How Often Do You Talk to Your Team?


employee inclusion

Gilbert Tan, CEO of e2i, believes businesses must involve employees in the organization’s future.

Author: Gilbert Tan

Business leaders can preach about innovation, but without the proper tools it will be difficult to create a culture of innovation and change. You must involve your employees in planning the future of your organisation. A collaborative approach to innovation, instead of a top-down attitude, will result in more ownership and therefore a more sustainable rollout of changes in the company.

Having regular conversations with employees to ensure they understand business needs and why certain changes are taking place is important. Involving employees in the decision-making process will ensure engagement and sustainability of that engagement. It’s easy to introduce new processes, but if you want them to succeed in the long term, employee engagement is critical.

Profit-sharing also can help to boost engagement, as employees will see the direct results of their contribution.

Attracting More Millennials

Millennials look for meaning in the type of industry and jobs they choose. For them, it’s about pursuing value and meaning in a career.

Millennials are very eager to learn, so the pace of learning, as well as how they can learn on the job, is important. Millennials also believe in quality of life — it’s not about slogging in the office from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. or 9 a.m. to midnight day in and day out. Therefore, businesses in the meetings, incentives, conferences, and exhibitions (MICE) industry should review how they pitch an event that may allow for flexible working hours and therefore better quality of life.

Certain events may also appeal to an individual’s value system, and vast amounts of knowledge can be acquired from organising different types of events and experiences and engaging with different types of customers. That sort of job and career will attract millennials.

Skills for the Future

MICE organisations will have to look toward upskilling and reskilling their employees in digitised processes and automation so they are ready for the incoming “Augmented Age.”

At e2i (Employment and Employability Institute), we leverage our tripartite partners to help businesses and workers evolve and encourage them to utilise our mobile learning platform, Uleap Enterprise, where employees can learn at their own pace through bite-sized modules.

However, it is important to note that learning should not stop after a need is met and should be ongoing. When continuous learning is encouraged, workers will be more motivated to innovate and create positive change in the organisation.

We must regularly review business models and employee retention strategies in order to remain viable in the future.

Gilbert Tan is CEO of e2i, an initiative of Singapore’s National Trades Union Congress.

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