Power To The People: How To Engage Your Staff
A disintegrating poster in the kitchen, a lacklustre email from the CEO, powerpoints that have seen better days. More often than not, employee engagement is viewed purely as a box that needs to be ticked, with in-house communication that is repeatedly stale, uninspiring and ignored.
An Overlooked Audience
It doesn’t have to be this way. More pressingly, it shouldn’t be. Like everything else in this game, you’re dealing with an audience. And perhaps one of your most pivotal. Your employees need to be convinced of your brand’s power so they can be fully on board with every project, campaign and marketing initiative.
Engage your employees and you’ve halved your workload because they’re out there driving your initiatives. The key lies in empowerment – making your people feel like they are part of something important, something they can truly get behind.
Finding Your Key Communicators
As a leader, it’s a big ask to get you in front of everyone in your organisation. To reach every member of staff you need to pick your key players – those people you trust who can be targeted to send the message through the rest of the organisation. Team leaders, people with influence and character, you’ll know them. Seek them out, get them on board and start funnelling.
Packaging It Up Right
In-house messaging is sometimes managed by people who don’t necessarily have the marketing skills to drive home the message in a compelling way.
Put trust in creatives here. It’s not about an all-singing, all-dancing design, it’s more about concise wording with a human element to it. If you have an in-house copywriter, utilise their skill for condensing long-winded messaging into something captivating, but also something digestible.
Measurement Is Crucial
What does success look like? Determining the metrics that are important to your business before any activity gets underway is a must. This will probably mean sitting down with the relevant stakeholders across your business and setting goals for engagement.
Will it be a one-off message? Will it be a year-long programme? The great thing about working directly with your people is that you can conduct regular research with them and gain a full understanding of the effectiveness of your comms. Speak to them straight, and take on the good with the bad.
It is my belief that planning staff engagement properly could be the very thing that gives you an edge over your competitors. I’ve seen it time and time again – businesses discounting the effect the right kind of engagement plans can drive. The fact is clarity of intent provides a clear and aligned focus for your entire business. People first, always.