By Jenna Thurmond, Consultant
If you know anything about Advito, you know we’re experts in traveler engagement. In fact, we wrote the book – metaphorically speaking – on how to help travel managers drive program adoption, improve traveler satisfaction and achieve buy-in for their travel programs across the board.
But how do traveler engagement strategies stack up in a world where business travel is greatly reduced? Better than you’d think. It turns out that our expertise in employee engagement strategies is something every business needs. It’s become an even more important tool to keep people connected when most are working from home. And it’s likely to stay important because 72% of people don’t want to return to the office.
What is Employee Engagement?
Similar to traveler engagement, our employee engagement offering is built on the foundation of a strong internal communications strategy. The goal is to use best-in-class marketing and communication tactics to ensure employees feel connected to the company’s overall strategy and mission.
Employee engagement strategies can also smooth the adoption of new tools and technologies across different teams and functions. And they can help business leaders to communicate new processes, policies, and other business-critical information.
Engaging employees goes way beyond sending an email. It’s about communicating the right message to the right audience at the right time to influence their actions and create the culture you want in your organization. Effective employee engagement offers opportunities for community and encourages feedback. In order for employees to feel connected, they need to feel heard.
Using Employee Engagement Across Your Business
Employee engagement strategies work for practically any business unit. Here are some examples:
- Procurement: Not only can an employee engagement strategy help you to attract and retain qualified talent within the procurement team, but it can also make the team as a whole function more efficiently and improve relationships with other key stakeholders in the organization.
- Human resources: HR is all about what you do for employees throughout the company to keep the business running smoothly. It’s vital for everything from onboarding, retention, productivity and creativity, to helping build understanding and strengthen relationships throughout the company. Effective communication of the resources and initiatives that are available to employees can determine participation levels, and hence, the overall success of your program.
- IT: Creating shared understanding of the IT function is even more important now that businesses have been catapulted into digital transformation by the Covid-19 pandemic. It’s essential for employees to understand the protocols in place, the software and apps they’re using, and the people to contact when they have issues or requests.
- Meetings and events: The meetings and events space has also been transformed by the Covid-19 pandemic. Employee engagement strategies can help bring people together through virtual meetings and events, and over policies that protect employees’ health and wellbeing in a constantly evolving situation.
- Diversity, Equity and Inclusion: Employee engagement can help you create a clear, aligned, and sustainable strategy and culture of inclusion and belonging where different perspectives and backgrounds really are valued.
- Risk and security: Cybersecurity risks are a bigger threat than ever before, and the ongoing global pandemic imposes additional challenges in terms of managing health as people return to workplaces. Employee Engagement can minimize risk and improve safety by influencing the employee behavior and educating them to make right choices when assessing risk.
No matter, what business area you’re in, we can use our expertise in employee engagement to help you:
- identify what’s working and what’s not in your internal communications
- set goals you can achieve through better communication
- review the channels where you connect with internal customers
- identify the different internal audience segments and stakeholders
- create alignment between audiences, channels, and goals
- deliver targeted content and messaging to influence behavior and help with change management
- build trust and community among employees to strengthen their connection to the workplace
Employee engagement strategies give you a healthier and more profitable business. Contact Advito to learn how we can help.