Having a happy workforce has a direct impact on your bottom line. When your employees are happy, you will get great results. You need to create an atmosphere where everyone feels aligned with the values and ethos of the organization. In short, aligning your workforce implies that everyone looks at the bigger picture while understanding the role they need to perform to achieve the organization’s goals.

 

What is workforce alignment?

Ensuring that every employee understands the purpose and goals of the organization, including their specific role in it, will result in workforce alignment. The success of an organization depends on having the right set of strategies and being able to execute them flawlessly. An unaligned workforce will never be able to get the execution right.

 

How to align the workforce with your business objectives? 

 

• Leverage diversity and inclusion:

A workplace with people from different backgrounds, races, and cultures, will have different perspectives on everything. It will refine the business’ outlook on how things get done. But before that, you need your team to respect their differences and have the temperament to understand each other.

A simple team bonding experience can do the trick at times. A diverse and inclusive work environment will keep your employees happy. Employees value work culture and environment as much as they care about their salaries. Offer a great working environment if you want to keep your best talents.

 

• Have a smart recruitment strategy:

‘Hire fast and fire fast’ will only increase the insecurity of your employees. You must have a recruiting strategy that takes time to choose the right person for the job and the organization’s culture.

Have a structured interview so that you can hire objectively. Streamlining your onboarding process increases efficiency, and you can cultivate the right employee expectations.

 

• Use technology for transparency:

Technology is not a solution per se, but it can be a great enabler in creating alignment. You don’t have to use expensive tools to get your work done. It is even possible to keep the work aligned using a simple spreadsheet.

Here are some of the best project management tools you can use: Asana, Jira, and Zoho Projects. Check out their features and see if they align with your expectations.

 

• Be ready to change strategy or policy whenever needed: 

When you spend time understanding the underlying issues and their subsequent solutions, implement them without further ado. Having a team that monitors such work is where change management can bring about a much-needed difference.

Here are strategies on how you can be a flexible organization:

• Identify the leaders who would be making important decisions.
• Gather inputs from different departments in the organization.
• A solid communication plan defines your audience, goals, milestones, and channels.
• Have an achievable timeline.

 

• Analyze the organization’s development and structure:

When you dive deep into understanding how your company works, you will find improvements required that would never have been discovered otherwise. Along with identifying the problems, you need to come up with solutions. Most organizations avoid comprehensive organizational analysis because they only invest in uncovering the issues, not finding answers. This can be counter-intuitive as finding more problems only demotivates the employees.

 

• Employee engagement activities:

Keeping your employees engaged is extremely important. Those who feel engaged will feel excited about coming to work and contributing to the organization. There are several activities you can indulge in to boost the spirits of your employees– below are a few of them:

• Throw parties to celebrate achievements or at least once every quarter.
• Team lunches are a great way to bond.
• Get involved in games and competitions.
• Have engaging training sessions from experts in your field.
• Team building activities facilitate bonding outside of the workforce.

 

• Help employees achieve their goals:

Employees need support from the organization to get the work done successfully. They cannot succeed in a vacuum. Here are some ways in which you can help employees:

• During the on-boarding process, share the organization’s goals, objectives, mission, and vision in detail.
• Provide ongoing development and training programs to keep them abreast of their subjects.
• Offer the best tools to get the work done.
• Regularly giving them feedback aligns them with the company’s goals.

 

• Have one-on-one check-ins:

Take it from us, one-on-one check-ins are considered one of the best management practices to keep your employees engaged, aligned, and involved with the organization. To achieve this, higher-ups should talk with their direct reports weekly. If the team is small, the meeting can be more frequent.

Before you schedule the meeting, let them prepare for it. Send an email in advance to inform them about the meeting. Mention the agenda of the meeting so that they can bring the necessary information. You can discuss wins and losses during this meeting. The meeting can also be used to examine the priorities for the next week. It will include the strategies to follow, re-focus on the expectations, check on the progress, and so on.

Check the weekly progress made as a part of the meeting. The managers will know where improvements can be made. Keep course-correcting mistakes, if any. The feedback should be actionable so they can take immediate steps to remedy the situation.

 

• Use the right channels for communicating within the office:

If your internal survey shows that your employees do not know your greater goals and vision, you might want to assess your internal communications strategy. One of the main reasons why most organizations and employees are not aligned is because their internal communications strategy is poorly crafted.

A simple answer to it would be to have workshops where you communicate your strategic goals. But what can you do if the organization has thousands of employees? Conducting workshops to reach each of them will be a logistical and organizational nightmare. This is where using the right channels to communicate internally can play to your strengths.

 

• Recognize employee contribution:

No matter how much someone is motivated at work, the need for external validation will always be there, be it the CEO or an executive. At Researchwire, we make it a point to reward and recognize employees for their performance.

When you recognize someone’s work, they will go out of their way to put in the extra effort. It isn’t for the reward, but for the fact that people notice your work. Being acknowledged for your contribution is a certain dopamine booster. When was the last time an employee felt low because they were recognized and rewarded at work? Never, right?

 

Wrapping up:

Proper management doesn’t have to be a product of hours of ideation. You can have a highly engaged workforce by following the simple steps outlined above. By concentrating on every day’s goals and your overall vision, you can align your team correctly. HR professionals and the leadership team should look at employees from different departments to gather all perspectives.