Employee Involvement – Your 7 Steps To Corporate Success

We are living in times of change, everybody knows that. And the fact is that keeping up with Employee Involvement is most difficult in these times.

When thinking about this subject, you could be forgiven to think “what is employee involvement?” and “how important is it to my organization?”

Well in this article we will touch on the idea of employee involvement, what it is and how it can benefit you, your employees and or, your co-workers and subordinates.

Before answering those first questions, the strategic question that needs to be asked is: “What kind of paradigm shift in thinking is needed to roll with the times and not lag behind?”

And yes, there are many answers to that question, but a significant one has got to be with how employees in the workplace are viewed, thought about and valued.

With that thought in mind, you would be wise to first understand the 7 steps of what Employee Involvement is all about.

What is Employee InvolvementAbout

Let’s face it, employees are the heart and soul of the company as well as the lifeblood that energizes the different cells (departments).

And as you probably know the function of the blood is to energize the body and at the same time get rid of what doesn’t belong anymore. This is an excellent analogy to the function of employees in the organization.

That is why Employee Involvement is so very important to a company! When employees are engaged, which means, ready, able and willing to Trust, Weigh In, Commit, Become Accountable and truly Result Oriented, the company is healthy.

The fact is that healthy companies survive, progress and ultimately become a success story.

Another fact is that without engaged employees companies barely survive the rat-race that is ever-increasing in intensity and hardness, which means more and more damaging stress.

Continuing this analogy, when there is good blood flow, the body is healthy. Therefore, employees need to be in “good health” and function energetically.

Employee involvementTraining is exactly about that. A circumstance where employees can develop their skills and become part of a functional and cohesive team, where they feel included and valued within the context of the whole organization.

Unfortunately, this is not the situation today, and most employees are treated as a cheap commodity.

Employee involvementTraining of the right kind can change this situation and lead to corporate optimal effectiveness, low turnover, and yes, much, much greater profits.

It doesn’t take much, but what it does take is the type of change management that makes small but important changes at the core and strategic places, the most important of which is teambuilding training.

There are others…please read on.

The Kind of Employee Involvement That is Necessary

Now that you understand what Employee involvement is all about, you are probably asking what kind of Employee involvementTraining would be necessary to get a healthy and successful corporate business – right?

It all comes down to one domain – the domain of Soft Skills, without which you would be hard put to gain an effective workforce.

So here is a list of soft skills training that is required for employees to be fully engaged because without soft skills they may want to, but will not be effective.

It’s important to note that for this to have long term results, the management, and the leadership both need to be part of the training and lead by example, and that would be, by first showing vulnerability-based trust.

Vulnerability-based trust is the necessary ingredient that many leaders fear to use.

It is important to note that when you admit to your weaknesses and take the same soft skill training as your reports, you demonstrate vulnerability-based trust and people trust a leader that admits to weaknesses and pursues training to improve.

So with this in mind here are the 7 steps to building your corporate success through Employee involvement;

1.     Strategic Team Building – A team is not a group. Most people never experienced the real feeling of being part of a team and what it’s like to feel that they are part of a “trust zone”, where they are backed up by their team members, which includes the management and the leadership.

2.     Strategic Thinking – This training is about learning to think about the future before you get there and thereby having a level of preparedness that can deal with difficulties much more effectively.

3.     Emotional Intelligence – Emotional intelligence training is about understanding and implementing the kind of emotions that energize the right thinking and address the motivating human factors.

Matters such as empathy, positive affirmation, demonstrated care and ultimately learning how to tap into the power of positive thinking, which is the most effective business strategy there is (and is mostly not understood). It’s not a touchy-feely thing, it’s a strategy.

4.     Decision Making Process – The decision-making process is a key feature of soft skills training in that it trains people to think correctly, separate facts from fiction, evaluate, include gut instincts and feeling in an intelligent and educated manner to make sound decisions with healthy consequences, long term, and short term.

5.     Creative Thinking – This is about learning to think “out of the box” and become innovative while operating in a business environment that encourages creativity. The environment decides if creativity is welcome or not and this vital soft skill training will demonstrate that fact.

6.     Leadership Training – We are living in times where trust in leadership is at an all-time low. Therefore leadership training should be inclusive of all strata of the organization, for people to hone on their leadership skills, to take charge in whatever they do, to feel responsible and take ownership.

7.     Strategic Communication – one of the most underrated skills is communication. The ability to understand how to communicate and deliver messages in the most wholesome ways that include verbal and nonverbal communication is critical to building a cohesive team.

Communication is a connecting highway between people and allows the flow of uninterrupted traffic and energy.

Gradually, Gradually, Suddenly…

These are 3 smart words that should be taken seriously by organizations and their leadership.

It is in the heart of The Thinking Coach corporate and Leadership training, bringing to life a new paradigm shift of thinking.

If this concept is understood then the organization is healthy and the environment understands and supports growth and progress. You can’t beat people into effectiveness but you can train and support a natural development process where they want to be at their best and contribute wholeheartedly.

Humans Bake They don’t Microwave

It is all a process that builds up gradually, step by step, as employees gain confidence, the connection with the leadership is characterized by mutual trust and confidence, productivity grows, people are happier…

Yes, we humans bake we don’t microwave! We learn and grow slowly but surely (just like a loaf of bread slowly bakes in an oven) and that is the main paradigm shift in thinking and attitude that is required. It should be followed by a level of strategic thinking and strategic planning that is commensurate with the new paradigm.

What The Thinking Coach Corporate Training Can Do For You?

1.     Develop an Employee Involvement Training program that will connect all parts of the organization to be on the same page and develop an efficiency alignment that will guarantee long term success.

2.     Help people feel part of the organization in a committed way through a specific strategy.

3.     Improve morale.

4.     Decrease employee turnover.

5.     Increase personal effectiveness.

We have our finger on the pulse. Our training is always tailored to fit the specific needs of the organization the workforce needs and the nature of the times we live in.

With The Thinking Coach training, you get the benefit of over 25 years of worldwide training and coaching experience and the understanding of what makes professionals “tick”, which translates to exciting hands-on workshop training with a highly productive training environment.

I hope you have enjoyed this article and should you have any questions, comments or are in need of high-level professional training please contact me.

Eli Harari

The Life Coach for Professionals™