- Dr. David Cowan
Image: Google Images
What if you simply paid your employees more to work less? How about that for a different take on employee engagement? Just pay your employees more and they’ll be happier, right? Forgive the rhetorical questions, but there is a point.
Rhetoric, as defined by the Oxford Dictionary, is the art of effective or persuasive speaking or writing, especially the exploitation of figures of speech and other compositional techniques. This is so true of employee communications!
How many presentations have you heard where the employee is acknowledged there right up front, maybe even top of the bill, in statements like “Our People are important to us,” “We can’t get this job done without our wonderful employees,” or “This company is our people,” and then, then what? That’s the last mention in the presentation? It is rhetoric, it is art, but it is not effective.
Rhetoric, as defined by the Oxford Dictionary, is the art of effective or persuasive speaking or writing, especially the exploitation of figures of speech and other compositional techniques. This is so true of employee communications!
How many presentations have you heard where the employee is acknowledged there right up front, maybe even top of the bill, in statements like “Our People are important to us,” “We can’t get this job done without our wonderful employees,” or “This company is our people,” and then, then what? That’s the last mention in the presentation? It is rhetoric, it is art, but it is not effective.
True, companies are taking a fresh look at their employee communication, and the focus now is on Employee Engagement, and this is a good thing. However, let’s get this into perspective. Suddenly having a new name or buzzword is not going to get the job done, and the stakes are high.
If companies are going to get more out of their employees by seeking to engage with them and have true, open and powerful dialogue then they have to cut the rhetoric. How? Well, next time your leadership or management is talking about ticking the box for a communication, can I suggest they carry out a five step stress-test on whether this is empty rhetoric or real engagement:
If companies are going to get more out of their employees by seeking to engage with them and have true, open and powerful dialogue then they have to cut the rhetoric. How? Well, next time your leadership or management is talking about ticking the box for a communication, can I suggest they carry out a five step stress-test on whether this is empty rhetoric or real engagement:
- Value: does the rhetoric stop to explain how it values employees? Not just financially but in terms of what they contribute? Contribution dialogue goes a long way and has to move beyond the rhetoric of “values” to provide the support to help all employees value each other in their day-to-day work through their words and actions.
- Narrate: does the rhetoric stop to offer a narrative of the journey the employee is embarking on, one that encourages them to see themselves? Does the communication tell the story of what your organization is doing? If employees can visualize their future in the organization they are more likely to stay for the journey.
- Involve: does the rhetoric stop to tackle involving employees, one that speaks to their sense of belonging at the company? Does it hand the baton of the communication objective to employees in a way that will excite them to act?
- Reward: does the rhetoric stop to demonstrate how the employee will be rewarded by the actions or ideas the communication is seeking to get across? It is one thing to promise reward, quite another to do so effectively. This is not just about pay packets, people feel rewarded in many ways at work. People are rewarded not just by money but also by their experience of being an employee, and this is often forgotten.
- Answer: Does the rhetoric stop to answer that most critical of employee questions: what’s in for me? And that is not a rhetorical question!
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