Employee Engagement in changing times of Social Media Communication

Many employers think of converting a recruit to an employee the same manner as conversion of a girlfriend/boyfriend to wife/husband — once they sign on the dotted line, the romance between company and employee goes away, and they’re left on their own to deal with everyday work issues. Marriages can only last if both sides honestly communicate between them. So transparency in communication is what matters for better engagement. It is also essential for organization to practice integration of forward and backward communication channels as it help to analyze whether expected messaging has reached all the stakeholders in uniformed manner. This has been proved by various studies and every one of us will agree. Rather organization has to strategize engagement levels for different set of employees as each person is different so have to engage on different level.

It is clear that employees want consumer-like experiences. They don't want a job; they want a career with growth objectives. Money matters less, than fun, purpose and work-life balance. Regular engagement surveys are conducted to monitor employees' engagement levels at work. The future of employees depends not on their qualifications and skills, but their capacity to self-brand in the age of social marketing.

Marketing and human resource departments can play vital role in engaging and developing employees through a combination of initiatives digital and non – digital as well. In future the businesses admired by consumers / customers will be the best places to work, and being employed by those organizations will strengthen employees' personal brand image, which in turn will support the growth of organization. Finally as, LinkedIn chief executive Jeff Weiner said, “The world's best recruiters are increasingly thinking like the world's best marketers." Marketing is about storytelling, influencing and creating a differentiation in the story about brand.

In last decade the growth in technology has fueled increased in communication, bridging gap between the two worlds i.e. marketing and HR, despite apparent differences between these two functions, the digital world has brought them closer by eliminating differences between employees and consumers. So much so, those organizations have started seriously considering hiring their best customers.

Social media has revolutionized internal communications, allowing companies to communicate directly and instantly with their stakeholders i.e. employees, marking a shift from the traditional monologue, to dialogue between company and employees. Digital disruption by social media has increased channels of communication combining multimedia opportunities for better engagement with employees. Organizations have been increasingly thinking of launching internal social networks for engaging with stakeholders.