Catrin Lewis
4 min read
We’re on a mission to make the world a better place to work. If you’re scrolling through our website or reading our blog, this is pretty apparent. Aligning our workforce with our purpose, mission and values is a huge part of my job as the Head of Global Engagement and Internal Communications. But I can’t do it alone, and that’s where our Leadership Team, particularly our CEO Doug Butler, comes into play.
Having a CEO that embraces visibility in leadership and open and honest communication is critical to move the needle on employee engagement.
Put your company values at the center of everything
To help with this, we use themed communication initiatives to inform and educate employees about important company news. In particular, we call one of these “Mission Mondays.” Mission Mondays include a weekly update from our CEO, Doug Butler. He writes a blog post each week (from wherever he may be at the time) and every Monday sends an update to the whole company, which is shared on our employee engagement platform, boom!.
The goal of this is to align and engage our global workforce with important company updates so that everyone feels confident in the direction we’re headed. It’s also a time for leadership to recognize how we’re supporting our mission of “let’s make the world a better place to work,” while demonstrating how we live our values each day.
Doug’s updates are consistently open, honest and transparent. These types of conversational, blog post updates are part of our company culture and are an extension of our company values. For example, our CEO demonstrates his commitment to living our values by thinking global, being human, owning it and speaking up. Reading these updates sparks necessary conversations within the office and helps align everyone with the same goal.
Oftentimes, Doug will choose a company value as the theme of his update. When he shares what’s happening with the business, he makes sure to shout out hard work across the business and connect it to the rest of organization so that people feel included, engaged and recognized. In particular, in one of Doug’s updates, he refers to the “Work Hard” value and how it’s not about the hours you work, but about what you achieve in those hours. He acknowledges everyone in the business when he says “I can safely say that Work Hard is a value that flows naturally here at RG, and I cannot imagine anyone here that doesn’t live it every day.”
Another member of the Leadership Team, Robert Hicks, Group HR Director demonstrates open and honest communication with employees as well. In one of his blog posts, he discusses the “Speak Up” value and how it defines a two-way street for communication. Feedback and speaking up are a key part of the culture here at Reward Gateway and help us continue to innovate and stay true to our values. By practicing real-time, two-way communications, employees are able to leave comments on company updates, which speak for themselves...
Keep leadership communications at your fingertips
People can react to the update by leaving a handful of emojis, like applaud, like or love. And if anyone has questions, they can effortlessly leave a comment on the post and Doug will be able to answer it instantly, thanks to the features within the employee engagement platform we use.
With increased visibility, employees trust their leaders more and naturally feel more involved in their role and confident in the organization.
Employee communications help us bridge the gap by breaking down the "us vs. them" mentality that can happen when leadership is too far removed from everyday happenings in the company.
Whether employees are on their commute to work or sitting on their couch after dinner, interacting with leadership is at the tip of their fingers — literally, if they’re scrolling on their smartphone! With a versatile internal communications system, it’s easy for employees to read company updates on-the-go, on any device to stay in the loop.
I’m able to then see engagement analytics on the post, like views or interactions, to gauge how people are interacting with and digesting our content. This helps me form new initiatives to continue engaging our employees in new and innovative ways.
Mission Mondays are successful because they get employees excited, re-energized and re-focused for the week ahead. Employees are re-connected to our purpose and mission and re-educated on what’s relevant to the mission at that time. Plus, employees are kept in the loop and are more informed about what’s to come in the weeks ahead. Receiving communications from the CEO keeps our workforce more connected and more engaged.
People want to work for more than just a day job now. They want a purpose. They want to work for something they believe in that defines them and shapes them as a person.
Making your purpose, mission and values visible, tangible and accessible is the only way you can ensure you've got the right employees on board.
When you bring leadership into your communications initiatives, you’re more likely to connect your workforce to your purpose, mission and values and extend your company values into your culture. So, what’s one thing you can do today to improve communication at your organization?