Five Ways to Engage Employees through Better Communication

Is your communication style winning over your employees and making them want to come work for you every day? Or could you be turning them off with communication blunders you're not even aware of? Effective communication is not always something that comes naturally to managers, but those who do it well make it look effortless.

I recently read an email that a new manager sent to his employees. It was one of his first opportunities to communicate with his direct reports and establish rapport with them. His intent with the email was to communicate to his staff the importance of a new project and to rally the troops to accomplish a tough task with a tight deadline. Here's what he wrote: "This will serve as your only warning about getting this project done." Hmmm. How do you think his staff reacted to that stong language? How many of them felt motivated, and how many do you think went straight to LinkedIn to update their resumes?

Here are five simple things that managers can do to effectively communicate with their employees and engage them in their work.

1. Give them some face time. Whenever possible, make an effort to speak one-on-one with each of your direct reports every day. Take the time to sit down with them, talk about any current projects, and ask how you can support them.

2. Do it in person. Resist the urge to introduce new projects via email. Whenever possible, give directions in person so that you can encourage, motivate and avoid any misunderstandings.

3. Kill them with kindness. Before hitting the SEND button, read your email from the point of view of your staff. Think about the message you're trying to get across. Every email is an opportunity to either build or kill your employees' enthusiasm.

4. Be a reputation builder. Catch your employees doing something good and compliment them, preferably in front of others. This is a great way to use email by sending out a compliment and copying others in the company - particularly the executive suite.

5. Don't waste their time. Respect your employees' time by keeping staff meetings to a maximum of 30 minutes. Have an agenda, don't let topics stray, and schedule follow-up meetings for topics that demand more time.

It may not come naturally, but these simple acts done on a regular basis can help to build a staff that will be loyal, engaged and feel valued.