Own Every Moment of the Employee Experience

Leveraging campaign strategy to inspire and connect your workforce

Written by Jon Paul Potts, Senior Vice President, Strategic Solutions at InVision Communications

Companies frequently spend on employee communication initiatives without receiving the ROI or seeing the impact they expect. A few emails, a letter from the CEO, and maybe a few signs in the break room…And no one pays attention.

Why don’t these messages resonate with employees? Because the emails end up being just more noise in the inbox… Because the CEO’s letter or message is uninspiring and does not offer your workers a connection to a long-term vision…

And because your employees are like you! Your employees live and move every day through an omnichannel world, with content surrounding them. We binge our favorite streaming show, while texting friends, while cooking dinner, while shopping on their phone, while skipping all the ads.

Content is everywhere, but more is not always better and your employees, like you, have learned to screen out messaging and content they do not want to pay attention to. And when they don’t pay attention, they are risk of becoming disengaged.

For 50 years, Gallup has studied levels of employee engagement and its effect on individual and organizational workplace performance. According to Gallup, “The American workforce has more than 100 million full-time employees. One-third of those employees are what Gallup calls engaged at work… At the other end, 66% of employees are actively disengaged – they are miserable in the workplace and destroy what the most engaged employees build.”

That 66% of “disengaged” employees are more than just bored—they can cost your organization dearly. They are more likely to steal from your company, negatively influence their coworkers, miss workdays and drive customers away. Gallup estimates that actively disengaged employees cost the United States up to $605 billion in lost productivity every year.

Moving from Disengaged to Motivated

How do we move our workforce from disengaged to motivated? Think of them as your most important “consumer”—though in this case, you need to help them “consume” your brand. It is critical that you offer line-of-sight between an employee’s daily tasks and how their work connects to your long-term vision and strategy.

Do not take your workforce’s attention for granted. Market to them, just as you do to a potential customer. Bring creativity to your communications and think omnichannel—reinforcing the purpose of their work and how it fulfills your business vision.

Equally, do not assume that employee engagement drivers are universal. Operating in a multicultural, multigenerational and multichannel world represents new challenges for leaders trying to drive high levels of employee engagement. Organizations that understand how to tap into the key drivers of engagement for multiple constituencies will drive better performance.

What Media Channels Should You Consider to Maximize the Employee Experience?

What’s a corporate communications team to do? How should HR and the brand team talk to/interact with your workforce? Own every moment in your employees’ day by thinking beyond the email:

Creative – Just because your message campaign is focused on your employees, that is no reason to go light on the creative. Your employees are often your best ambassadors to the market, and they live every day in a world of compelling stories and messages. Tell your brand story creatively and bring it life through experiences.
Video – 30 seconds of compelling video can replace pages of emails. Leverage short, episodic videos to tell stories that matter to your employees. Celebrate success stories. Feature customer stories. And place those videos in accessible places, such as the Intranet, on lobby and breakroom video displays, and as seat settlers at company town halls.
Platform – Email inboxes can be saturated, and internal platforms such as Yammer or Microsoft Teams can become labyrinthian tangles of content and chats. Consider alternative community platforms that connect employees where they already spend a lot of their time, such as Instagram, TikTok or Discord.
Experience – Remove your employees from the office and offer them a memorable surprise. Such as the telecom that hosted employee town halls in movie theaters instead (complete with popcorn and obscenely large sodas!). Or the hospital system that rushed an ambulance to the front door of the building, only to open the doors to welcome an NFL quarterback (who was born at the hospital!), who handed out lunch, autographs and smiles.
SWAG – A coffee cup is great, but what about a personalized, epic movie poster created leveraging Midjourney Artificial Intelligence? Imagine an office, or a manufacturing locker room, covered in beautiful “movie posters” featuring your key employee messages. Way more compelling than an email from HR! Or what if your truck operators arrived at work one morning to discover your entire vehicle fleet graced with personalized windshield heat shields, covered in topline messages, fun iconography, and “inside jokes.”
Food! – Employees love a free lunch. Consider unique food experiences such as a food truck rally in the parking lot. Or a catered, themed lunch by a local chef. Whatever the food experience, place messaging in unusual places—such as on the sandwich wrapper. Or the drink cup. Or the menu. Surprise and delight, and they will remember the experience.
Brand Ambassador – Partner with influencers and/or celebrities to make your message more impactful. Consider the Fortune 500 insurance leader who sponsored the Olympics and created a roadshow of past and present Olympians who visited 20-plus company locations for lunch, inspirational talks, and lots of autographs and swag! Or the large Midwestern utility that leveraged local urban influencers to tell stories about their employees, and their impact on the utility’s community and customers. Or our agency, InVision, who used a popular actor from beloved sitcom The Office in a cameo spot to introduce the company’s new culture reel to the organization. Unexpected and fun!

These are just a few of the creative ways you can own every moment of your employee experience. If you would like to learn more, reach out at jon.paul.potts@iv.com!

About the Author, Jon Paul Potts:

InVision Communications Employee Experience

Jon Paul Potts is a Communications, Strategy and Media professional with 25-plus years of experience across industries and strategic offerings. As SVP, Strategic Solutions at InVision Communications, he leads a team of expert strategists and consultants across geographies who drive business results for their clients every day.

He is a global practice leader in Employee Engagement and Higher Education. He also specializes in business development, brand planning, vision workshop facilitation, message development, leadership communications, experience design, public speaking, and content development.

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