What is Employee Connection?
Employee connection is a sense of belonging that triggers the fervent sentiments of the employees towards the workplace. Successful businesses usually have employees connected to each other as well as to the management as a whole.
It is a strong connection between the employees and the workplace due to multiple reasons which may include:
- A positive work environment
- Supportive management
- Career growth
- Stress-free work
- Ethical work atmosphere
- Connection with peers, lower and upper management
- Recognition in work
- Rewards for achievements
- Well-deserved promotions
- Passion for work, and more…
Employee connection in the workplace is highly beneficial for both the company and its staff as it enhances the productivity of the organization as well as boosts the morale of employees to learn, grow and achieve more.
How do you Connect with your Employees?
There are diverse ways to connect with your employees and make them feel valued, such as:
- Convey company values and ethics
- Encourage employees in their ups
- Motivate them when they are down
- Improve social engagement and involvement
- Initiate corporate philanthropy
- Encourage employees to attend seminars, conferences, workshops, etc.
- Use collaborative technical tools for automation
- Reward them for their efforts
- Set up internal training sessions in case of updation or clarification of any task
- Communicate and take their feedback for improvements
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Tips to Build Employee Connection
Are you wondering how to connect with your employees? Don’t worry, we have got your back with some of the best tips to build strong employee connections in your organization which are listed below:
1. Communication Channels
The first and foremost thing to implement for strengthening employee connection in the workplace is channelizing the communication networking inside the organization to provide an easier, quicker, and more transparent platform to your employees.
Having such communication channels would enhance connectivity thereby providing quick access to employees to put in their queries, complaints, and issues directly without any hierarchical hindrance and receive solutions in a shorter span of time.
Communication channels can greatly help in enhancing a sense of belongingness by giving employees an impression of being heard. It encourages them to put things forward and get connected with the company.
2. SMART Goals
SMART denotes Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-bound goals that are framed to be achieved over a specific period of time.
The SMART approach in building employee connections is one of the best possible ways to connect with your employees as it has logical metrics associated with them.
The goals should be specified to the employees in order to channel their skills towards the achievement of the company’s target. It will enhance the productivity of your organization.
Further, the performances of managers and employees should be measurable to provide assistance in case of requirements and reward the best performers, as it helps recognize their efforts and make them feel valued.
3. Cross-department Connections
Cross-department connections are the best way to improve the connection of the people inside an organization, as it includes peers, mid-level managers, and senior-level management.
Cross-department connections are extremely important for an organization to maintain peace and harmony internally as well as to have a healthy work environment full of positivity, and enthusiasm.
It would also help you in constructing a strong and vibrant team with diverse talents, skills, and specifications. With their best knowledge working together, productivity surges to the maximum, and the connection among the employees enhances profoundly.
4. Enhanced Improvement
Extensive support and assistance always build up a positive employee connection in the workplace because the faults are given opportunities for improvement along with assistance from experienced mentors and seniors.
Such improvement encourages your team to perform with their best approaches and implement the finest skills to take your business to new heights.
In addition, the employee connection with the organization also increases with the support they receive, strengthening their morale to enthusiastically achieve the targets with continued motivation and encouragement.
5. Collaborative Tools
Collaborative tools such as:
- Instant Messaging
- Cloud Storage
- Online Whiteboards
- Voice and Video Conferencing
- Calendar Sharing
- Document Synchronization
- File Sharing
- Project Management Software
Such tools enable people to work together virtually and eliminate the distance constraint. Collaborative tools also help in bringing together employees in a single platform and performing efficiently as a team.
It works as a one-stop forum for your team to share and get connected to different people within the company who are at different or the same locations. As a result, it creates bonding among them and increases their morals, enthusiasm, optimism, and knowledge.
6. Social Media
Another effective way to connect with your employees is by connecting with them on professional social media platforms for gathering better insights into their professional skills and qualifications.
In the modern digital era, companies and employees are required to be connected virtually in order to have better accessibility and connectivity in grasping recent updates as well as passing information quickly.
Moreover, people nowadays tend to share more on social media than to discuss upfront; so, a cloudy yet crucial knowledge on the mental health of employees and how they rejuvenate can also be drawn from it. Besides, the impact of tentative work pressure that prevails in the organization can also be measured using the social media posts of your employees.
7. Company Values
Upgrade the values of the company and provide employees with pathways led by examples to follow. As they gain insights into the examples laid, the confusion and queries to their probe settle down.
In a stringent work culture, employees not only lose their temperament to work but also lose their connection with their work and the workplace.
So, when you are aiming for improving employee connection, the first thing to work on is upgrading the company values. It would not only enhance the company’s growth but also help the employees grow in the professional sphere of their careers.
Upgrading at regular intervals according to the circumstances is beneficial for your organization as businesses are uncertain and flexibility is the key to dealing with variability.
8. Employees’ Branding
Positive branding of the best-performing employees is essential to improve connection. Celebrate their achievements, recognize their efforts, and provide them with a platform to showcase their skills. It gives them a sense of being valued and accomplished at their workplace.
In addition, branding employees helps in the retention of the best talents and attracts good candidates to be associated with the organization, as well as increase the connectivity and relationship of employees with the workplace where they get a platform to nurture and flourish.
Benefits of Employee Connection in the Workplace
Now that we know what is employee connection, let us take a look at the advantages of enhancing employee connection in your workplace:
Increases Employee Loyalty
The most significant advantage of employee connection is that it fosters loyalty in employees. Along with the same, employees’ emotional attachment towards the workplace also surges, which enhances the retention rate of your team.
Employee loyalty serves as an impetus to trigger the retention rate and create a stronger attachment among the employees to grow along with the business.
Improves Brand Image
Employee connection is beneficial as it improves the branding of your business. When your employee gets connected passionately with sentiments involved in the workplace, they tend to spend a longer duration of years in providing productive service to their organization.
The branding of a business is highly dependent upon the reviews of its employees. Hence, it is extremely important to maintain healthy and optimistic relationships with employees to have a strong presence in the competitive market.
The employees tend to feel valued and get attached to the company, thereby getting a familiar feel and vibe from the workplace and enhancing the brand image of the organization.
Enhances Productivity
Connectivity escalates productivity. It is a basic human tendency to be more rooted in places or things which give them a sense of belongingness and they feel an association with. As a result, it enhances their efficiency to achieve more and grow along with the business.
The enhancement in productivity not only benefits the business but also increases the influence of the employees and their best outcome flourishes both the organization’s workflow and its workforce.
Provides Vibrant Workplace
One of the vital benefits due to employee connection is an infusion of positivity for building up a constructive and vibrant workplace, where the focus of employees is more on accomplishments of goals and growth than on spreading negativity.
The workplace atmosphere of any organization is highly influenced by its workforce enthusiasm, etiquette, and accomplishments. Workplace-connected employees are more goal-oriented as well as enthusiastic, making the work ecosystem vibrant, lively and energetic.
Surges Staff Retention
Staff retention is the biggest asset for an organization. Employee connection to the workplace surges the retention rate as employees get attached to the workplace, their peers, mid and top management, and with others.
An increase in retention rate results in cost-effectiveness, and constructs an optimistic work ecosystem full of positivity, willingness, and inclination towards growth and accomplishments.
Benefits of Connection among Employees
The benefits that are obtained by having connections among employees are as follows:
Team Building
Team building is the best way to improve relationships between employees in an organization as it would help to keep up with peace, harmony, and flow of work in your team.
Improving employee connection with the use of collaborative tools, automation, and encouragement, helps in building stronger motivated teams.
Easy Workflow
Another crucial benefit of employee connection among themselves is the rise in smooth workflows as there will be negligible hierarchical constraints.
Easy workflow also quickens the process of work, saving time and cost, which fosters optimal resource usage. With the use of collaborative and interactive tools, the work process gets quicker with lesser disruptions which would cause delay of important tasks.
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Reduced Conflicts
Internal conflicts are usually the outcome of miscommunication, jealousy, office politics, and unprofessional office etiquette which arise due to the failure of management in building up cooperative employee connections.
A strong and vibrant employee-connected workplace has negligible traits of miscommunication; rather, it tends to be familiar, lively, and enthusiastic in helping each other grow along with their organization’s accomplishments.
Faster Growth
Employee connection is an essential facet in contributing to team building in an organization which, as a result, yields in faster growth of employees as well as the business.
As the saying goes, ‘many hands make light work’, likewise, in an employee-connected workplace, the atmosphere is optimistic which triggers the growth of employees as a team and results in teamwork making up dream work benefitting both the business and its staff.
Stronger Foundation
Employees are considered the foundation for business. The workflow of a business is dependent upon the efficiency of its staff. So, with rooted employee connections the foundation of the business strengthens and productivity goes on the rise.
Stronger foundations help businesses to face uncertainties and combat difficulties with ease. Furthermore, the durability and effectiveness of business take a lift as well.
How to Connect with a New Employee?
New Employees are usually fragile and vulnerable to absconding. So, it is essential to keep up the connection with them to build an optimistic work ecosystem as well as include them to the team.
The following pointers will provide you an insight into ways to connect with newly hired employees:
Effective Induction
The first and most important step for you to go along with is providing effective induction or introduction of the newly hired to their new company and its culture.
Making the employees comfortable with the associated team or department they are hired for and giving them a brief on their reporting managers, associated peers, and other details should be a priority. It keeps them away from perplexities and miscommunication and increases their morale multifold.
Sense of Belonging
It is equally crucial as induction in enhancing employee connection. Their connection with the workplace is majorly dependent on their sentiment of belonging. It gives them a sense of being a part of the team.
For providing them with a sense of belongingness, a more detailed orientation about work ethics, culture, and etiquette is vital as well. So, it is paramount for you to arrange adequate orientation programs for newly hired employees to make them stay connected to the company and workplace.
Adequate Training
The next step in the process of enhancing employee connection is to provide them with adequate training on the work. Usually, the work culture varies from one organization to another.
So, there should be detailed training on the workflow of your organization before assigning them tasks. It makes them acquainted with the projects or assignments they would work on, in the present and future.
Regular Feedback
Obtaining feedback on the work, assignments, team, work ethics, culture, and atmosphere from the newly hired employee will make them feel valued and the issues that might bother them can be avoided in the future.
Issue Addressal and Solutions
After obtaining feedback it is crucial to work on the issues that bother the newly hired or have an impactable consequence on the business with appropriate solutions to make them feel connected and valued.
Let’s get Connected!
Employee Connection to the workplace is beneficial as well as essential in all spheres as it not only contributes to the growth of the organization but also helps in the personal growth of the most valuable asset for your business – ‘Employees’.
They should be valued enough for their immense contribution, skills, and dedication along with adequate recognition or training required as per their performance.
