There is hidden potential in every company, and empowered employees perform better, display more interest and creativity, and help the company reach and engage others to build teams and build your brand’s influence internally. Boosting employee engagement is as important as ever as our workforce becomes more dispersed.
Employee engagement consistently has received widespread attention and appears to have doubled in Google searches in the past five years. Search terms including Engagement Survey, Employee Survey, Employee Engagement Ideas and “What is Employee Engagement” are among the top breakout search terms in the United States, which means that the search term grew by more than 5000%.
What is Employee Engagement?
Custom Insight defines employee engagement as “the extent to which employees feel passionate about their jobs, are committed to the organization, and put discretionary effort into their work.” Employee engagement is not the same as employee satisfaction, which indicates the level of employees’ contentment, but not their level of motivation and commitment.
Benefits of Employee Engagement
Why is so much attention paid to how engaged employees are with their work and how committed they are to the organization? Dynamic Signal provides insights into this question in the following general employee productivity statistics:
- Organizations with highly engaged employees had an average 3-year revenue growth 2.3 times greater than companies whose employees were only engaged at an average level. (Source: UNC Kenanflager Business School)
- Increasing employee engagement investments by 10% can increase profits by $2,400 per employee per year. (Source: Workplace Research Foundation)
- Companies with engaged employees outperform those without by 202% (Source: Business 2 Community)
- Customer retention rates are 18% higher on average when employees are highly engaged (Source: Cvent)
These statistics clearly indicate that employee engagement is associated with employee productivity, customer retention and profitability, which are important to any business.
Internal Marketing as a Driving Force in Employee Engagement
Much has been written on the subject of employee engagement, employee satisfaction and productivity; and there are many attempts to define, measure and influence outcomes in this field of study. This article will provide a brief overview of one employee engagement strategy: Internal Influencer Marketing.
What is Internal Marketing?
Internal Marketing is defined as “one of the most complicated forms of marketing that aims to convince, align and empower the employees of an organization to embrace the company’s products, services, vision and worth and consistently deliver a satisfying customer experience.
It’s an ongoing process of staff training and development at all levels of the organization to help employees understand their roles, appreciate the company’s goals and strengths, facilitate the acceptance of change, and partner with leadership to help the organization achieve its goals.
The requirements of successful internal marketing programs include reciprocal in-house marketing communication, cooperation among organizational leadership and departments, setting individual goals so that organizational goals can be achieved through the satisfaction of employee needs and goals, and ongoing education to promote high standards of customer relations and job effectiveness.
Influencer Marketing as a Driving Force of Internal Marketing
Brands are bringing influencer marketing in-house, according to various sources. Influencer marketing involves joining forces with individuals of significance or authority at any level in the organization who can promote the brand to a loyal following. There is hidden potential in every company, and empowered employees perform better, display more interest and creativity, and help the company reach and engage others to build teams and build your brand’s influence internally.
Whether it’s expanding the reach of a company’s message to an external or internal audience, brands are tapping into influencer marketing. To make effective use of internal influencer marketing, companies are advised to nurture employees to take ownership, become thought leaders, build the company’s knowledge bank, contribute content and share critical insights through various communication channels: company intranet or blog, social media platforms, company newsletters or industry publications.
The leaders who excel at fearless digital leadership will use digital technologies to maintain connection with their teams and stakeholders and to create a sense of normalcy and connectedness. They understand the need for adaptation and agility, and they are willing to let stakeholders point the way.
Action Items for Harnessing the Power of Internal Influencer Marketing to Improve Employee Engagement
- Encourage reciprocal in-house marketing communication across departments
- Align individual goals with organizational objectives
- Engage in ongoing staff training and development, offering virtual meetings and workshops
- Use digital technologies to maintain connection with their teams and stakeholders
- Promote high standards of customer relations and job effectiveness
- Empower employees to take ownership and become thought leaders to positively influence team members
References
https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=all&geo=US&q=employee%20engagement
https://www.custominsight.com/employee-engagement-survey/what-is-employee-engagement.asp
https://dynamicsignal.com/2017/04/21/employee-productivity-statistics-every-stat-need-know/
http://www.marketing-schools.org/types-of-marketing/internal-marketing.html
