Benefits of employees’ interaction are not hidden from anyone; this area has gained tremendous popularity during the recent years. Organizations are paying attention to employees’ interaction by developing plans in this regard. Employee’s interaction includes: employees’ interaction with organizations, employees’ interaction with the outside world and employees’ relations within an organizations. In this post I am going to discuss best practices of employees’ relations with each other within an organization. One of the reasons of disagreements among employees is lack of interaction among them. It causes friction among them and disturbs the overall organizational environment. Such issues can be sorted with the help of employees’ interaction plans. Furthermore, issues of employee satisfaction, engagement and development can also be sorted by implementing plans of employees’ interaction.
Before writing down the best practices of employees’ interaction I am going to give an advice to professionals about using best practices. Best practices of any field make it easier for the professionals of that field to perform functions. Best practices provide such a path that leads towards success. But in an effort to follow the best practices one fact should not be ignored that every organization has its own unique culture and circumstances that may differ from the one in which the best practices are being framed. Therefore, leaders, managers, advisors, supervisors and workers must not blindly follow the path of best practices of any discipline. They must first analyze the situation in which they are operating. After analyzing the situation they should decide which best practice may be applied in its true spirit and which needs alteration in accordance with the situation. Always try to find a middle way.
Develop a plan for employee interaction; it must be employee-centric.
Give official status to the plan.
Make employees collaborate with each other by implementing 360-degrees performance appraisals.
Leadership must inspire the rest; they must live by the values of the plan.
Announce it loudly and repeatedly that employees interaction is at place.
Vertical organizational structure may prove to be a hurdle in the way of the plan, thus make such arrangements which make organizational structure a horizontal one.
In order to familiarize employees with the plan organize training.
Involvement of employees is very important in this regard. Develop such programs that ensure employee participation i.e. employee connection champion program etc.
Feedback mechanism must be at place to have an overall idea about the plan. Develop employee-driven improvement processes.
Establishment of cross role and cross functional connections must be included among employee performance goals.
