.
Where do you start?
You’ve reached the end of this article, and you’re excited to make a difference in leadership communications to improve employee engagement – but where do you start? It’s obvious by now that every good strategy needs a reliable platform on which to execute. 
The right internal marketing technology can eliminate some of the biggest challenges that leaders face when it comes to employee engagement. We tell you more about that on this short journey with a frontline employee.