As our workplaces continue to fragment, many workers now feel a greater level of separation from our peers and central organizations than ever before.
The sense of "belonging" has gone. The people we used to work with every day are working different hours, locations or even from home, and we often interact with others on other continents. Where is the engagement that once defined the workplace?
pDERAS, a consulting group offering communications systems, believes that companies must work to develop communication strategies to overcome the diverse nature of today's business - not only to bring the company's message to its employees, but to serve the greater need in gathering the diverse members of a company together into a social community.
The success of a company is in the morale and wellbeing of its employees; the effort must be to transform those workers into members, to ensure higher participation as well as increased employee retention and, thus, a sustainable model in order to build revenue and profit.
Ken Plumb, president of pDERAS, has structured the company's services for this purpose. "It's important that people feel part of the organization they are working for, as well as having the opportunities to get to know and feel comfortable with each other. Organizations must make an effort to share information, whether it is between employees, management or both. Achieving this level of communication can only lead to better morale, higher trust and more care for a positive outcome."
Plumb believes that "celebration is necessary for a company. You can provide employees direction, give them the mechanism to track the progress, and celebrate when it is achieved. I believe that this is a sound way to build trust and dedication from many employees and it will improve overall performance. People do become more engaged and want to help."
Plumb believes bi-directional communication should be ongoing and it must go beyond merely hiring employees with a bare minimum of information: "It used to be that you started a job, you were trained, maybe given a newsletter once a month and that was the extent of the social community."
To change that, pDERAS has created a communication system that builds upon the social community, providing a scenario where the organization will get, give and share information between every stakeholder in the company, regardless of whether they may be working at home or thousands of miles away. The system they offer creates links - through a number of different engaging methods - to enable the sharing of ideas, objectives or applications with the speed of gossip.
The CEWS system is a web-based application assisting with user profiles, directories, information articles, in/out boards, email notification and more, enabling communications within a company to be improved. pDERAS's CEWS application is simple to use, secure and accessible anywhere an Internet connection is available. CEWS can scale to any size of company and is expandable as the company grows.
The CEWS system also allows all employees within the company to identify with the company's goals, purpose and aspirations. Having everyone on board means greater productivity and happier, more dependable employee members.
pDERAS product is defined by the receiver company's requirements, which could mean a system for small businesses or a wider network for large companies of more than 5,000 employees. Handling that sort of volume requires more than a static system that is set up and then ignored. "Even though the system can be updated and maintained by the customer, pDERAS can also step in and take this on for you and help the organization get the most from the tool."
pDERAS continually looks for ways to improve how the CEWS system works and often incorporates new ideas that have been suggested by existing clientele. Since its inception, CEWS has grown from a communications tool that has events, articles and announcements, to incorporating video, whiteboards and employee profiles - all ideas that come from customers.
What is the bigger picture? "We see our service as the Facebook for businesses, where the company's philosophies, viewpoints and direction are always up front to the user," says Plumb. "We want to build strong social communities and encourage higher levels of engagement and therefore an increase in morale."
Through the use of that model, each person within the social network is motivated to encourage others to use the applications available. In that way, applications such as the company discussion forums and whiteboard become popular and the corresponding level of traffic encourages more use and therefore more interest. After that, growth becomes exponential until everyone in the company is involved.
Eventually a point is reached where the employee member of the company identifies the company as well as the time spent with the company as part of their personal space … and that can only be good for business.
For more information, call 1.888.371.6594, email info@pderas.ca or visit www.pderas.ca.
