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Leaders, we talk a great deal about employee engagement but do you activate employee voices? To some leaders, employee engagement has become a new phrase for delegating. That doesn’t activate employee voices and it isn’t true engagement either. Here are several reasons why it’s beneficial to activate employee voices.

Leaders, Activate Employee Voices for These Reasons. Image by Marc Wathieu via Flickr Creative Commons License.

Image by Marc Wathieu via Flickr Creative Commons License.

Ten Reasons to Activate Employee Voices

Activate Employee Voices to …

1. Prevent risky surprises. It’s difficult enough for leaders to stay on top of ever-changing projects and challenges. Don’t make it even more difficult on yourselves. Activate employee voices!

2. See yourself as they see you. If they think they cannot tell you when your words and actions are creating problems, when and how will you ever know?

3. Prevent and eliminate workplace bullying. Do your employees believe that can tell you when someone is bullying them and the rest of the team? Passive aggressive bullying takes many forms and hurts performance. Activate employee voices to address bullying.

4. Lead and sustain morale. For employees, having and using their voices gives them a sense of true belonging. If you silence them and treat them as robots, morale suffers terribly.

5. Show you their talents and potential. The easiest way to learn about your employees is to listen to them!

6. Encourage talent and knowledge sharing. To have a culture of constant learning, employees must have a voice to ask and learn from others and to share what they know.

And leaders, of course to …

7. Manage stress and prevent burnout. When people hold their stress inside, it grows stronger and out-of-proportion. Being able to discuss challenges at work can keep difficulties in perspective.

8. Encourag3 collaboration during change. When you must lead change, engaging employees is critical to acceptance and implementation.

9. See and hear innovative ideas. Remember, innovation is not always a rollout of a major change. Tapping innovative ideas of your employees each day brings solutions you may have never considered.

10. Develop employee potential for future success. Repeated studies show that employees want training and development to stay vital and feel useful. Activating employee voices is critical to their development.

Overcome Your Fears of Activating Employee Voices

Fear of …

• Ending up in a gripe fest. You can set the tone of constructive discussion and prevent gripe fests from taking root.

• Looking like a weak leader. Listening and including employees in discussions does not make you look weak. It makes you look confident and progressive.

• Saying no. What if the employees come up with costly and unrealistic suggestions and ideas? Simply explain what obstacles those suggestions create. Also, set some of the parameters of any topic at the beginning so employees can create ideas within that scope.

• Being outshined. Employees can share some of your load without it threatening your job. Do a 5-10 minute check at the end of each day to reaffirm your strengths and accomplishments.

From my professional experience to your success,
Kate Nasser, The People Skills Coach™

Related Posts:
15 Ways You May be Silencing Employees
How Great Leaders Discover Employee Talents

©2024 Kate Nasser, CAS, Inc. Somerville, NJ. I appreciate your sharing the link to this post on your social streams. However, if you want to re-post or republish the content of this post, please email info@katenasser.com for permission and guidelines. Thank you for respecting intellectual capital.

Kate Nasser, The People Skills Coach™, delivers coaching, consulting, training, and keynotes on leading change, employee engagement, teamwork, and delivering the ultimate customer service. She turns interaction obstacles into interpersonal success. See this site for workshop outlines, keynote footage, and customer results.

Tags: activate, employee, employee engagement, employee experience, Growth, Leadership Development, leading morale, Mindset, people skills, success, voices