One of the complaints we hear from employees at some client organizations is that management doesn't listen to them, and doesn't involve employees in the planning process. Involving employees in corporate and/or departmental planning is one of those sought-after practices that can generate increased profits and improved employee satisfaction, at virtually no cost to an organization. Benefits to the organization include:

• Generation of new ideas to:
  • Increase revenue,
  • Reduce expenses.
• Improved "trust" in management.
• Improved employee perceptions of managerial leadership skills.
• Employees will feel more valued. (This always is critical to employee satisfaction.)

One way to involve employees in planning is as follow:

• Have marketing, strategy, and/or financial people assemble information about the current state of the company, industry, and competitors, including:
  • Market growth trends,
  • Market share,
  • Key competitors' strengths and weaknesses,
  • The company's own strengths and weaknesses,
  • Current corporate mission and strategy,
  • Evoked set of competitors' missions, strategies, and positionings.
• Hold an employee meeting to present this information.
• Ask employees to think about what they have seen. Schedule a later meeting for further discussion.
• In a second meeting, held about one week following the initial meeting, solicit feedback regarding the degree to which employees agree with the facts presented. Identify key issues. Generate a list of priorities. Break into teams, with each team given the charge of addressing one key issue.
• Employee teams should work independently over the next few weeks to further study each issue, and to make recommendations. Recommendations should include a means of implementation and monitoring.
• As recommendations are implemented, successes should be recognized in the company newsletter (or whatever means of communication usually is used to disseminate information).