As the workforce continues to evolve and change, it has become increasingly important for organizations to understand the concerns, sentiments, and ideas of their employees. Active listening in the workplace is no longer just an event or annual project; it has become an essential capability for leading organizations. In this article, we will explore why active listening is more important than ever before, and we will provide actionable steps for implementing a continuous listening program in your organization.
Why Active Listening in the Workplace is More Important than Ever Before
Today’s workforce dynamics and labor markets are continually evolving. Remote work, changing employee expectations, and the impact of the pandemic on the workforce have all made it more challenging for organizations to understand the needs of their employees. To overcome these challenges, organizations need to adopt a continuous listening approach. A continuous listening program requires a larger organizational commitment to continuously and dynamically monitor and act on changes in the workforce environment.
Steps for Implementing a Continuous Listening Program
To implement a continuous listening program, organizations must focus on five key areas:
- Gain Executive Support
The first step in implementing a continuous listening program is to gain executive support. Organizations need to validate the resources and investments required to support a continuous listening capability through increased productivity, customer satisfaction, and cost savings or avoidance. This requires investment in tools and technologies that facilitate the collection of data, analysis, and visualization of listening data, individuals with requisite skills to interpret results, and governance regarding data collection and usage.
- Build a Coalition of Internal and External Partners
Bringing in the right stakeholders from HR, Employee Communications, Risk, Legal, and IT, as well as representatives from various lines of business, is crucial to ensure the success of active listening in the workplace. Engaging external technology and survey vendors can also be valuable in identifying external leading practices and new listening approaches.
- Bring in the Right Skills
Organizations need to use individuals with diverse skills such as organizational development, survey design, data science, action planning, and business case development. They need to consider the resource capacity needed along with the most effective internal and external options to source these skills.
- Tap into Collective Insights
Successful workforce listening programs provide important insights into individual concerns and their impacts on organizational performance. They also offer the opportunity for employees to brainstorm together.
- Be Transparent
Employees need to have a clear understanding of how insights will be collected and reported, how the data is protected, how it will be used in the decision-making process, and what actions will be taken based on their contributions.
How to Implement a Continuous Listening Program
- Evaluate Your Current Capacity
The first step in implementing a continuous listening program is to evaluate your current capacity to support active listening in the workplace and the appetite of your workforce to collect insights and provide feedback. This will guide you to approaches that fit your organization and help identify the necessary infrastructure to support it. Then, understand which listening programs are already in place, and grow your workforce listening strategy over time.
- Invest in an Analytics Platform
An employee experience or people analytics platform is an essential element of a workforce listening strategy. This allows for integration of listening data (e.g., census and life cycle surveys) with other data, which is too often siloed. This integration allows for better analyses and results in deeper insights—empowering leaders to demonstrate return on investment more effectively.
- Stay Focused on What Matters Most
The concept of “continuous listening” is relative. Don’t try to measure everything, and prioritize action plans based on what is achievable. Optimize the workforce listening that you have, and focus on the most impactful and valuable insights that align to business and talent strategies.
- Think Ahead and Connect the Dots
Build out a plan to staff and communicate the workforce listening approach. Before you can build an internal listening function, you may need to leverage various HR, people analytics, and communications staff to pull it off. By connecting the dots, organizations can ensure that they are working with the right people, using the right tools and techniques, and delivering the right outcomes.
- Remain Educated
There are many types of active listening approaches and channels to consider. In addition to obtaining quantitative data through surveys, there are qualitative approaches (e.g., focus groups) and passive approaches (e.g., network analysis) that can be leveraged and augmented with natural language processing and artificial intelligence.
In conclusion, active listening in the workplace is more important than ever before, and it has become an essential capability for leading organizations. By implementing a continuous listening program, organizations can gain valuable insights into the needs and concerns of their employees, improve productivity and customer satisfaction, and avoid costly mistakes. To successfully implement a continuous listening program, organizations must gain executive support, build a coalition of internal and external partners, bring in the right skills, tap into collective insights, and be transparent. Additionally, organizations should evaluate their current capacity, invest in an analytics platform, stay focused on what matters most, think ahead and connect the dots, and remain educated. With these steps in place, organizations can create a listening culture that empowers employees, improves organizational performance, and drives value for the business.
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Lee Nallalingham 