Truth 43. Engaged employees need to know more

When employee engagement is driven throughout the company as an organization-wide initiative, the corporate communications (corp comm) office almost always gets in on the action. In fact, because communications is such a core element to engagement, employee engagement is often driven by the corp comm office. For companies that see the value of sending corporate engagement messages and information throughout the ranks, this makes obvious sense. (It makes even better sense, however, when the HR and organizational effectiveness departments are allowed to collaborate with corp comm as equal partners in the initiative. As companies get increasingly sophisticated in understanding all the complex facets of employee engagement, corp comm will eventually support HR and organizational effectiveness, rather than lead it.)

Because employee engagement promotes a sense of ownership among engaged employees, they have a compelling need to know what’s going on throughout the company. They have a stake in the outcome of the company’s various projects, so they deserve to know how their efforts are paying off. Engaged employees take their roles inside their company very personally. So they want to know how the company is being perceived by the community and in the media. They want to be reminded of what makes their job at their particular company better than their job at a different company.