Share This Too: More Social Media Solutions for PR Professionals

Chapter 16

Connected Employees

Kevin Ruck

A review of how employees are using social media inside organizations, how this enables greater employee engagement, connected and unconnected employees and the rise of “bring your own device” to work – the chapter draws on crowdsourcing at CIPR Inside's annual conference that took place in November 2012. Delegates debated how to use social media to generate greater employee engagement and how to connect with unconnected employees. Discussions were summarized and recorded on a crowdsourcing system using iPads configured specifically for the event.

What is employee engagement?

Only around one third of UK workers say that they are engaged, leaving the UK ranked ninth for engagement amongst the world's 12 largest economies.¹⁴² That is why employee engagement is such a hot topic and why the UK government is supporting a high-profile Engage for Success movement.

Before exploring how internal social media can generate higher levels of engagement it is important to understand what enables engagement. This is not as straightforward as it might seem. Employee engagement is a strongly contested concept. However, the Engaging for Success Report,¹⁴³ published in 2009, identifies four enablers:

• Visible, empowering leadership providing a strong strategic narrative about the organization, where it's come from and where it's going.
• Engaging managers who focus their people and give them scope, treat their people as individuals and coach and stretch their ...