Inside: Only 34% of employees are engaged. What will you do about it?

Insider Comms for internal comms

📣 Coming soon: 3 Things Senior Leaders Can Do to Support an Editorial Strategy

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Pay Attention

For the first year in more than a decade, the percentage of engaged workers in the U.S. declined in 2021. Only one-third of employees (34%) were engaged (down 2% YOY), and 16% were actively disengaged in their work (up 2% YOY).

• The results are based on Gallup’s random sample of 57,022 full- and part-time employees throughout the year.

The question is: what are we going to do about it?

Last April I made the call on “The Great Resignation.” I suggested that to help mitigate the expected balloon in attrition rates, employee comms can contribute to at least five efforts that might sway employees who are on the fence: surveying, telling stories, promoting resources, fostering connections, and activating employees.

• Go deeper on each of these suggestions.

Furthermore, to increase engagement internal comms must report on real people doing real work that has perceived and actual value, and do it in a way that is inclusive and doesn’t ignore what’s happening outside the company’s walls.

❗Increased engagement can be achieved through “value storytelling” 👇 .

Value Storytelling Is a Must for Employee Engagement

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Oral Arguments

Why Carnival’s CCO is a Conversationalist, Not a Storyteller

“We’re conversationalists,” he argues. “Storytelling is one way” to drive conversation, but “we want to engage in conversations and spur conversations, to get people to talk about us.” Still, to spur conversations you need to drive interest with a compelling beginning, middle and end—"the journey I want to take you on, and where I want to leave you.”

(Is that confusing to anyone else? Or is it just me?)

Read more on PRNEWS.

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Digitizing ‘The Great Rehire’

A July 2021 survey of 30,000+ job seekers found that “many are avoiding work in the restaurant, bar, and hotel industry and nothing can change their minds.”

• 69% said, “nothing could make them want to work in the hospitality industry (even with higher pay and creative incentives).”

The hospitality industry isn’t facing The Great Resignation because those who want to leave the industry have already gone. Instead the industry is challenged with The Great Rehire, persuading former and new workers to join the ranks of hotels, restaurants, and bars.

Internal comms has a role in this hiring spree, as well as with retention, argues Andrada Paraschiv, head of Hospitality at Beekeeper, a mobile platform for employees. Ms. Paraschiv suggests eight ways digitalizing employee communications and collaboration can help hotels and restaurants tackle the Great Rehire and Resignation Crisis.

Digitization:

• adds differentiation

• incentivizes internal referrals

• complements in-person onboarding

• provides consistent training and retraining

• keeps the masses informed and engaged

• provides a great forum for employee recognition

• promotes wellness

• supports Covid compliance

Get the details on Hospitality.net.

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Best of the Rest

How Holograms Are Being Used for Internal Communications at places like NATO and DHL. (Mister Editorial)

Gina Laughlin went from doing comms at a subsidiary (Atlantic Southeast Airlines) to being managing director of employee comms at the parent company (Delta). Gina’s story is a fine example of how to grow your internal comms career. (The Switchboard)

In “2022: The Year Internal Communication Teams Need to Change,” the author argues that internal comms is not doing enough to capture and use data to show its value to the business. (The HR Director)

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Guest Appearance

A coworker spotted this appearance in a click-worthy article, 5 Tips for Writing Perfect Internal Email Subject Lines (Staffbase)

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Connect with me on LinkedIn and Twitter | Mister Editorial archive | editorshaun@gmail.com

Disclaimer: Besides running Mister Editorial, I work in employee comms at Splunk. The views in this newsletter are my own.