Enabling togetherness
In the face of a global pandemic, it has become clear to leaders of many organisations across the globe that keeping employees connected to the company and its narrative is more essential than ever. With most employees working from home, the necessity to connect is challenging. In a crisis like this, it’s important for leaders to lead, show face and give a clear direction for the future. Transparent communication and active listening are a key part of this.
Social collaboration platforms combined with new ways of working and engaging methods can help unlock these opportunities for leaders. JAM sessions and Challenges, both massive online brainstorm formats, are very powerful instruments to achieve this. Platforms like Workplace and Yammer allow leaders and managers to post a question and potentially everybody in the organisation has chance to reply, share ideas or personal experiences. JAMs and Challenges do not just create a feeling, but the reality of togetherness, enabling employees to find creative solutions during these tough times.
In our latest JAM session with the CEO of one of the world’s largest dairy cooperatives, we had an engaging conversation of over 650 replies within 1 hour. The JAM brought to light individual experiences and learnings of the past few months, as well as valuable employee input for informing the future direction of the company. The CEO asked how the workforce is currently dealing with the very challenging situation with offices being closed and essential parts of their production environment being challenged. Employees from China, who had to face the abruptly changing situation due to COVID19 several weeks earlier than their colleagues in Europe, could share specific solutions and learnings. This helped the operating teams to be better prepared and adopt these suggestions to keep the business running. A common place for global knowledge and experience exchange has been created, just within an hour.
We hope to see more leaders embrace these methods and connect with their employees as we move forward into the new realities of work. Let us know if you want to leverage these instruments for your organisation or get more information about our campaigns. Reach out to us via info@orangetrail.com.
