To have the best chance at accomplishing your vision, it's important for everyone from the C-suite to frontline employees to understand the business. As new technologies develop and evolve, business models can become very complex and specific, making it hard for individual employees to see what their whole company is trying to achieve — and how they fit into it.
By providing and reinforcing some key elements of the business, employees will have a better understanding of where the company is going and how they contribute to it, leading to better buy-in and higher quality of work. Use these tips to help employees understand the business.
Employees don't need to understand every nuance of how employees in other departments do their jobs, but it's important that they have a fundamental understanding of what the pieces in the company are and how they contribute to the end goal.
Include helpful graphics like the org chart or process diagrams that show how the company interacts with clients from first contact through service or product delivery. Help them see how different parts of the company are responsible for different parts of the process, and how the work might flow from one group to the next. Of course, showing them where their role fits into the whole is the most important part of helping employees understand the business.
Employees in support functions might have been with you for years, but still may not be familiar with some of the technical terminology that's fundamental to operations — and they might be afraid to ask about it. Similarly, entry-level employees and mid-level managers may have a great handle on what their department does, but might be less attuned to other departments or functions.
If your business model is particularly complex, it's helpful to give your employees across the organization a steady diet of communications that explain and reinforce important terms and concepts related to your business. Even if it seems obvious to you, include basic explanations of some of the key terms and industry-specific acronyms when you use them in your communications to help employees understand the business. Or you can provide more extensive content about each of your departments, products and services to employees through the intranet.
Many of the leaders in your company have earned their standing by being strong communicators. Use their voices to connect the dots for employees. Oftentimes, the messaging that leaders have used to persuade clients, investors and other high-level leaders is the same kind of easily digestible content that can make difficult concepts click into place for employees.
Executives might consider sharing tailored versions of their client pitches with their employees in order to help them understand the business needs and solutions that your company deals with, or they could be involved in strategic articles for company newsletters.
Ultimately, once employees know what you're trying to do on a day-to-day basis, it's important to show them how that aligns with your long-term goals. If you've communicated your vision well, it's hopefully something that they've bought into, so connecting their actions today with the future of the company is something that motivates them to push forward.
Want to improve employee buy-in on the vision? Tribe can help.
