Employee Engagement

Bad economic times? Budget Cuts? Layoffs? How do you communicate bad news without damaging employee engagement and morale? Here are some lessons learned:

• Make sure you sit with top executives when they are discussing these matters so you can have first-hand knowledge of the issues involved before attempting to communicate them. If not, then ask for meetings with the leaders who have the critical information to hear from them directly.
• Be aware of the competing pressures on top management regarding these issues. Often there are legitimate concerns about competitors getting information about the financial status of the company and its future plans. There are also concerns about the company's ability to hire top talents during periods of financial problems. There may be other concerns as well regarding stock prices, share holders' action, union negotiations, and other issues that you must be fully aware of so you can strike the right balance in your communication.
• Make sure you never give false, inaccurate, or misleading information. You don't have to give all the information you have if this would do damage, but whatever information you do give must all be accurate and honest. • Employees need to be aware of the challenges the company is facing so they can do their part to help. Describe the challenges in a straightforward way without minimizing them. Describe the organization's plans for meeting these challenges, and indicate confidence in people's ability to rise to the occasion as they have done in the past. Remind employees of past accomplishments to stir confidence and instill hope.
• Finally, the best way to combat major challenges is to engage employees in practical ways to rise above them. This is the time to launch employee engagement initiatives. Invite employees to form teams to brainstorm and implement actions to save costs, eliminate waste, boost efficiency, improve service, or increase revenue. I have seen dramatic changes in the culture, morale, and results when employees are engaged this way. Employees welcome the opportunity to rise to the occasion and feel that they are enrolled in a cause larger than themselves. Done right, an employee engagement initiative can be a vehicle for both organizational revival and personal empowerment and development.

(c) Francois Basili, President of HumaNext and author of the Engagement Communicator Program described on this page.

The Employee Engagement part of the Engagement Communicator Program will show you:

• How employee engagement can be very exciting for managers and employees alike
• Why it produces dramatic results in a short period of time
• Why many initiatives fail and how to do yours right
• How to communicate the idea to generate support
• How to get a large number of colleagues excited about employee engagement
• What training you need to offer to support the initiative
• How to help managers communicate the initiative and create engagement

The program covers the steps, tools, messages, and media you will need to orchestrate an effective communication campaign to launch and support the employee engagement process:

• The communication campaign: Messages, Media, Audience
• The fundamental shift in the role of communicators that will be required to effectively communicate the engagement initiative.
• How to lead the process of creating and articulating vision and values for the initiative
• Use of Social Media to support engagement: Wikis, blogs, Twitter, social sites, others
• What managers need to know and do to inspire and communicate employee engagement
• How best to communicate what’s happening

This powerful communication training fills a critical need long felt by communication professionals, as well as operational managers and department heads in many organizations.

The Manager as Communicator helps managers to:

• Understand the relationship between communication and performance and the importance of the manager's role as communicator.
• Understand the key elements of the organization's strategy and learn the most effective ways to communicate them to employees.
• Improve the manager's speaking and listening skills and apply these skills to practical day-to-day communication in work situations on the job.

The program's package comes with a step-by-step Facilitator's Guide, PowerPoint slides, and reproducible Participant Workbook/ Manager's Manual.

Heart & Mind Learning: A New Way to Design and Deliver Training.

• H&ML is a methodology that ensures that your learning events enjoy a number of features that turn ordinary training sessions into extraordinary learning and changing experiences.

Heart and Mind Learning is based on the following "Laws of Learning":

• If you don't arouse the heart, you can't engage the mind.
• If you don't offer inspiration, you will waste the information.
• People don't care how much you know, until they know how much you care.
• HumaNext, the developer of Heart & Mind Learning,  is one of America's most innovative training companies, as evidenced by the depth and breadth of the cutting edge training programs we offer at our web sites.
• We have put the best lessons of our broad training experience in the design of a unique approach to training that we call Heart & Mind Learning, or H&ML.

H&M Learning enables training professionals, communicators, coaches, and consultants who want to take their learning events’ design and delivery to the next level.

• For a limited time, when you order the Engagement Communicator Program you also get the benefit of a review of one of your work projects in the areas of the program by the program’s author Francois Basili.
• You may send us one of your work projects in any of the areas of the program, for our review and recommendations of improvement.
• This way you get the benefit of an outside objective opinion of an engagement expert to guide you toward improving your work.

• The Engagement Communicator Program may take from three weeks to three months to complete depending on your own pace. At the end, you will be asked to complete a few Assignments / Questionnaires, after which you will receive a Certificate of Completion.
• If you do not do the assignments, you will still receive all the materials and webinars to use for your work or for consulting business, but you will not receive a Certificate of Completion.

If you have any questions please contact: service@humanext.com  

The Engagement Communicator Program Covers the Following: 

1. Developing “Employee Engagement” Communication Process and Training Program

• A complete Facilitator’s Guide with step-by-step instructions on developing and conducting an effective “Employee Engagement” process and training program to inspire employees and enroll them on the side of the organization to achieve extraordinary results.
Access to a recorded webinar to listen to the program’s author explaining the key aspects of the process, the challenges you are likely to encounter and how to manage them.
A complete set of PowerPoint slides to use when communicating the process and delivering the training, accompanying you in every step of the way.

2. Delivering “Manager as Communicator” Training and Kit

• A complete Guide with step-by-step instructions on developing and delivering an effective “Manager as Communicator” training program where managers can be trained to communicate the organization’s strategic objectives, listen to employees’ concerns, answer questions, and inspire commitment.
• A complete set of PowerPoint slides to use when delivering the training to managers, accompanying you in every step of the way.
• A Manager's Communication Manual to use by managers during the training and afterward as a rsource.

3. Developing and Delivering Great Learning Events

• The Complete Heart & Mind Learning program offering you a methodology for developing and delivering more exciting and effective learning events and training workshops.
• A set of PowerPoint slides covering the key points of the program.
• The programs helps you with the design and delivery of the training parts of both the Employee Engagement and the Manager as Communicator programs.

Order Now to Save $200 - Regular price of the Complete Engagement Communicator Program is $1395. Order Now for $1195