Contrary to popular belief, listening is an incredibly complex skill to master. Almost all relationships in life demand constant listening attention and your relationship with your workforce is no different.
Leadership challenges keep changing with the time. There is no doubt that tools to provide actionable insights to lead the workforce have evolved over the years but so has the workforce. The way people used to interact, communicate and collaborate has changed and it will keep changing with time. One thing that has remain unchanged is the question “Are you listening to me?” ; no need to say that it’s a question from an employee, it was always there and will be there for years to come.
How this question is asked varies. Some employees are vocal enough to ask this question directly, some prefers their action speaks for them whereas some prefer both action and words. Regardless, you need to master the skill to not only listen to the spoken but also the unspoken.
It’s the listening capability of an organization that provides it with the array of activities to perform to keep their workforce motivated. It’s an absolute necessity to listen to your workforce and this gives birth to various product offerings. You need to leverage these offerings in place to know how well you are managing your talent.
Perfection will come from your connection with your workforce. Strong information gathering skills will not help unless you have a strong foundation of trust in place so that your workforce gets an answer back that “Yes, we are listening not only to reply but to understand you and we are getting into heart of every conversation ”. Everyone should get this answer back not just the privileged few… Do you agree?
Originally posted on Oracle HCM: Modern HR in the Cloud
Journey... 