Without the why, what’s the point?
Everywhere you look there is someone claiming to know the secret formula to employee engagement, for a small fee you too can gain the magic formula to a satisfied workforce. That is of course, as long as you and your staff have hours of free time to measure the metrics and complete endless tick box exercises to figure out what is happening in your team. Then what happens to all that data that has been meticulously collected and collated? Do company’s share their results? Do they even discuss with their workforce why they are doing it? Without the why, what’s the point?
The only way of engaging employees is to get the team hands on with the company strategy and vision. Many employees don’t know the true reason of what they are doing and have no say in how this can be improved. Bringing this to life enables employees to connect on a deeper level with the company’s vision and strategy and how they are making a difference in the work they do. It also allows workplaces to tap into an often-overlooked asset, front line testers, working with your company’s ‘product’ daily and spotting the issues long before they make it to the analyst’s attention.
Places that have got it right
Recently Collins Aerospace had an incredible evening being recognised for its ‘commitment to employees’ during the Chartered Institute of Personal Development. Not only did they win “Best Employee Voice Initiative” but they were highly commended in two other award categories, Best People Team, and Best Hybrid and Flexible Working Initiative.
They managed this through a series of well thought out actions. The company took a look at how they communicated on all levels across their facility and realised that there were improvements to be made, and as a result they established a number of forums, surveys, and employee engagement events to allow employees to voice their opinions. Taking this approach further could open so many doors for the company, and they will be using their employees’ voices at events to gain insights and ideas into the business. They could even use events to help make strategic decisions in the business by learning from what is happening day to day.
New gen workers are asking for more
And rightly so, retaining employees is more important than ever with businesses facing workforce shortages and inflation, not to mention the rapid changes to the economy that are facing the country. It’s no longer enough to write down buzzwords on a job description, employees are aware of their own leverage and are expecting to be treated as such. Instead of a sea of workers that are easily replaceable, HR now have to treat employees like customers, winning them over and making them stay. If this truly is what is happening, then now is the perfect time to use ideas from how companies communicate with their customers, such as using brand activations and putting them into the internal communication strategy.
What companies could learn from brand activations
Brand activations tend to be hands-on or creatively driven marketing campaigns. A well thought out activation reaches the right audience at the right time and gets people talking about the brand. Now, if the brand is your company, and the people enthusiastically talking about it are your employees, they can not only feel involved but feel proud to be part of the bigger picture.
Paramount’s brand activation
This is exactly what we did for Paramount. To help them launch their sustainability strategy we had to think of a way to excite, inform and inspire their employees as well as get them talking about making a change to help save our planet.
We designed and built a bespoke cardboard set to support the launch which could be used for dual purposes. Firstly, they have used the set for their town hall broadcast, and then it will go on to be used as an evolving installation. Over the course of 10 days the props and printed content on the set will change to reflect a different pillar related to sustainability, to engage and inform their employees of what is happening to the planet they live on, and what steps can be taken as a company and personally to make a difference. Ultimately allowing their employees to have a say in what happens at their workplace, to get involved in improvements and most importantly to understand why their company needs them.
A stronger team is the why!
Information is power, it enables people to understand company policy, the future of the company and ultimately their own future. By letting the team know about changes they will understand the shift in policy and go on to support the business with a comfortable sense of belonging. Make sure your best asset, your people, feel part of your business by creating memorable engaging event experiences.
