You can take action!
Signing a commitment agreement and appointing a process coordinator or committee does not alone guarantee a sustained commitment. Far too often these initial measures are quickly forgotten and the process begun falls by the wayside, thus wasting the resources and efforts invested. It is therefore strongly recommended that senior management be provided with regular feedback and progress reports.
Meetings with senior management can be planned right from the start for this purpose:
There are many ways of passing information on to all employees. These mechanisms can be decided upon at the outset and continued throughout the process. These activities can be organized in a communication plan. Regardless, it is important to provide a forum for obtaining employees’ feedback; they must be asked to express their points of view on the process under way.
TIP
Below are various possible strategies that can be used to maintain communication throughout the organization:
- Information points raised during other pre-planned activities in the organization
(e.g. annual general meetings, information meetings);- Public posting of the minutes of the committee meetings (the minutes must indicate the committee members’ names and be posted in a readily accessible area visible to both employees and management staff);
- Mailing of periodic memoranda (memos) to the entire organization;
- Capsules in the organization’s in-house newspaper;
- Creation of an in-house newsletter to keep all workers informed at each step in the process.
- Creation of an in-house newsletter to keep all workers informed at each step in the process.
Certains moments during the process may be timely for distributing these information documents, for example, when:
- the start-up of the process is announced;
- the joint committee is being formed (if all employees are invited to participate);
- the invitation is sent out asking all employees to participate in forming the overview or when the results of the overview are announced;
- the action plan is disseminated;
- the assessment of the implemented measures is presented;
- the effects are evaluated, employees are invited to take part, or the results of the evaluation are announced.