You’ve heard the horror stories of employees with terrible bosses, you’ve spent hours hoping you weren’t that boss and not knowing how to tell if you did something wrong. The truth is, it’s a lot more effective to focus on what you can do to make your employee’s lives better. So to help you do that, we’re starting the Employee Diaries.
What They Are:
These are stories from Grow Disrupt employees, highlighting the things that Stephanie has done that made their lives easier as employees and helped them find ownership in their roles within the company.
This Week: Susannah Scheller, “When Stephanie took Employee Communication to a Whole New Level”
You know how sometimes, someone you know does something that blows you away because it tells you how much attention they pay to you? Like when they go out of their way to word a text just right, or leave the towel on the rack exactly how you like it? You know how amazing that makes you feel? Well, you can do that in the way you communicate with your employees!
Let me explain with a story...
Anyone who knows me, knows that I’m an organizer and planner. I don’t like to fly by the seat of my pants, and I adore to-do/done lists as well as detailed SOP’s (Standard Operating Procedures). As an employee, I love it when someone communicates in a detailed and orderly fashion.
Recently, Stephanie ran a meeting with me and a co-worker to do some onboarding for a new client. What I didn’t realize during the meeting was that it was an overview of the onboarding process. In fact, about half way through the meeting I got terrified because there were a lot of generalizations and “You’ll be doing this task.”
My communication style, as an employee, began to fritz out a little as I tried to wrap my head around doing this job without any of the exact details that I prefer to work with. Stephanie saw it.
Instead of getting irritated or frustrated that I got a “Deer in the headlights” look in my eyes, Stephanie asked if I was ok and reassured me that there would be more detailed onboarding for this project. She reminded me (She’d told me before and I’d just plain forgotten) that this was just a bird’s eye view of the job, and that we’d work on training as the weeks went on.
She understood the importance of how to communicate with your employees, and put effort into making it happen.
She knew that I don’t function/perform at my peak level without specific instructions, and planned out in advance to give me the tools I need to perform at my best. It was like having someone remember the little details about you all over again (she’s done this before!), and it did more than just help me perform at my peak level. It reminded me of how much she cares and made me feel just a little bit special that she works at remembering the little things about how I communicate.
When you understand how to communicate with your employees on their level, you do something incredible.
You draw the best out of them, and enable them to perform at their peak level.
Wondering where to start?
I would strongly encourage you to get started on some form of communication-style assessments (We use DISC) to begin to understand how to communicate with your employees. Once you begin to understand how they naturally communicate, you can begin to communicate efficiently and effectively with your team!
About the Author:
Susannah Scheller is the Technology Director and Engagement Curator for Grow Disrupt, and was the first permanent hire made by Stephanie! She has spent countless hours studying the world of business under Stephanie, and has over 5 years of experience in content creation and Technology Execution. Having recently completed her Bachelor of Music, she has begun devoting her focus to the creation of content that helps to support small business owners’ company growth the world over.