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Ways to Improve Communication Between a Manager and an Employee

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StrategyDriven Managing Your People Article | Ways to Improve Communication Between a Manager and an Employee

Communication between employees and managers in the workplace is of paramount importance to any successful business. To ensure that everyone is on the same page regarding expectations, direction, and objectives, there has to be a clear and open communication. This post looks at four effective ways your company can open up clear communication and start working as a team.

Weekly Meetings

Organizing weekly meetings for the whole team is a way to create an environment in which members feel able to communicate with one another. These weekly meetings help to break down barriers in communication between employees and managers. Each member of the team is given a chance to talk freely and openly about:

  • Projects they are currently working on
  • The challenges they are facing while working on the projects
  • Questions they have regarding those particular projects

One of the ways to help team members communicate freely in these meetings is by keeping them informed. The managers should ensure that the conversation goes on and everyone is given adequate time to speak without judgment.

Regular One-On-Ones

Communicating in a group may be challenging to some individuals, so you should come up with more avenues of communication for employees. One-on-one meetings can be used for direct communication between employees and managers. This is also another way to ask about each other’s preferred style of communication.

These one-on-ones may be in the form of an informal chat regarding projects and ideas, or may be structured and formal. No matter the situation, take that opportunity to collaborate and connect with your employee.

Keeping Employees in the Loop

A good manager always keeps employees apprised of matters in the company. Many employees often feel that they are not involved in decisions that are made by the management team. Informing employees about the company’s plans improves communication, and also builds trust among all team members.


Use Tools That Improve Communication

There are many tools that are meant to enhance communication in the workplace. For example, one of these tools may include a random anonymous chat app. Using the right tools can improve how a manager and an employee can communicate in an organization.

Open Door Policy

An additional way for managers to improve communication between them and employees is by having an open door policy. This means that the employee can approach the manager in the office with comments, complaints, concerns, and questions at any time.

This type of management approach will let employees know that the manager is always available to listen to their concerns and act accordingly. This style of management will have a positive impact on employee morale and performance. When employees are heard, they feel valued and that is the essence of good communication.

Lead By Example

As a manager, your credibility depends on how well you deliver on your promises. It also depends on your capability to communicate with others positively and if you acknowledge the success of member staff and their ideas. Employees will have confidence in you if they know that you speak the truth and follow through on your word.

Endnote

Communication is a crucial step a company can take to create a collaborative and more cohesive work environment. You can start by implementing the above steps to break down barriers in the workplace and start to communicate openly.

5 Ways to Promote Workplace Diversity

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StrategyDriven Diversity and Inclusion Article | 5 Ways to Promote Workplace Diversity

A diverse workplace is inclusive and ensures equal opportunities and rights for all staff members, regardless of their color, age, gender, ethnicity, sexual orientation, physical ability, religious beliefs, and more. It should be free of harassment and discrimination. A diverse, multicultural workplace permits new processes and ideas. This talent diversity means broader skills range among workers and perspective and experience diversity, which boosts the potential for high productivity.

A company with a diverse work environment is deemed a better employer, and prospective employees want employers who treat their staff members fairly while accepting and being tolerant of different backgrounds. Here are five ways to promote workplace diversity.

Invest in diversity training

Diversity training programs increase participants’ awareness regarding various diversities, appreciate the differences among colleagues, and offer strategies and knowledge to improve employees’ communication and interpersonal skills to create a positive work environment. Diversity training helps organizations prevent civil rights violations, promote better teamwork and develop a more inclusive workplace while increasing the inclusion of various diversity groups.

Investing in diversity training for your staff enables you to attract talent while maximizing company profits, adhere to the organization’s legal and moral standards, and disseminate information concerning organizational policies and diversity-related concerns. You can hire a certified professional diversity coach or let your managers get diversity coaching certification and then train the employees.

Establish diversity mentoring programs

Minorities in a workplace usually experience many challenges, including development and growth. With a diversity mentoring program, you can help overcome these difficulties. A diversity mentorship program provides encouragement, support, and a listening ear to employee concerns while creating a connection with other team members.

When mentees learn new skills via their mentor’s expertise and knowledge, it becomes easier for them to thrive. Diversity mentorship programs give employees a sense of inclusion and belonging, expand a company’s talent pool, promote innovation and teamwork, and increase productivity.


Develop more inclusive workplace practices and policies

As you embrace workplace diversity, consider conducting a comprehensive workplace evaluation and current practices to determine how inclusive your company is. Start by amending the existing policies and practices, including performance and recruitment assessments and promotions, to facilitate diversity. You may also extend an alternative for flexible work hours, allow your workers to take off days for religious holidays your company doesn’t officially observe, and more.

Create cultural awareness opportunities

Companies with more than offices in another country, state, or within the same region should let their employees learn about various cultures by sending them to different locations for long or short assignments. This allows them to know their co-workers better and the environment they work and live in.

Alternatively, you can organize volunteer opportunities for your workers to interact with people from different backgrounds, including visiting the disadvantaged, assisting at an immigration center, and more. This can give them a different perspective on issues while broadening their horizons for interacting and working with people from diverse backgrounds. It’s also a great chance for team bonding.

Hold cultural activities and events

Organizing workplace diversity activities is a fun way to embrace inclusivity. Consider celebrating specific diversity days by recognizing them in your organization by publishing details about them, why they matter, and how you’ll observe them. Your organization may also sponsor diverse events in the community, like fairs, parades, concerts, and more.

Endnote

A diverse work environment benefits from various perspectives, more innovations, high employee engagement, better decision-making, and more. Use these tips to make your workplace more inclusive.

An Overview of CSR Improvement

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StrategyDriven Corporate Cultures Article | An Overview of CSR ImprovementThis overview on CSR improvement will give you an overview of how to improve your corporate responsibility practices. To do this, you’ll need to focus on four key areas: Measurability, Transparency, Collaboration, and Editability. By following these four points, you’ll be well on your way to CSR excellence. Moreover, you’ll understand how to measure, monitor, and evaluate your company’s progress.

Measurability

Measurability in CSR improvement is an essential issue for businesses today. CSR is a strategic practice that aims to hold organizations accountable for societal issues and their operations’ environmental impact. However, there are few measurable CSR outcomes or activities and even fewer governance measures. Yet, today, customers, employees, shareholders, and investors are demanding more focused action from companies. To meet these demands, companies must incorporate environmental and social responsibility criteria (ESG) into their core corporate strategies. This requires a rigorous governance framework, quantifiable targets, and measurable impact assessments.

Socially conscious businesses benefit external partners and investors. For example, public stock exchanges require companies to disclose their ESG (environmental, social, and governance) performance. This measurable reporting helps highlight a company’s ethical practices, risks, and opportunities. Measurability is a valuable strategy for improving CSR. It can be applied in any business sector and should be a central focus of CSR improvement.

Transparency

In today’s world, to improve customer relationships more consumers demand companies be more transparent about their business practices and how they treat their stakeholders. This is a positive trend that will continue. The growing number of transparency-conscious consumers is suitable for businesses and nonprofits because it builds trust and strengthens relationships. Transparency increases internal and external relationships while allowing stakeholders to make informed decisions. It also costs little to implement and can produce big rewards for your organization.

More transparent companies can also increase their profits. The number of S&P 500 companies publishing annual reports has risen from 20% to 72%, which is a significant increase in one year. Transparency in CSR can increase investor confidence, improve investment decisions, and create new market opportunities. Furthermore, if a company demonstrates its corporate social responsibility activities, it will create a virtuous cycle within the company.

Collaboration

Collaborating with other businesses can transform your business and help it improve its social impact. For example, collaboration can help eradicate hunger and promote access to preventive health care and education. Other benefits of partnerships include environmental protection, animal welfare, and climate action. For example, collaborations can help fund Olympic and Paralympic athletes or provide disaster relief to underserved populations. Regardless of the size of your company, it’s essential to focus on social and environmental issues when considering your collaboration strategies.

Collaboration with competitors and public sector bodies is another way to improve CSR. Companies are increasingly working with other companies in the same industry or sector and looking to collaborate with NGOs and other stakeholders to create positive change in the world. Collaboration between companies and nonprofits is one way to prove that you’re serious about social responsibility. Collaboration requires authenticity and the willingness to demonstrate results in real-time. Companies that live their values are building brands that people can trust.

Impact

If you are looking to measure the impact of your CSR improvement efforts, you need to consider the following:

A sense of purpose is essential for a company’s employees. Employees become more loyal and committed to the company by providing them with a sense of meaning. The impact of CSR on employee engagement is significant, and even small investments can bring substantial returns. For example, a Net Impact survey found that 72% of students said they want to work for a company that does good things. This can help employers attract and retain talented employees. They can attract and retain the best talent by increasing their CSR efforts.

Investing in CSR is more important than ever before. Younger investors are more likely to look into the impact of their investments. In addition, they are more interested in the social impact of their assets and the impact those investments have on society. For this reason, businesses that engage in destructive behavior may risk losing a significant share of their customer base. Therefore, increasing your company’s CSR initiatives is essential for business success. This article will introduce a systematic process for improving your CSR strategy.

How to Enhance the Decision-Making Skills of Managers

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StrategyDriven Decision-Making Article | How to Enhance the Decision-Making Skills of ManagersBuilding a successful business requires the ability to make decisions. It is imperative for entrepreneurs to make the right decisions and put them into action effectively.

As humans, we have the privilege of being able to learn and enhance our decision-making skills.

You will find a list of skills you will need to develop in order to become a more effective manager and leader in this guide.

What Can You Do to Make Better Decisions?

Management decisions have a direct impact on everyday business. Making the correct decisions requires using the most relevant information and delivering the intended results. In any situation, whether decisions affect one person or a whole organization, a step-by-step framework ensures good results.

Below are some steps to consider taking to enhance your decision-making skills within the workplace:

  • Find the Problem: Don’t forget to ask questions, get feedback from key players, and consider all angles. If you thoroughly understand the scenario, you will be in a better position to make an informed decision.
  • Re-Examine the Data: Make sure you collect as many applicable details as possible. A team member familiar with the work area should be assigned data-gathering tasks whenever you’re considering a bigger decision.
  • Examine Each Choice: Choose the path that offers the best chance of success after weighing the pros and cons of various options.
  • Pick a Plan of Action: Decide on the overall best course of action.
  • Execute Your Plan: Develop a clear, specific, and actionable plan. Provide employees with information and encourage them to go forward with the plan.
  • Check Your Final Results: You can learn from every course of action you take. Take note of your results to identify areas where your decisions need to be improved. Is the data you have accurate? Is each option being considered or recognized? How well do you communicate with your employees?
  • Stay Up to Date With Plans: Reorient your course of action by making the necessary changes. Keeping track of the things that worked and what didn’t will enable you to make better decisions in the future.

Decision-Making Skills for Effective Leadership

The below skills will enhance your ability to make the best decisions to drive personal and professional development, growth, and success:

  • Identifying Problems: Making decisions requires the ability to recognize problems and find solutions. Problem-solving skills allow you to remain calm under pressure and find the best possible solutions.
  • Processing Data: Assimilate the information by performing your own analysis or delegating the task to the corresponding employees. It is also important to know what type of data you require.
  • Managing Your Time: It is necessary to make certain decisions quickly. The ability to make informed decisions within the required timeframe is essential for success.
  • Communicating Effectively: Decisions must be communicated clearly and effectively. It is possible to stay up to date on project progress, work processes, and employee performance by actively listening. When you need to make a quick decision, each conversation becomes information.
  • Maintaining Humility: Sometimes it’s about acknowledging that another employee’s solution is better than yours. Making the right choice is essential, regardless of who developed the solution.
  • <strong”>Practicing Mediation: /strong> Achieving fairness, assessing everyone’s viewpoint, and diffusing conflict are crucial.
  • Planning: There are often unexpected pitfalls associated with business decisions. Having a good plan allows your team to avoid unforeseen problems.
  • Ongoing Training for Leadership Best Practices: The best decisions are useless unless they are shared with others. Leading effectively is dependent on a leader’s ability to convince others of the rightness of their decisions.

What You Need to Know About Decision Making

A business’s success depends on its ability to make decisions. Making decisions is most effective when evidence is interpreted in conjunction with previous experience. Take advantage of decision-making opportunities in your business and learn from your decisions. As you gain experience, you will become more effective and comfortable making decisions.

What are Some Ways that You Can Encourage Ethical Decision-Making?

Those who make ethical decisions consider their company’s bottom line as well as their community’s impact. It is encouraged that employees do the same. It is not only beneficial to your business to make ethical decisions, but also to the community as a whole.

One way to achieve better decision-making skills in the workplace is to invest in executive coaching for professionals.

8 Ways to Identify a Toxic Workplace

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StrategyDriven Diversity and Inclusion Article | 8 Ways to Identify a Toxic WorkplaceContinuing a career in whichever field you choose is one of the largest parts of everyone’s life. This entails that most individuals spend almost, if not more, time at work than at home. Though seemingly difficult, what can make it even more strenuous is having a workplace that doesn’t make your life easier but rather harder, a toxic workplace, if you will.

A good workplace will make you feel seen, accomplished, and overall satisfied with working there, whereas, working in a toxic workplace will have many side effects on your mental and physical health, as well as your work output, and so on. Below you will find all the signs to look for when working in a work environment that may be toxic without you even knowing it.

Employee Sickness

The first sign you will notice of a toxic work environment is physical symptoms within yourself. These symptoms arise in multiple ways including burnout, fatigue, or even illness such as chronic migraines, weight loss due to multiple ailments, and even depression. If you find yourself calling in sick and having an overall negative mood, it may be time to reflect on a workplace change.

Chronic Cronyism

If you notice, your work colleagues and superiors all know each other a little too well. When a manager hires from the same homogenous circle of individuals, be that from family or friend circles, it becomes a case of cronyism. This means not only is the workplace extracting potential exterior high-performers but also creating a homogenous work culture that is unsustainable.

Gossiping

Small talk regarding guests or business partners is expected, but when small talk becomes gossip and gossip becomes overly personal within a workplace, it turns into an unhealthy partnership with colleagues. This can lead to strenuous collaboration on work projects, internal conflicts, external altercations, and so forth.

If you find yourself or your colleagues complaining to each other too often, the underlying issue is usually dissatisfaction with something within the work environment or maybe in their personal lives.


Antisocial Tendencies

Silence is often an indication of struggle and discomfort within a workplace. If your colleagues aren’t engaging with each other, nor is anyone’s body language positive, it can be a result of a prolonged decline in workplace morale and interpersonal relationships at work.

Another symptom of antisocial behavior is combativeness towards peers. If you feel you are being challenged too often, it is a telltale sign of toxicity within your work environment which can also affect your confidence and morale.

Lack of Confidence

Morale and confidence have already been mentioned, but there is another layer to workplace confidence which is being able to challenge ideas in a healthy manner. Being terrified of your superiors isn’t a healthy way to work since everyone is supposedly on the same team and is trying to find new and creative ways to move forward, which is something that cannot be done under scrutiny.

Lack of Growth

Growth equates to mobility. When looking for jobs, employees search for opportunities for growth within their workplace and personal careers, and if a company is unable to provide that, it may be a sign of a work environment that isn’t personally beneficial for you, which may even fit under the “toxic” terminology. It is important to create environments that promote growth.

StrategyDriven Diversity and Inclusion Article | 8 Ways to Identify a Toxic WorkplaceLeadership Problems

Bosses come in all shapes, sizes, and attitudes. Sometimes a disagreeable boss is the byproduct of a previous negative superior, or sometimes people just aren’t meant to manage workers in the first place. There are two extremes to this spectrum: either your superior is very passive and doesn’t communicate enough, or they micromanage everyone’s every move.

Try looking for signs of a narcissistic boss, such as a lack of empathy for struggling colleagues, exclusively talking about themself, taking advantage of situations and people, and so on.

Blurry Boundaries

A workplace is meant to run with organization, not chaos. If you find your team doesn’t have set goals, roles, or boundaries put in place, it might be time to start questioning whether the environment is one that you wish to be a part of. Clear roles must be given to each member.

About the Author

Russell Ridgeway is an American writer based in Budapest, Hungary. He writes in business, tech, and fashion as well as creative fiction. You can reach him by email ([email protected]), or on LinkedIn and other social media platforms.