As a CEO, you make it a priority to keep up with changing trends in today’s workplace. You’ve seen headlines and read articles telling you that Millennials are changing the way work happens—but what does that really mean for you?
In 2015, Millennials surpassed Generation X as the largest percentage of the labor force, according to the Pew Research Center. This is a generation that has grown up with easy access to technology and they expect no less when it comes to their careers.
CEOs will need to be able to keep up or get left behind. Fortunately, a tool you may already have at your fingertips can help you efficiently reach all your employees, including tech-savvy Millennials, ensuring that your vision gets in front of your employees and helping you secure buy-in.
Why Your Messaging Isn’t Turning Into Results
Think about how often you have heard the following from your employees, even your organization’s leaders:
- “Nobody told me about that.”
- “I didn’t know we were changing this.”
- “No one trained us on it.”
When was the last time you held a meeting where you clearly articulated your priorities, explained why they mattered and what you wanted to see happen, but nothing changed? Last month? Last week?
If you’re like many CEOs, that can be traced back to a breakdown in communication at some point down the line. Breakdowns in communication mean that time and money are wasted, and can even contribute to potential compliance issues. Far from being tried-and-true, traditional methods of communication are contributing to poor outcomes for too many businesses.
Emails can go unopened or buried in an inbox. Paper memos are outdated and easily lost. The information learned in a conference call can be quickly forgotten. One-on-one meetings can be exceptionally useful, but they’re not designed to help you get information and messaging out quickly to your staff. And massive group meetings can leave lots of unresolved questions.
Reach Your Employees Directly, Efficiently and Effectively
When you want to communicate your vision, quality standards, company news or other leadership priorities, you don’t have to rely on traditional methods of communication. A learning management system (LMS) can fill the gap left by traditional communication.
Once known as a tool for trainers, today’s LMS positions CEOs to navigate the communication expectations of the millennial workforce hungry for purpose, vision and feedback. Your role is unique, and in an environment where CEO ratings are increasingly becoming a part of the discerning job seeker’s decision-making process, having a direct line of communication to your employees can go a long way.
How might you use an LMS to communicate your priorities to your staff? A simple video recorded from your phone and uploaded into the LMS opens up a range of possibilities.
- Communicate your strategy. Let employees know when you are implementing a new strategy or reaching milestones, and help them see the impact their work has on the company as a whole.
- Gain a greater influence in employee development. Particularly in the development of management, LMS provides you the opportunity to share your goals and visions in your own words with the people who will help you implement them. A robust LMS also allows you to determine who has viewed your videos and who may need a reminder.
- Promote the value of compliance. The way that leadership approaches compliance (especially when it comes to changing regulations) can cause either suspicion or security among your employees. An LMS can also provide data on employee completion of compliance-related material, so that potential weak spots can be addressed before a compliance issue actually arises.
- Secure employee buy-in and feedback. Your company’s vision and mission statements were created to be implemented, not forgotten. Helping your employees understand why these are important can help improve buy-in and even engagement among your employees. If you want feedback from your employees, a brief video explaining why their opinions matter on the subject followed by a survey can help you increase employee engagement in these instances.
Too many CEOs realize the importance of having a learning culture—both for developing employees and attracting the right kind of employees—but fail to see the crucial role they play in developing that culture.
A tech-dependent work force means that today’s CEOS need to find more sophisticated and efficient means of communicating their priorities to employees. Having a robust LMS can help you share your vision and your priorities with all of your employees without going through an inefficient chain of communication.
CEOs will either adapt or get left behind as the workforce evolves. Using an LMS to communicate with your employees ensures that you maintain a direct influence on the implementation of your business strategy, even as the expectations of your workforce changes. Will you be on the cutting edge of innovation—or stuck trying to catch up?