The video for this blog post can be found on YouTube, and audio can be found on Spotify!
Welcome to episode 2 of Claire Shares. I’m so glad you’re here. I’m going to be sharing with you high energy, bite size videos, about all things talent attraction, talent acquisition and talent retention. These areas of HR and People Ops are my favorite and specialty, and I’m so excited to dive in with you.
Today’s Recommendations
One thing I’m going to be doing in every episode is introducing you more to me as an HR Pro. I’m consistently asked by my HR community what types of events are coming up, tools I’m using, and organizations I’m working with, so we’ll kick off each episode with a piece of this information as well. I love to curate and share resources, so please reach out to me if there’s something you’re looking for!
Today I want to introduce you to two of my favorite people who help inform my work as an HR Pro. First is Dr. Sasha Heinz, H-E-I-N-Z. She’s a developmental psychologist, expert in adult development and the science of transformational change, and the host of the Change Lab Podcast. I was first introduced to Sasha years ago when she was a guest on a webinar talking about goal setting and how humans are goal directed organisms. I will always remember what she shared about goal setting being good for our wellbeing. Introducing you to Sasha also ties in well with our topic for today, which I’ll get to in just in a minute.
I also wanted to introduce you to Steve Browne, Chief People Officer based in Cincinnati, Ohio and author or HR on Purpose !!, HR Rising !! and HR Unleashed !!. HR on Purpose !! is my favorite book to gift new HR pros, or HR pros feeling burned out and discouraged about working in HR. Steve shares on the back of the cover: “Read this book, rekindle your passion for a vibrant and vital field, and touch the lives of everyone you encounter with HR on Purpose!!”
Topic for Today: Workplace Communication Processes
Let’s get into our talent topic of discussion for today! Workplace communication processes for talent retention. Last episode, I introduced you to the importance of being clear on your mission, vision, and values to inform your talent attraction, acquisition and retention strategies. From here, I want to dive into a bunch of episodes on talent retention topics, and then we’ll circle back to talent attraction. When getting ready for this series and talking to numerous people in my HR community, most of them shared with me that their least favorite part of their HR jobs was recruiting. Which is music to my ears since that’s one of my favorite areas, and something we specialize in here at Lighthouse, but really it made me want to start with our talent retention topics in hopes it helps my business leader and HR friends hold onto more of their best talent and therefore have to recruit less!
Workplace communication processes is so important to invest in in order to best support and retain your team. I know because I’ve worked in small family-owned businesses as well as large global companies, and the first thing I notice that frustrates people is a lack of communication, or a lack of understanding something that can be easily cleared up with timely and clear communication. I know I’ve been there. Feeling like I heard important news through the grapevine, or simply not knowing where to go or what tools to check to get relevant company or team updates. And if you’re an HR leader for a team of other HR professionals, making sure you’re all communicating well ensures you all can best help your employees!
So What Do We Do? Let’s Think Differently
I love working in small businesses, and I’ve been able to contribute most to our communication processes here at Lighthouse Technology Services. There’s a few things I want you to think about. People, process and technology (or tools). When was the last time you revisited the people, process and technology that impacts communication at your workplace? Taking some time to think about where, how often and how much information is getting shared, (remember the way information is shared is rooted in your mission, vision and values) can help you see quick wins for eliminating frustration.
I’ve worked with managers where there have been employee performance or behavior issues on their teams, and something I’ve heard multiple times is: “they’re adults and they should know what to do.” I want you to drop any assumptions and remember over communication is better than under communication. Let’s dive into people, process and technology and some tips and take-a-ways that I know you’ll find helpful.
People: Here at Lighthouse, Randy Harris is our CEO. Most companywide updates come from him. We then have department leaders of course, responsible for Managed IT Services, Marketing and HR to name a few, that are responsible for communication in their areas. Our recruiting team meets together every Tuesday and Thursday, and this helps us all be on the same page of where we are with our work, collaborate on any pain points, and share process changes. I share any changes to recruiting tech in that meeting, our HR Leader shares any updates to compliance changes, and so on. Our entire Lighthouse team meets once biweekly, where we focus on discussing an area we can all learn and improve upon. Randy typically gives any important companywide updates in those meetings, or elaborates more in those meetings on an email update he had sent out. We do HR updates for our team quarterly both via email and in person to address any compliance changes, policy and procedure reminders, benefits reminders and so on. I first encourage you to look at who is and who should be responsible for company and department communication. Are they doing it? How often and in what methods? Are employees getting what they need to do their work?
Process: Next, let’s dive into process. At Lighthouse, we have an understanding that if we are calling each other, it’s urgent and we do everything in our power to be able to pick up the phone in that moment. If it’s not urgent, we send each other a message on Microsoft Teams, either with the information needing to be shared, or asking each other if we have time now for a quick call. Teams is for collaborating on getting time sensitive work done, such as scheduling interviews for our clients and candidates. Email is used for company updates, project updates and things like that. The way I think of it, is if I’m sending an email, then this information may not be seen for hours and that’s okay. Especially for the type of work we do, it’s common for team members to be in meetings or on calls for a couple of hours or working on projects and away from their inboxes to avoid distraction, so using Teams for more time sensitive information is helpful. Circling back to Dr Sasha Heinz who I mentioned in the beginning, she’s an expert in change and change management, and especially when you’re sharing a larger company announcement or organizational change, the communication plan that goes along with that is huge for your employees’ basic needs of feeling safe. Again, our focus here is communication processes for talent retention. Think about what the key things are your folks need to know and understand about your organization on an ongoing basis. It could be the value of your benefits package and how to use the benefits, what professional development opportunities or community engagement activities are available, what you’re doing to keep them safe and secure, or keep the environment safe and secure depending on your line of work/industry. Telling someone something once, especially in those areas just named, is not enough. Ongoing, sincere, clear communication will improve employee retention. Knowing your business and the way your folks work can help inform you of the best ways and timing for communication. Spend some time to investigate how communication is handled and how often. I know as a business leader or HR pro, you’ll be able to identify some low hanging fruit and quick wins for improvement.
Technology: Lastly, let’s wrap up with technology and tools. We’re a Microsoft house, so we use the suite of Microsoft tools available such as Outlook, Teams, Planner, To Do and SharePoint. We love whiteboarding too, and have a few white board walls in our rooms around the office. Maybe you work with Apple or Google Suite, or maybe you don’t have access to a ton of technology tools and use more whiteboards and bulletin boards. That’s okay too! I’m going to go through a few tools and technologies that you may want to explore further for your business. One being a company intranet. We use SharePoint and are still making improvements and adjustments to it every day. If you don’t have a tool like SharePoint, there are others than can be used for online communication boards and online libraries for information. A vendor I met at the SHRM annual conference called BeeKeeper, is a communication platform and phone app for front line workers. Next, we use Microsoft Planner boards for various team projects and team communication, as well as for 1:1 communication. Our Senior Talent Specialist Madeline and I have a planner board just for the 2 of us where we track all things HR. What needs to be done this week, what’s coming up next month or quarter, what has to be communicated to the team and so on. You can add due dates and Planner can send email reminders for upcoming tasks and due dates. A similar option to planner is Trello. I had a free Trello account for years that I used to keep myself organized just in my personal life. I wanted to also briefly mention Microsoft To Do. I probably went a year of working at Lighthouse before I was aware of To Do and what I could use it for. It’s very similar to the Reminders app in your iPhone. You can make different lists with different tasks, add reminders to them, and also flag emails and put them into lists within To Do. I just didn’t know this tool was available to me or how to use it. Our amazing Managed IT Services team conducted a companywide training to show us how to use some of these tools we already had access to.
Think about what tools you have at your organization for communication. What do you have that isn’t working or isn’t getting used? Could you get rid of it? Maybe there are tools that you already have access to as part of another software suite/contract and now is a good time to implement those. Or maybe it’s time to really dive into your communication pain points and set up a new tool or process. Keep thinking of this from the lens of retaining your people. None of us want to go on a scavenger hunt for information and none of us want to redo work because we didn’t get the message something had changed. Communication processes can also enhance feelings of community, care and connectedness. This week, think about your people, process and technology and see where any quick wins could be made. You may discover a larger overhaul of communication may need to be done as well.
This has been fun! Thank you for being here with me. Again, I’m going to be sharing with you high energy, bite size videos all about all things talent attraction, talent acquisition and talent retention. These areas of HR and People Ops are my favorite and specialty, and I’m so excited to dive in with you. This work is what I do, if you need help with the tools, technology and process around how you attract, acquire and retain talent, reach out to me and let’s talk!
I can’t wait to further explore together. See you next time!
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