How To Encourage Your Employees To Share Your Content

Sharing is caring they said but, what to share if your employees do not know about your company's steps, happenings, and plans? 

By creating and sharing content, your employees can add value to your marketing. They can be the voice of your company and, help you to increase your company's visibility and your brand awareness. Unfortunately, in many companies, employees are still underused as a marketing force.

Here, six ideas to encourage your employees to share your content:

1. The first step to increasing your employees’ participation is to share information with them. I know it sounds very obvious but, sometimes, communication can be underestimated in some companies. If your employees don't know what is going on, they cannot help you to spread the news. Make them know what is happening and, encourage them to create and share their own stories.

2. Stop random marketing and create a clear marketing strategy. After this is created, you have to share it with your employees. No excuses! Knowing about your company's future plans and direction will help them to make decisions on what kind of content they can create and share.

3. Create good quality content that at the same time is easy to share. It is important that they feel proud of the content they are sharing. A well-written and visually appealing material has more chances to be shared than a poor one.

Give your employees the chance to create and share their own content

4. Educate your employees to become your brand ambassadors. If fact, you should train them even before they start to use the social media channels. Communication and social media training will help your employees to feel comfortable when creating and sharing content. You might train them, for example, on how to use the channels as well as on how to follow the company’s social media guidelines. As soon as the content start to be shared by them, it will be useful to share best practices among your employees. Make sure your employees are spending time on the right social media channels, based on your company strategies and goals. 

5. Encourage your employees to try new things. It will not only help you to innovate and develop your communication and marketing but, also it will make their fear of saying or doing something wrong disappear and they will be sharing more and more.

6. Take actions yourself as a manager. You could create and share inspiring content and celebrates your employees' social sharing. Be present and engage with your audience.


Be aware that no all your employees will be willing to take part of these activities. That is ok, too. They are not required to act as your company's brand ambassadors so, you cannot force them to do so. On the other hand, it is important to reward those who take on this role. Make them feel valued.

Do you have any other tip? Share your experience.

Are You Ready to Listen To Your Employees?

Every day employees find small problems and challenges at work. However, this is not a bad thing. In fact, each challenge can spark ideas for improvements. Even the simplest idea can have a positive impact on your company performance improving your revenue, your safety and also your employees' engagement rate. 

When you open "the employee's suggestion box" with an open heart and especially, with an open mind, you can make your employees feel valued, therefore, their performance can reach a completely new level. 

Your employees can help you to improve different processes and areas in your company

Are you currently receiving fresh and innovative ideas?

- You have asked your employees for opinion and you have gotten no answer
- You have a suggestion list on your internal system with no marks
- Nobody comments on ways to improve performance
- In team meetings, your employees are mostly silent and agreeing in everything you say. 

It is time to check why this is happening.

Corporate culture for innovation: 
 
In many companies, suggestions seem to disappear into a dark hole. In others, employees with new ideas might be seen as an unfit for the organization. Sometimes, the company's priorities list does not include managing employees' suggestions. Or perhaps they are just "too busy" to improve.  

If you want to properly use your employees' suggestion to improve your company's performance, you need a corporate culture that matches and supports it. It this is not the case at the moment, you must reboot your existing corporate culture. 

Be ready, this is not an easy task.
 
How to work on your employees suggestions: 
 
Evaluate your corporate culture: if you are not receiving fresh and innovative ideas and your employees remain silent when you ask for suggestion, it is time to evaluate your corporate values and rituals. Change those in a way that your new values supports the employees' suggestion experience. 

Create a safe environment for suggestions and input: make sure that your employees feel free to talk about their ideas and point of views. Your employees' collaboration will be better when they feel comfortable providing input without being demeaned.

Be welcome and open for ideas: as each employee is different, you might get ideas, proposals and points of view which are different than your own. If people want to do things in different ways than your way, it does not mean that they are wrong, that they don't know how to do things or that they want to go against you. When you add different approaches to your company actions and processes, you inject richness into your company.

Be empathy: let say that your employee is sharing a solution to a problem he is facing at work but, this problem does not resonate to you, remember to put yourself in this person's shoes and try to understand his situation.

Facilitating spaces for experience sharing:  I have learned so much from the professional experiences of my colleagues located in other units and regions, that I cannot recommend this experience sharing enough. The point is not to imitate the tactics that others are implementing but, to learn from them, take some inputs from the cases and perhaps, adapt and use those inputs in your own activities. Make experience sharing a regular part of your communication and processes. 

Give space to the anonymous: The truth is that not everyone feels comfortable to share the own ideas, however, this does not mean that they have no ideas at all, or that their ideas are invaluable. By giving the chance to share their points of view in an anonymous way, you are getting also another set of ideas and approaches.

Focus on things that add value: positive and constructive criticism is accepted, to be negative and nasty, is not.

Prioritize: you might receive many suggestions and it might feel a bit overwhelming. Talk to your people a select those topics and actions which are more urgent. Make a priority list and go trough the cases according to the list.

Engage people in solving the problems: you don't need to be in charge of solving all people's problem. In fact, you should delegate and engage your employees in solving their issues. Making them responsible of some improvements, will make them more committed.

Follow-up tasks: work together with your employees and create clear plans and deadlines for these improvements. You can, for example, manage those as projects. In this way you can follow up and evaluate the results.




Receiving feedback and suggestion from your employees will help you to develop as a manager and especially, to develop the way your company is doing things. Remember to be open minded and make your employees part of the process. Your employees will feel that their opinions are valued and they can have an impact on changing things to better. If at the moment you are facing difficulties receiving feedback, you might need to transform your corporate culture into one that is open for employees' suggestions and feedback. For that, you need organizational commitment, clarity and ongoing communication

The Corporate Strategy: A Company Secret?

Defining your company strategy is the key to your company success. However, keeping this information to yourself or sharing this to an exclusive circle does not help your organization much. If you believe that your company strategy is a Board of Directors' secret, think twice. Sharing your strategy among your employees is vital for its implementation.
 

Strategy in changing organizations

Companies face multiple situations during their life-cycle. Companies go up and down, celebrate good times and confront adversity. Whatever the situation your company is facing right now, make sure that your employees know well the direction they need to go next. 

Having a solid knowledge of the company strategy will make the employee’s journey easier than without knowing about it. This is even more important when your company is facing changing situations such as grows or expansion as well as reorganizations. If your employees know well where they are going to and what do they stand for they do not need to speculate. They will be able to make decisions by themselves, prioritize and focus on the things that really matter.

  

One of the main goals of communicating your strategy is making your employees part of it. In this way, they will care more about the company and the job they do. 

Communicating your strategy 

 

If you have not communicated yet, go for it, plan a meeting with all your employees to talk about it. Articulate a clear and compelling message about the future of the organization. You can start talking about your company’s current status and continue with the future possibilities. Remember to respect the hard work they have done in the past and appreciate their old achievements. Invite them to move forward. Remember, there will be people who are not ready for changes, so be patient and constant. 

When planning your message, create an inspiring message that is easy to relate to and to understand by your audience. Identify the most appropriate channels to share the message across the organization and to reinforce the message often. Emphasize your company values. Remember that one meeting is not enough. You need to communicate your strategy often.

The way you communicate your strategy has a real impact on you employees’ behavior and commitment. Use the right message to inspire, motivate, and engage. In addition to letting your employees know where the company is going to, make sure that you have clear plans on how to go there.

Employer Branding Has No Holidays

Each company, from startups to corporations, should invest in creating the right perception of their organization. It is not only about creating catching recruitment ads or paying the highest salaries in the market; it is more about taking care of the diverse processes which involve the company and the employee even before this person is hired.  

Summer employees, an investment. 

At least in Finland, summer employees are common figures in many organizations. They come to substitutes some people and to help when the regular employees are taking their annual leaves.

We know that a summer job is a great opportunity for any employee to gain experience and develops his/her skills. For the company, this is a fantastic chance to create the "right employee for the future" and to show them all the opportunities they might have in the organization. But, what happens when the summer employees are abandoned on the new role? Or when the induction is poor because “they will be working for us only couple of months”?

Well, the truth is that employer branding has no summer holidays. Keep in mind that if you decide to take an employee to help you during the summer, you need to be committed to take care of this person. If things work well, the employee might want to stay in your organization, might get very motivated to continue developing his/her skills and even recommend this place to his/her school classmate and friends. However, if things are handled poorly during this period, the employee's results might be unsuccessful and he/she might not be willing to come back to the company. You all are losing your time (and your money).

Taking care of your employees: 

If you are having summer employees this year, remember these basic things to consider when the person comes to the company: 

- Prepare the initial paper work. Make sure that your employee has the contract, work permissions and all the documents that are needed to start the job.

- Arrange the tools which are needed for the role e.g. a working place or desk, computer with proper software, office keys, ID cards, uniforms, safety equipment, appropriate clothes, cellphone, etc.

- Arrange the appropriate orientation for the hires. In addition to the proper training related to the job, you should have some training on the company and the industry. Remember to show the place where this person is going to work and introduce him/her to the team and other units. If you are counting on somebody to take care of the training, you need to make sure that this person is available during the summer or at least during a reasonable amount of time. List the things the new employee needs to learn and schedule the training. Remember to let some "extra air" just in case the training takes longer than expected. Based on my own experience, I recommend you to plan some "training review" few weeks after the initial training in case the employee has some questions or doubts. You cannot digest all the information at once.  

- Describe the role clearly and agree together on the tasks and goals. Especially if you are having young employees who are working for first time, you might want to offer some structure to the job. It will be useful to clearly share what does this person need to do, when does he/she need to get it ready, as well as how the results are going to be measured. If needed, define the processes and tools that employees should use to get the job done. 

- Make sure that you deliver the information to the other units, too. This might be very useful if for example, you need to get email accounts open by another team and salary payed on time. 

- Offer the right challenges to the right people and if your summer employee develops quickly, remember to offer tasks in which he/she can develop even more. For many students, the point of getting a summer job is to find out their real interests and passions, to learn more, and to develop their skills. If the job is not challenge enough, they might move forward to another role just after the summer. 

- If you find the diamond, try to keep it. If you have the resources and the need to hire somebody after the summer period, make sure you are retaining the top talent on time. Do not wait until the last minute to inform him/her that you want him/her to continue. You just invested your time and your money, so make the most of it.

-  If you need to let go your summer employees, prepare suitable exit programs which will give the best impression of your company. It is recommended to have exit interviews with your employees. You can get constructive feedback to develop your processes in the future. Make sure that you deliver all the documentation needed for the exit such as payments receipts and certifications. 

- Remember to communicate often. Make sure that things a clear and this person receives support during this working period.