The year ahead

Here’s my list of predictions for 2007. Forgive me that the first five aren’t very optimistic as they foresee the continuance of several negative trends, but at least I get them out of the way at the beginning.

1. The stability of the modern workplace, and the commitment of the people in it, will continue to decline as baby boomers, the last of the truly loyal employees, retire in droves and the market for skilled workers heats up.

2. “Employee engagement” will continue to be the Holy Grail for many organizations as their leaders try to connect with the new generation of disenchanted employees, whose loyalty will reach new lows in 2007. At least one new major business scandal will erupt, adding fuel to this trend.

3. Internal communicators will continue to shower information upon disengaged employees, hoping it will wash away their cynicism and distrust, but it will only drown them in data, impede their actions and add to their alienation.

4. The rise of megapixel digital cameras will continue to erode the quality of photography in employee publications.

5. Management’s reluctance to communicate openly with employees will continue as risk-averse leaders ignore changing workplace values.

6. For Immediate Release, the seminal podcast about “the intersection between communications and technology,” will produce another 50 shows as co-hosts Neville Hobson and Shel Holtz push our profession into the new millennium (thanks for everything, guys). As a side prediction, Shel will get a part-time job at Circuit City to feed his hi-tech gear addiction.

7. Employers, realizing that disengagement is a threat to competitiveness, will increase their investment in the people side of their business, including employee communications.

8. Under pressure to do something different and innovative, more employee communicators will turn to social media to reach out to employees and invite them into a conversation about their companies, their jobs, their customers and their collective future.

9. In 2007, this trend will produce as many failures as successes, as some communicators jump on the bandwagon and use the new technologies just because they’re new and sexy, to the detriment of effective communication.

10. Finally, and most optimistically, in 2007 employee communicators will be appreciated by their leaders, co-workers and employee audiences like never before.

Happy New Year! I hope it’s a great one for you, and the people you love.

And one more thing. If you're a regular reader of this blog, thanks for sticking with me, and if you're new, thanks for dropping by.

Comments

[Mary Stager]

Business in the Knowledge/Communications Age is all about "listening" to those closest to the customer and the operations that serve them... the EMPLOYEES who actually do the work... in order to compete and/or survive. In a global, knowledged based economy the consumer has the power of choice and with the click of their mouse can exercise them at any time to easily put a business that doesn't listen to them and their needs out of business in a heartbeat.

The Command/Control style of management is outdated and employees are disengaging out of sheer survival... to maintain their own santity in working within outdated environments that don't seek the immense value of their vantage point/perspective of the customer's needs.

This is great news because as people are engaged they will be able to contribute more to their companies, use their intellect and feel more fulfilled in their work and evey days! Everyone deserves this.

[Mike Klein]

Very much like your blog--am in the process of setting my own IC blog and there's lot's of useful stuff here.

Re: "Employee Engagement"--I think there's a decent chance that the IC industry will begin to take a critical look at "Employee Engagement".

For starters, the industry's current definition (that of a state of "engagement" is one of worker bliss, overcommitment and generous yet uncompensated enthusiasm) is one that is difficult to achieve--and in many cases, commercially and morally inappropriate to seek.

Second, a more pragmatic definition (that "employee engagment" represents the extent to which employees interact with their colleagues, peers, managers, executives, organizations, vendors, customers and brands) has the potential for shifting the discussion towards leveraging the engagement that already exists rather than imposing it from above or creating it from scratch.

This discussion is in its infancy--but as the latter approach is more flexible, actionable and respectful of existing attitudes and relationships, it offers considerable promise.

All the best,

Mike Klein
Washington, DC

[Mark Shanahan]

HI Mike & Ron

For me, the secret of employee engagement is keeping your best people longest. There's no simple way to do this and the magic potion will vary between one organisation and the next.

The longer you can keep your best people, the greater the halo they create drawing in the right kind of new talent plus ensuring that their good behaviours rub off on your next best levels (and hopefully this is where the trickle-down effect comes in).

But to achieve the desired outcome, you need to gain the trust, support and active-buy in of those 'best people' who are, by their nature, probably the most knowledge-hungry and positively-demanding employees. If you can satisfy them, you'll engage the vast majority of your organisation. The others you still don't reach? Well, as Tom Peters said: 'Fly on by'.

We need to identify the top performers, find out what makes them get out of bed and come to work; what drives them to stay; and what'll make them ambassadors for the organisation in the outside world. Then we need to build communications - alongside all the hygiene factors of pay and rations etc around them - But how often do we do that?

My experience is that we're trying to be all things to all men and women. That's an impossible task and one that leads to ultimately not satisfying anyone.

[Ron Shewchuk]

Great posts! I agree that you can't come into an organization and legislate employee engagement. It has to be grown organically, so to speak -- building on the strengths of the existing culture and drawing on the power of its true leaders (who often aren't the senior executives) and supporting them with excellent communication strategies, tools and tactics.

For me, it's all about reaching out to people -- drawing out their humanity by treating them like human beings who need simple things like clear information, true recognition and honest answers. But so often these simple things get swallowed up by bureaucracy, distrust and expediency.

Want engagement? Do engaging things. An easy thing to say, but much harder to do well, and consistently over time. Because there's one thing for sure: changing or strengthening a culture doesn't happen over night, and in fact I think takes anywhere from three to six years.

[Mike Klein]

Thanks Ron and Mark...

I go off on engagement in my own blog, CommsOffensive325 (http://CommsOffensive325.blogharbor.com) in much more detail. But the one thing that's missing in this discussion is to "think globally...but act locally".

Say I'm the owner of "BarbaCo", a chain of barbecue restaurants in a large, cold, and thinly populated land. The board is calling for more year on year revenue growth for all restaurants, and the HR director sees "increased employee engagement" as the answer.

Which do you think would make more of a difference--doing financial powerpoint presentations with the staff before the lunch rush, or recognizing the serving staffer in Oshawa whose idea it was to give bigger portions to bigger customers? And which more accurately reflects "employee engagement"?

:)