When money is in short supply and budgets are stretched to the limit, keeping your workforce engaged may seem an insurmountable challenge. Yet there’s something relatively simple and inexpensive that all businesses can do to help, which is to share good news with employees.
Good things happen in all organisations; examples of employee excellence and dedication occur all the time. But they are often ‘best kept secrets’ instead of shared experiences. If positive stories are shared among groups of people within the business and they are made to feel involved in them, however, they can be very inspiring.
The tool for sharing great stories is usually the company’s recognition programme, although traditional programmes (those which simply offer vouchers or monetary rewards) can actually stifle the process, being one-dimensional and transactional, and rarely taking place in front of peers. Yet there’s a great opportunity for organisations to use modern communication techniques – such as social media and online tools – to create better ways of sharing stories and to make recognition a collaborative experience.
By connecting people and encouraging them to read about, respond to and share the organisation’s positive stories and good news, a ‘chain reaction’ of positivity can be created, resulting in employees having a sense of wellbeing from working in a positive environment and, ultimately, being engaged.
And, through harnessing the power of a great story – by connecting different groups of people within an organisation, making them feel involved and encouraging them to read and respond to good news – you can create a positive experience for all.
