Peter Cartier — January 26, 2017 Follow @PeterCarti3rDo your people feel connected to the company’s success?
If you’re not fostering emotional connections with your employees, you’re setting your team up for failure. Too often, the only emotional response felt by frontline employees is that of concern over their personal future and continued dread that they may lose their job. When that’s the driving sentiment, productivity and innovation will suffer.
So how do we combat the negative, uncertain landscape of modern business? By connecting your people to the company vision.
Almost every business fails to achieve this critical goal. The Harvard Business Review discovered that, on average, 95% of employees don’t understand the connection between their day-to-day activities and how it contributes to the company mission as set out by the executive team. This is a huge disconnect.
Beware the Disengaged
This lack of transparency can be detrimental to your company health. The level of disengaged employees is on the rise. Gallup’s State of the American Workforce claims that for every two engaged employees in your office, there is one actively disengaged employee trying to drag others down.
Plus, with Glassdoor and similar sites giving first-hand accounts of how a company treats their employees, your company culture will have a direct affect on your ability to find and retain good talent. In fact, a recent Great Place to Work study reported that 56% of job seekers are choosing to work at a company with a reputation as being a great place to work as opposed to 20% who are more concerned with the company’s products or services.
Add Value to the Employee Experience
Essentially, people, at their emotional core, just want to be a part of a rewarding company culture that values them as part of the team and provides the tools they need to succeed.
So, how do we connect people to the brand? Let’s look at a couple strategic goals you can implement at your organization immediately.
Two Ways to Emotionally Connect with Your Employees:
1. Start an Internal Communications Strategy
What better way to start tapping into the hearts and minds of you employees than to create a new level of transparency and communication? By utilizing corporate engagement solutions, you invite your team to be a part of the vision, values and objectives of your business approach.
Through various touchpoints, including social, email, in-office gatherings, etc., you offer real insights and strategic thinking that involves the employees and rewards their input. This new line of collaboration amongst team members not only serves as a catalyst for innovation, but it helps identify purpose.
The Aberdeen Group identified a 26% increase in annual revenue for companies that implement an employee engagement program. This internal engagement strategy becomes the driving force behind all culture communication and also plays an essential role in the pre-, during and post communication efforts of your big event.
2. Create a Live Experience
It’s time to bring your people together in a meaningful way. An event, meeting or conference is the most effective way to cascade your brand message from leadership all the way down to the frontline employees.
Getting everyone in the same room helps get everyone on the same page.
In order to drive the most value from your corporate event planning, you must consider the attendee journey. This is the roadmap that determines the level and mode of engagement that your event’s attendees will experience. By focusing on your attendees and providing experiential, innovative experiences, you can transform them into brand advocates.
Plus, the ROI is impressive. According to Event Marketing Institute, 74% of event attendees have a more positive outlook on their company after a major event. This fosters their emotional connection to your brand.
Start Connecting Your People
Live experiences and internal communication strategies are two important features of every company to help build trust and alignment with your team. By tapping into the emotional and engaging moments that help connect your people, you’ll nurture the loyalty and pride behind your brand which will ultimately affect the customer experience and grow your business.
This post was originally published on CPG’s event agency blog and has been republished with permission.
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