Research shows employee and employer confidence in the health of the U.S. economy is growing, but it’s a bumpy ride. Employees have been beaten up over the past several years. They’ve survived budget cuts and layoffs, been asked to do more with less and have shouldered the burden of many of those decisions. As a result, two out of every three of your employees are likely to be heading for the exits and new jobs when the U.S. economy turns around. An engagement strategy focused on transparency, communication and recognition for their loyalty could stem that rush to the door. Three ways to quickly turn the situation around are 1) Build transparency within your organization, 2) Provide opportunities for growth, and 3) Reward employees for meeting or exceeding those expectations. Here’s how… Read the full report

This paper explores how to keep employee engagement alive, even during economic downturns. The ideal engaged employee has a proven track record of making meaningful contributions, speaks positively about the organization to friends, coworkers, clients and potential employees, and puts forth the extra effort to be successful over the long term. Since employee engagement is proven to have a measurable impact on profitability (due to enhanced productivity, innovation and the quality of goods and services delivered) the imperative for managers becomes development of engagement strategies and practical implementation. If you haven’t done so already, now is the time for you and your team members to take the initiative – define what your engagement objectives are, how they will be accomplished and get the necessary buy-in. Understand that engagement efforts don’t fall only to managers; the process needs to be a two-way street. Employees have high expectations of management, and management should have the same high expectations of their employees. Read the full white paper here

A new white paper, 10 Tips to Build Brand Values Into Recognition Programs, notes that a large part of designing an employee incentive, rewards and recognition program is focused on productivity, compensation and profitability. An equal part of the strategy, however, is centered in how these initiatives tie back to the core messages that are integral to business values and brand promise. This article highlights 10 popular brand values, how they’re supported through incentive, rewards and recognition programs, and some of the communications ideas that can help build more creative, effective, and memorable programs. Get the full report >> 

Brand Architecture is an essential process in all marketing, as it provides the framework for establishing an organization’s personality and unique selling proposition. In the old days, companies rarely concerned themselves with the cost of dissatisfied customers, as long as business was growing. Today, with the Internet and social networking, it is easier for companies to measure how their brand is interacting with people and the impact on sales and loyalty, and there is now considerable research validating the connection between customer loyalty, employee engagement and financial results. In essence, engagement requires organizations to add a sixth element to Brand Architecture: People. The most effective Brand Architecture looks beyond the icons, features and positions of an organization to understand how people directly or indirectly interface with customers; how vendors affect employees and customers; how the organization affects the community; and vice versa. Understanding these inter-connections can have profound and lasting effects on the way an organization puts its Brand Architecture into action. To read the complete report, go to: www.egrinternational.com.

Motivation management & research firm Maritz recently released two white papers touching on key areas of engagement. The first, A New Paradigm for Loyalty Marketing: Building Loyalty Along the ‘Earn, Burn, Yearn’ Continuum, notes that just as advertising has evolved to address multiple consumer segments, loyalty marketing’s approach must also adapt to multiple customer personas. Program messages and communication should be tailored and segmented to reach these specific personas, and the value proposition of the rewards needs to appeal to enrolled participants. With this approach, a one-size-fits-all loyalty program instead becomes an authentic customer engagement program that’s based on relevance and relationships. To read the full report, click here. The second white paper, Health and Wellness Incentives: Motivating and Sustaining Program Participation to Improve Health Outcomes, examines Health & Productivity incentive programs designed to help improve the health outcomes and combat rising healthcare costs. The report notes that while their popularity increases, participation rates in such programs remain stagnant. Using incentives and rewards to stimulate member engagement in wellness programs can be highly effective, but only when the program uses the right combination of tools throughout the program’s continuous lifecycle. Maritz advocates a ‘whole-brained’ approach that taps into the areas of the brain that help people engage in and sustain the behaviors they want and need to keep them healthy. Read the full report here.

A recent survey by the International Association of Business Communicators (IABC) Research Foundation and Buck Consultants finds that the most common communication tools used to engage employees and foster productivity in organizations are email (83 percent) and an organization’s intranet (75 percent). The survey, IABC’s second “Employee Engagement Survey.” also found that nearly half of employers also communicate through Facebook, instant messaging, and Twitter.

The IABC/Buck Consultants survey connected with more than 900 corporate communications professionals throughout the country to determine how employers are communicating with employees to keep them engaged and productive. “This year’s respondents reported increases in the use of social media tools, and more of them say they have established internal and external policies for appropriate workplace use of social media,” says Robin McCasland, past chair of the IABC Research Foundation and president of Brain Biscuits Strategic Communication. “When managed effectively, social media can be a great addition to an existing employee engagement strategy.”

The survey found that increasing productivity (66 percent) and retaining top talent (65 percent) are the top goals employers cite for keeping employees engaged. Other top factors include increasing employee morale and creating a new culture of work environment. To download a copy of this year’s “Employee Engagement Survey,” click here.

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