Marlborough Express - Weekend Express
Communication key to better business
OPINION: We have just had our 2018 Marlborough Business Excellence Awards.
It was a night of celebrating and showcasing businesses in our region that are doing amazing things and the odd tear of gratitude.
Throughout the evening, award after award, there was a common theme I noticed coming through with acceptance speeches. They all started with something along the lines of, I want to thank our team.
It got me thinking about traits of successful businesses. All of our winners have put people at the heart of what they do by recognising the critical role their employees play in the success of their businesses.
It’s about putting people at the heart of everything you do and using the power of communication to transform how people work. Why? Because an engaged team aligned behind a common purpose will transform the performance of any organisation. It’s a secret weapon shared by all of our winners.
It’s actually a virtuous cycle. Having employees that are engaged is the most effective way of achieving results, reaching goals, and being successful.
In turn, reaching those goals helps reinforce employee engagement because people know and feel they played an integral part in achieving that success. This is a business culture people want to be part of, and will be attracted to.
The key to creating a positive culture and an engaged team is great communication. What you don’t want is a situation where a problem arises, the business has the right staff and knowledge available to fix the problem, but poor communication means the message doesn’t get to the right people in the first place.
This actually isn’t that uncommon. It can lead to employees feeling unempowered to suggest better ways of doing things due to a poor culture resulting from poor engagement. This is where open and effective communication can have a transformative impact.
If you listen to our business award winners, they will tell you that an engaged, empowered team unlocks growth opportunities, sparks innovation and serves to attract and retain staff.
This fits with the increasing global awareness we are seeing around the imperative of creating a working environment where employees feel empowered, particularly where attracting new talent is concerned. This is key for Marlborough.
The ability to attract and retain the best people is a key challenge for many of our region’s businesses. It’s not a unique challenge.
New Zealand and the globe are facing a skilled labour shortage. This creates an even greater imperative for employers to ensure employees are involved and engaged.This puts the importance of internal communications centre stage as an engaged and empowered workforce becomes a key indicator of a successful business.
Here at the Chamber we are energised about our leading role in helping make that happen, continuing to help great businesses become even greater by releasing the potential of their people.