~ by Katrina Denning ~
It is vital these days for businesses of all sizes to plan ahead and have the right strategies in place in order to boost business success. Competition is stiff no matter what sector you are in, which means that developing effective strategies is vital. However, this is not something that you can do alone – you also need to try and get your employees on board to help with strategic planning and implementation.
As all business owners know, your employees are the lifeblood of your company. With this in mind, it is important to involve them in the growth of your business. In this article, I will teach you how to encourage your workforce to be more invested and involved when it comes to your business plans and strategies.
There are a number of key methods that you can use in order to get your employees more interested and engage them more when it comes to your long term business plans and strategies. This will then naturally get them more involved in this side of your business, which can prove to be hugely beneficial. Some of the ways in which you can get them involved include:
Ask for Ideas
It is important to make your employees feel valued when it comes to your business plans for the future. In addition, as front line workers they will often have ideas and solutions that may not even have occurred to you. With this in mind, make sure you ask your employees for their ideas and input when it comes to business plans and strategies. This is something that you can bring up in one-to-one meetings or at team meetings when everyone is together. Doing this will make your employees feel as though their opinion counts, so they are more likely to make an effort.
Get Their Feedback
It is not just new ideas and strategies that you should be engaging your employees about. You should also get them involved when it comes to the assessment and adaptation of existing business plans and strategies. Often, it is your employees that will know what does and does not work because they are the ones dealing with the operational side of the business. This is why it is important to speak to your employees for feedback about plans and strategies that are already in place and whether they feel they are working well or not.
Tap into their skills
You may have many employees with certain skills that you are not tapping into but which could be very useful for your business plans and strategies. This is something that you should look into, as your employees may feel that their skills are going to waste. For instance, if you have multilingual employees that speak another language, such as Russian, their skills could come in useful for all sorts of purposes such as helping with marketing strategies and materials to help you to reach out to a global audience.
Provide Recognition for Their Efforts
By making sure you provide recognition to your employees for their hard work, efforts, and input, you can further encourage them to get involved with planning and strategies. This could be anything from staff social events to celebrate achievements to competitions for coming up with the best ideas for the business. This is a great way to motivate and encourage your employees, making them want to get involved rather than forcing their hands.
Encourage Teamwork
Encouraging each and every employee to get involved in teamwork will make it easier for them to get involved in other areas of your business. This includes the planning and strategizing side of things. You can encourage teamwork through team events and away days. Even varying your employees’ tasks so they get to work with different people and on different jobs will help to build their confidence when it comes to working as part of a team. It will also help to develop their skills and knowledge, which could ultimately make it easier for them to participate in planning and strategies.
Give them Responsibility
There is nothing like giving someone responsibility if you want to get them to take a real interest. You can give key members of staff an area of responsibility with regards to the planning and strategy side of the business. This will make them even more determined to not only get involved but to take a genuine interest in the planning and strategy elements of the business. If you have a lot of employees, you can put them in teams and give them certain parts of the planning and strategy process to work on.
Encourage Expression of Ideas
Some employees may be full of great ideas. However, they sometimes feel as though they are not in an environment where they can express these ideas. This is a shame not just for the employee but for the business. This lack of expression means that you could be missing out on potentially excellent ideas that could improve business, save money, and boost overall success. Make sure you encourage expression of ideas from your employees and that you listen to what they have to say.
Work Toward a Common Goal as a Group
When you get your employees onboard to take an interest in as well as get involved in business planning for the future, it will become far easier to work toward a common goal. The more people that are involved in planning and strategies within your organization, the more input you can get. This can prove invaluable when it comes to developing future plans and putting strategies into place.
It is important to remember that everyone within your company plays an important role in the future and success of your business. As such, they should all be encouraged to take an interest in the planning and strategies that are put into place. Feedback, encouragement, rewards, and involvement can all help to motivate your employees to take an interest.
