The Communicator

Employee engagement has never been so critical. Across the board, workers are feeling a deep sense of insecurity and anxiety. Those lucky enough to have kept their jobs have witnessed friends, neighbours and colleagues lose theirs, seemingly without rhyme or reason.

Employers are in a similarly tough spot. Unsure about the shape of the short-term economy, most organizations are now focused on increasing productivity at the lowest possible cost. Around the world, economic pundits are predicting a ‘jobless’ recovery.  

The result is that organizations are expecting to realize much of their short-term productivity gains from their current employee base.  So if you kept your job last year, expect to be working harder than ever before.

The obvious challenge for executives now lies in re-engaging a shell-shocked employee base.  

Professional communicators can – and should – take a lead role in responding to that challenge.

While short-term gains in engagement will be hard to measure in relation to bottom-line economic output, there are a few high-value areas where communicators can start to see some quick returns.

• Go see your people – consider taking your executives on a ‘road-show’ to visit your employees at their posts. Far from a staged town-hall event or video broadcast, your executives need to be seen on the factory floor or in the lunch room. Take advantage of the face time to remind employees how important their individual contribution is to achieving the company’s goals.
• Re-launch employee programs – most organizations already do a decent job at investing in employee programs and training, but often fall far short when it comes to driving actual participation. Whether they use them or not, employers should highlight these programs to their employees as evidence of the company’s investment and long-term commitment to their staff.
• Band together for a cause – after the economic, environmental and social upheaval of the past few years, there are unlimited good causes to support. Build employee morale and a sense of unity by pulling together for an issue that everyone can feel good about.

Many internal communications professionals have already recognized this change and started 2010 with a renewed focus on rebuilding employee engagement. Those that haven’t will need to quickly bury the ‘hunker down’ mindset of the recession and take a much more proactive role in driving productivity.

Re-engaging employees to drive productivity is one of our Top Ten Communications Issues for 2010. Next week we will look at Issue #9: Social media (finally) returns value.

Have you seen our new site? www.communicationsunlimited.ca.