How your Company’s Stories Increases Employee Engagement.
As companies grow, it can happen that the company story, message and culture becomes diluted, confused or even lost if not managed correctly. Equally the stories of the people that shaped your company can also be lost.
Your company story can simply be a chronology of events in the past based coupled with your ambition for the future. What shaped you, what is shaping you now?
A powerful story makes managing team much easier as you have something to hold people accountable to other than yourself. A strong story greatly assists in attracting good people into your organisation. A weak company story can often cause good employees to leave as they feel directionless within your organisation.
To create an excellent company story, make sure that your story on the past is the trust and make sure that your story or vision for the future reflects the work that you do in the manner that you aspire to. Making up a story full of lies does not work. There is additional power in telling your story as well. It causes your team to share their story as part of the process because they are so involved.
Communication is an integral part of engagement; shared stories are a useful tool in promoting this.
81% of those surveyed agreed communication with their employee’s helps them do a better job. Orc International (2016)
It can really fuel the imagination of employee’s, helping a business stand out. What better way to humanise a company than to use stories from those most closely involved.
Having a narrative does not guarantee its use. That said, it is more likely to be used if it reflects the values and beliefs of those it is used by.
Good corporate stories help increase employee loyalty and encourage employees to promote a company’s claims.
It’s worth noting, storytelling is effective in employee communication and encourages employees to communicate.
There is little point in spending large amounts of money putting together a narrative no one within the company either took part in or understands.
So, use those it is aimed at to create a narrative they can aspire to and more importantly achieve.
If you would like to find more about this in the meantime, get yourself along to www.derekodwyer.com where you can book onto a FREE 90-minute workshop to show you what to do and you can also order yourself a FREE Employee Engagement survey. Alternatively call us on 087 2220720 to find out more.
Best Regards
Derek O’Dwyer
Employee Engagement Coach.
