Meetings are essential for business, though studies suggest that they are often unproductive and inefficient. The Harvard Business Review states that 71% of senior managers said meetings are unproductive and inefficient. Remote and hybrid working has prompted organisations to search for solutions, in order to improve the efficacy of meetings and enhance wellbeing.

Successful companies nurture a culture of creativity, transparency, ideas-sharing and continuous dialogue with their workforce. Studies show a link between employee voice and organisational culture and have highlighted the probability of cultural values affecting how employees express themselves. More recently, insights regarding employee voice have been integrated with other research areas, included high performance working practices and organisational behaviour to understand how to best optimise employee voice.  

Meetings can provide a formal and an informal means of eliciting ideas and insights from employees, which can have a substantial impact on the overall organisational culture. Meetings promote accessibility and visibility. Best of all, they can build relationships and cultivate an environment of trust. 

Different meetings enable different forms of employee voice. Examples of these include: 

• One-to-one meetings – to strengthen relationships and build trust.
• "Huddle" meetings - defined by Indeed as 'brief but frequent meetings.'
• Onboarding – to establish expectations, values and understanding.
• Brainstorming – to collaborate and creatively generate ideas.
• Department meetings – to build a sense of connectedness between employees operating in and with closely related teams.
• Kick-off project meetings – to set out goals, give clarity, and establish a mode of regular. feedback.
• Post-project meetings – to revise successes and challenges.
• Organisation meetings – to increase engagement from senior leaders with all employees. 

For more effective meetings, consider the following:

• Establish clear roles and responsibilities for the meeting.
• Set out mutual requirements and expectations.
• Be clear about the aim of the meeting, as well as any related policies.
• Share knowledge to maximise informed voice.
• Ensure timely action in response to feedback.
• Secure leadership accountability for creating healthy, safe environments for voice. Make sure leaders practise active listening.
• Communicate regularly and follow up consistently after the meeting. See Case study 1 below.

During organisational meetings at Boots UK, senior leaders create time on the agenda for an in-depth Q&A session. Employees are given the facilitating director’s mobile number and encouraged to text their questions in advance of the Q&A. Sufficient time is given for individual reflection. 

This removes the pressure from employees to speak in an open forum and protects anonymity. The outcome is often very open and honest feedback. 

Senior leaders then review the questions that come in and openly acknowledge the emerging themes. These insights are then shared with the relevant teams for resolutions or ongoing monitoring. 

Technology continues to evolve to support better communication and working relationships, especially when employees are not working face-toface on e regular basis. Employee apps can make a difference to internal communication, especially in reaching non-office-based employees. Ideally, such apps should be optional rather than mandatory to use. However, if employees are clear about the purpose of the app and are made aware of the impact it has, voluntary usage is likely to increase. 

With widespread access to mobile devices, an employee app is an ideal tool to reach employees wherever they are. The potential benefits and uses include: 

• Communication with employees who are not desk-based – driving awareness of what’s happening both locally and company-wide; it can also help build cross-departmental communities.
• Sharing of time-critical communications – including announcements or push notifications on health and safety alerts, and other information such as business continuity plans, organisation charts and employee contact details.
• Gathering real-time reactions from the workforce, such as via pulse surveys.
• Sharing of content ‘on the go’, cultivating authentic employee voice. 

Most employee apps have the following capabilities: 

• Cloud-based, and easily accessible from any mobile device (company or private).
• Fast, user-friendly and easy to navigate.
• Engaging design (many have a design functionality similar to popular social media platforms).
• Employees can put questions directly to senior leaders;
• Pulse surveys can be carried out easily;
• Increased participation at employee events – for example, live surveys or voting;
• Fundraising can be facilitated;
• Collaboration is easy – for example through a digital suggestion box;
• The app can host CEO or senior leader blogs;
• A digital employee handbook can be made available and easily kept updated;
• The homepage can have live news or a social media feed from the company’s Twitter or Instagram account.

The effectiveness of employee apps can be maximised by: 

• providing good content that is constantly changing – this is key to making an employee app attractive;
• tailoring the content to your audiences – this enables you to build engagement. Employees have a far greater interest in the information that affects their immediate working environment and everyday work. This includes local site news, team charity activities, or even community-sharing, where they can see and hear about activities their peers are involved with;
• encouraging employees to give their feedback and transparently communicating how their input will be used – enable different departments or teams to easily create, share, comment and like the content subject to community guidelines;
• ensuring new employees are given access early – ideally before or during their induction – so they can immerse themselves in the organisational culture during their crucial early stages;
• enabling regular two-way communication by making it easy for employees to give and receive feedback. This will help the organisation to innovate, improve and develop quickly;
• promoting HR processes – an app may be useful for facilitating HR processes, such as encouraging employees to own and manage holiday requests, shift planning and even performance check-ins with their people managers
• maximising multimedia for better engagement – short videos with simple explanations will often build engagement. Use the app to bring stories to life and better explain the company’s vision, mission and values, or even its strategic goals
• senior leadership showcase videos – hosting videos from CEOs and project managers on the app helps colleagues to know their leaders. Most videos could be filmed with a phone camera – the more authentic the look and feel, the better
• encouraging interaction – increased interaction on the platform will improve engagement and positively impact your organisation’s culture.

See Case study 2 for how Yorkshire Tea used an app to increase employee engagement. 

At Yorkshire Tea, one of Europe’s biggest tea manufacturers, managers need to be able to communicate with a diverse workforce that includes employees working at locations from their head office to factories and retail outlets across the globe. 

Evolving from traditional emails and newsletters, the company has witnessed a big increase in employee engagement and an amplification of employee voice. 

Via the app, employees are provided with the capability to organise events and participate in polls, as well as see who is ‘employee of the week’. The buy and sell trading section of the app has also become a popular informal way for employees to engage with one another.

The app has provided frontline employees with a digital identity through a simple, portable means of reaching staff, with hundreds of staff using the platform daily to receive targeted content, post and connect.

Focus groups can give a richer set of insights than you may get from a survey, as they delve deeper to uncover detailed information. Focus groups should be used to identify important issues that can then be explored further through surveys or wider studies with a larger representation of the workforce. 

The benefits of holding employee focus groups include:

• Being able to pick up on non-verbal cues vital to your research.
• Gaining insight from a diverse cross-section of employees.
• Gaining an understanding of the link between behaviours and beliefs – this can be useful when launching a new product, system or service. 

Tips for holding effective focus groups include the following:

• Consider in advance what will limit voice and what will stimulate it – ask clear questions to facilitate dialogue and learn about employees’ opinions. Then use those findings to shape campaigns or launches.
• Select a representative sample from across the organisation – an ideal focus group should comprise a cross-section of employees representing different employee groups and diverse backgrounds. Before selecting employees for a focus group, think deeply about who you are trying to reach.
• Ideally, the focus group should consist of 12–15 employees to one facilitator.
• Inform attendees in advance of the topics to be discussed and preferably make attendance optional, rather than making their attendance mandatory.
• Check that attendees can take time away from their work – ensure the timings of the focus group work for the business.
• Provide refreshments – a useful incentive is to offer snacks or even a buffet. It also encourages a communal atmosphere among attendees.
• Make sure there is an icebreaker – as it is likely those attending will not know each other. This can be fun and whacky, whatever might set the right tone for your employees and topic.
• Address confidentiality – an overview of issues discussed at the focus group can be shared, if appropriate, in a way that doesn't identify individuals. Ensure attendees agree not to reveal who said what once the focus group is over, unless explicit agreement is obtained.
• Use interactive activities to encourage people to contribute to discussion; this could entail:
  • working in small groups to discuss a question – sometimes big group discussions can be intimidating
  • using Post-It notes or a mind map wall, so people can put ideas in writing. This ensures that even quieter employees have the opportunity to share their ideas. 
• Produce a story board or a poster to visualise the ideas generated.
• Use tools such as root cause analysis, including the Five Whys (a technique to determine the root cause of a problem by repeating the question ‘Why?) – to delve into themes, particularly where a focus group is a follow-up to a survey.
• Use video-conferencing facilities – if the focus group is remote, platforms such as Zoom have some great facilities, including breakout rooms for smaller discussions and an interactive whiteboard.
• Have a note-taker present – this enables a facilitator and participants to focus on the discussion and ideas.
• Ensure attendees know what the next steps are following the focus group and keep them in the loop.
• Consider using SMART targets to create a more meaningful and achievable action plan. Involve the attendees in setting and committing to actions, where appropriate.
• Ensure accountability for delivering an action plan drawn up in the focus group – consider asking members of the group to be ‘sponsors’ of the actions.
• Increase awareness – tell the wider business about the outcome of the session. With the agreement of attendees, you could post a photo from the focus group on the intranet or company social platforms.
• Gain management/business leader feedback on the outputs of the focus group. It is key they are seen to acknowledge employee input. 

For more tips on running employee focus groups, see section 18 of Engage for Success’s Employee Voice Guide 

See case study 3 for how British Gas used focus groups to influence and evolve its culture.

As part of a programme of change, British Gas conducted several focus groups to find and recognise examples of existing behaviours that already embodied the culture they wished to create.

This was part of a wider employee engagement programme that aimed to tackle low engagement scores resulting from poor and decentralised communication.

The campaign also engaged “influencers” from across the business who acted as employee voice champions and ran “Make a difference” events. Managers took part in a festival and received training in leading engagement.

The level of employees agreeing that they had opportunities for their voice to be heard increased significantly following these initiatives.

Employees have the right to request that their employer informs and consults them about issues in the organisation. Refer to the CIPD guide for a detailed view of employee consultation. 

Employers should consider the following good practice for employee forums:

• The purpose of the employee forums should be clearly defined.
• Involve nominated forum members to set out the forum’s remit and agree member responsibilities.
• Once the remit and responsibilities of the forum are confirmed, share them with your workforce.

A company intranet can empower employee voice by making it visible and promoting knowledge-sharing within an organisation. Employers can optimise the impact of their intranet by:

• sharing details of upcoming focus groups, town-hall-style meetings or virtual collaborations
• making it user-friendly, so interested employees know how to participate
• having a private space for forum member resources – this can include information tools, workshops, or training sessions. 

See Case study 4 for how oil and gas company Shell have used their company intranet to effectively engage employees and create value.

The five communication channels described in this guide are by no means exhaustive. If an organisation is prepared to implement some of these fundamental frameworks to support voice, it will go a long way to creating opportunities for more of your workforce to have a say in what matters to them. By sharing knowledge, ideas and experiences, we can drive better outcomes for our businesses.

Royal Dutch Shell Plc, more commonly known as Shell, has recognised the importance of engaging its workforce for many years. It uses a variety of formal and informal channels, including webcasts with senior executives, town halls and team meetings, as well as online publications via its intranet.

Shell's ambition for its intranet was to provide employees with the tools to fulfil their contribution towards Shell's vision as well as to make information more accessible and easier to find. This involved moving away from their previous approach of "information overload" which resulted in many pages on the previous intranet remaining unread. Their new intranet eliminated their "excess noise" and includes a "News Central" function that brings together internal and external stories.

By using the intranet to ensure employees have the data and resources they need to empower employees to perform their best, Shell believe their intranet supports both engagement and productivity, as well as supporting talent development.

This guide was written by Rory Campbell (Director and Executive Coach, New Vantage Consulting), Chris Saunders (Engagement Adviser), Kimalee Hallam (Global Communications and Engagement Specialist), Louise Tommasi FCIPD (Chief People Officer, Ideagen Plc) and Susannah Cherry (Employee Engagement Manager, Siemens). 

The guide was reviewed by Professor Helen Shipton FCIPD (Academic, Founder and Co-director, Centre of People, Work and Organisational Practice, Nottingham Business School, Nottingham Trent University). Centre of People, Work and Organisational Practice, Nottingham Business School, Nottingham Trent University).