Category: Engagement

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Engagement Marketing

Don’t Call Us, We’ll Call You

Seems almost everybody I talk to who’s in the current job market has stories on how they’re ignored by prospective employers when they apply for jobs. Only a few organizations extend the courtesy of a postcard or letter confirming receipt of an applicant’s resume.

Doesn’t matter whether it’s an entry-level or executive job search … new job or job-change … for-profit or nonprofit … too many organizations do not acknowledge their job applicants.

I’ve heard the excuses before: HR & other departments doing the hiring are short-staffed and/or there are too many applications flooding into the system. But there’s enough technology out there to automate the acknowledgment process.

At the very least, firms can better manage applicants’ expectations by putting a disclaimer in their want ads that tell people “You won’t hear from us at all unless we’re interested in you.” Don’t assume every applicant takes “no news is no news” as a given.

The smart organization can actually create a favorable brand impression by extending the courtesy of communication to its job applicants. Consumers, including prospective employees, judge an organization by how well they’re treated by everyone in the organization they come in contact with. In other words, EVERYONE in the organization impacts the brand. So ignoring job applicants doesn’t do much if you want to be known as an employer-of-choice.

To those involved in the hiring process, listen up: someday YOU may be the one looking for a job who is ignored.

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Engagement

Caution When Using E-Mail in the Workplace

A while back I wrote several posts about e-mail’s impact on workplace relationships and the growing body of research on this topic.

As a follow up, here’s a recent article on the subject: “E-Mail is Easy to Write (and to Misread)” by Daniel Goleman. Citing a number of research studies already out there + some not yet published, Goleman offers a fascinating look at how e-mail can easily be misunderstood because our human brains aren’t able to interpret electronic communications as effectively as we can face-to-face communications.

Although there’s no guarantee for perfect communication in face-to-face or verbal situations, studies in the emerging field of social neuroscience confirm a likelihood for miscommunication via e-mail. (Maybe that explains why, despite the medium’s efficiency, it takes me a long time to write some e-mails … another reason I sometimes prefer to pick up the phone instead of sending an e-mail.)

Goleman’s article also includes tips for minimizing miscommunication. So check it out.

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Engagement Marketing

“Fun Works” (Really!)

If you’re interested in creating and maintaining a positive corporate culture, check out the 2nd edition (updated & expanded) of Fun Works: Creating Places Where People Love to Work by Leslie Yerkes.

Her book lays the foundation for the “fusion” of play and work. She showcases companies that consciously chose to integrate fun into their corporate culture, but it’s not an add-on or forced “let’s-take-a-break-and-play-a-game” type of fun ala The Office. According to Yerkes, “I don’t want to be put in charge of fun. That makes it a job and that would not be fun.”

Yerkes explores how different companies integrate fun into their normal course of business, creating positive experiences for employees and customers, to illustrate “there’s no right or wrong way to engage in serious fun.” She shares what she calls “Principles of Fun/Work Fusion” and the resulting benefits that include:

  • reduced employee absenteeism and better retention
  • a buffer for stress and potential burnout
  • enhanced employee commitment
  • stimulation of creativity & innovation
  • positive impact on productivity.

From my work in internal marketing, I’m familiar with the power of a corporate culture that encourages a sense of humor and appropriate play in the workplace. I found Fun Works a good reinforcement.

Trying to deal with my own workload pressures, I found this book a great reminder that I need to adjust my own Puritan Work Ethic (i.e., work first, play later) to achieve a better balance. (Maybe I need to take a break and catch up on my favorite cartoons … )

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Engagement

Reducing Information Overload

I addressed the issue of managing information overload in a previous post. For great advice on reducing overload, check out a recent issue of Melcrum’s Source for Communicators.

What resonated most with me is the guiding question for internal communicators: “How do I make this [content] relevant for my audience?” rather than just focusing on message distribution.

The relevancy question is applicable to everyone responsible for communications (internal and external) … and it’s THE question we need to constantly ask ourselves.

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Engagement

Engaging Employees – Not Just for Front Line Management

When it comes to employee engagement, most of us know the critical role of supervisor-to-employee communications, especially given the proximity of the supervisor and staff working relationship. But a recent study found companies overestimate the importance of this communication.

Watson Wyatt’s Work USA® 2006/2007 research found that “senior leadership and the frequency with which senior managers communicate with employees are far more important drivers of engagement.”

Not to minimize the role of supervisory communications, the study also found “High-engagement employees receive communication from [both] their supervisors and senior management far more frequently than low-engagement employees.”

The bottom line: to engage employees, communication is needed from ALL levels of management.

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Engagement Marketing

Gaining Employee Support through a New Type of Journalism

[2014 update: the following content still resonates, although the original links in this post were removed because they are no longer available.]

Here’s a fascinating concept to add to your internal marketing & communications toolbox: Workplace Journalism — “a conscious effort to make employee communications at least partly about employees and their concerns, not just the business and its issues.”

I learned about this from Barry Nelson, who believes business communicators can have a positive impact by adding more “empathetic, employee-advocacy journalism … into their otherwise business-results focused reportorial mix.”

He recommends that in addition to communicating corporate strategy, goals, progress & results, (which employees need to know), companies should also share stories of how employees cope with on-the-job issues & stresses (which employees want to know). According to Barry, we need to give “at least some prominence to our employees’ human concerns” such as “how and why to get along with the boss, make friends on the job, cope with stress, live the brand, be a good teammate, and other aspects of a satisfactory work life.”

The Pay-Off

This isn’t just ‘feel-good’ communications for the heck of it. Organizations that share these types of stories demonstrate their care and concern for employees, and this contributes to a strong sense of employee commitment and loyalty in turn.

To learn more, check out Barry’s guidance on getting started with Workplace Journalism.

 

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Engagement

Do You See the Suggestion Box as Half-Empty or Half-Full?

Here’s an interesting situation. An organization put in a suggestion box at the request of its employees. Within a week, there were over 135 suggestions in the box. But the company has only 36 employees!

If you view the contents as half-full, you might think, “Wow, what a great response!” If you tend toward the half-empty perspective, you might think, “Uh oh, there’s a lot of pent-up frustration among the staff.”

Despite my usually optimistic approach, I share the latter thinking in this case. It’s because I heard about this from one of the employees who told me that the suggestion box was one of management’s responses to high turnover and low morale.

Regardless of what one thinks about the suggestion box, I just hope this organization’s management takes it seriously and uses it as just one (but not the only) tool to listen to employees.

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Engagement

Search Committees Need a Clue

A friend who works in a university told me about her school’s search for a new administrative department head. In passing she said she was surprised that the search committee hadn’t bothered to include input from the department’s current staff.

Perhaps the search committee wanted to change that department’s culture by bringing in a new leader, and they didn’t think it worthwhile to hear what the staff had to say? That was my initial (and feeble) attempt to explain their rationale. But it’s still no reason to overlook the people who have a major stake in the search’s outcome – after all, they’re the ones who have to live with the new boss.

Don’t Mind Us, We Just Work Here

The more my friend and I discussed this, the more upset we got … especially since we also recalled similar instances from our experience in nonprofit and corporate organizations. In many cases it seemed the search committees showed a blatant disregard and disrespect for the staff. Their message was loud & clear: “Why should we bother with the employees’ two cents when they’re not in positions of authority to determine who their boss should be?”

I’m not saying the staff should make the hiring decision. But they should be given the opportunity to offer feedback on the nature of their work and the type of person who might best lead their department.

I just don’t understand why the folks most invested in the department – those closest to the work – are the least likely to be asked for their input. Go figure …

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Engagement

Mooses, Puzzlers & Peeves

If you’re looking for a great idea on how to get top management (and staff) to address tough issues, check out the Gap’s “Moose Sessions” described in a recent Melcrum blog post.

It reminded me of a facilitation exercise called “Puzzlers & Peeves” that, with management’s support, you can do with small groups of employees or in staff meetings. Here’s how it works:

  1. Ask the group to quickly identify what they think are the 4-5 biggest challenges facing the company (the “puzzlers”).
  2. Repeat the process with what they think are the 4-5 most irksome or irritating aspects of the company’s operations (the “peeves”).
  3. Combine the two lists and select the top 3-4 items that need to be addressed. (In my experience, at this point it’s best to acknowledge everyone’s limited time & resources and that it’s unrealistic to attempt the entire list. So the group will need to get consensus on which items they most want to tackle.)
  4. Follow up with an action plan for each and go at ‘em.

It’s a great way to focus staff on dealing with the issues and can be effective in turning gripe sessions into positive action.

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Engagement Marketing

Marketing: Not an Insular Job

Don Schultz’s May 15, 2007 column in Marketing News focuses on marketers’ new job description. As our field continues to evolve in a fast-changing economy, we need to better:

  • Understand our markets, including finding the best ways to segment and/or aggregate markets
  • Develop and deliver customer-focused brand value propositions
  • Monitor our effectiveness in actually delivering on the brand promise.

Inherent in our ability to deliver the brand promise is the need to get buy-in and support from everyone in the organization that impacts brand value. Don clarifies: “… marketing is something the organization does, not what the marketing department does.”

As a result, the new marketing manager’s responsibility goes beyond managing the marketing department to work “horizontally across the company to involve operations, finance, sales, HR and all the other groups that cumulatively create and provide the customer’s brand experience.”

Internal collaboration is critical to marketing’s effectiveness. If you only view it as “other duties as assigned” on a marketer’s job description, don’t bother to apply.