According to a Gallup survey, employees are feeling burned out, at least sometimes and more often than not, disconnected from company purpose.
Constant changes in strategic priorities and adjusting to new hybrid ways of working has increased the need for effective internal communications (IC). If businesses communicated with employees like they do with customers, engagement would soar.
Transforming IC with a marketing mindset nurtures an authentic culture of belonging and empowers staff to be the company’s greatest ambassadors. So, based on my experience and current thought leadership from global communications experts, here are five things IC teams and managers must do to engage employees.
Think like a Marketer. Adopt marketing best practices to engage employees. The best businesses are already perfecting the art of inbound marketing. They’re running meticulously structured campaigns and providing timely scheduled content that’s more specifically targeted to both internal and external audiences. As such, they are closing the gap between customer and employee experience and building powerful emotional connections with key stakes around their purpose and vision.
If content is King, then context is Queen. Digital marketing analysts say we’re exposed to 4k-10k ads every day. For IC to compete, it has to offer value. Placing the right content in front of the right audience at the right time is only half the battle. It must also solve a problem, offer a solution, or provide critical information to get attention. IC teams therefore also need to master their channel strategy to meet people where they work, and consume content, to make sure employees engage with your message.
Be the Guardians of Quality & Accuracy. The 2022 Edelman Trust Barometer revealed businesses have become the most trusted source of information. As people’s trust in media, government and social media hits an all-time low, the IC team must embrace its role as the guardians of information quality, ensuring accuracy and relevance through proper governance and prioritizing review cycles.
Put a Premium on Personalization. Content is most engaging when it provides value, therefore relevancy is key. Employees expect the same value and relevancy from internal communications as customers expect from external campaigns. IC must therefore focus on targeting and personalization, in the same way commercial teams approach their prospects. Building out personas from demographics within the global workforce can help tailor content and create targeted communications that resonate with diverse groups of employees.
Level-up Employee Experience. General marketing wisdom says it takes at least seven touchpoints before someone acts. Today, marketing departments can call upon automated campaign technology and company IT departments have historically overlooked internal communications in their software budgets. Engagement Automation is already changing this, and the same campaign-building technology that’s benefitted customers must get behind the firewall at long last to encourage employee engagement.
Bottom line, it’s about storytelling.
Marketers find problems their target customers experience and sell the story of how their products solve that problem. Brand marketers craft brand stories. Account-based marketers zero in on target customers and sell them a personalized story. Content marketers create content that speaks to prospects with - you guessed it - stories.
If IC can learn anything from marketing, it’s that stories speak louder than generic information. Employees, after all, are people. And people love stories.
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