Employee engagement is just good business 

Previously, we explored the importance of recognizing and overcoming potential change management challenges in your engagement planning within your digital workplace. Building on that approach to engagement, creating an engagement framework can actually help support your business overall. How? Two words—employee retention.  

The stats

Research shows that high employee turnover increases expenses and has a negative impact on employee morale.  

Engaged employees are 87% less likely to leave the organization. (Corporate Leadership Council)  Engaged companies grow profits as much as 3x faster than their competitors. (Corporate Leadership Council)  Companies with low engagement earn an operating income 32.7% lower than companies with more engaged employees. (David MacLeod and Nita Clarke) Companies with engaged employees outperform those without by more than 200%.  (Dale Carnegie)  Most-engaged workplaces experience 2x higher customer loyalty, 2x higher productivity, and 2x lower turnover. (Jonathan Pont)

The digital workplace and beyond 

Digital workplace engagement campaigns not only increase the adoption and use of your company's new solution, but they build company culture inside and outside the digital workplace. Think of your digital workplace as a tool to execute engagement initiatives that build comradery, a company identity, and a positive environment in which your employees work. Your digital workplace brings culture into focus, with engagement campaigns acting as triggers for meaningful conversations, collaboration, and even some company fun! 

Some of the best engagement campaigns get employees talking inside and outside your digital workplace.  

Top five culture-building engagement campaigns

	Name Your Digital Workplace Invite your employees to share their ideas for naming the new or existing digital workplace to build excitement, a sense of ownership and community. This is an opportunity for employees to reflect the aspects they like most about their existing company culture within the digital workplace. You might be surprised by what elements of your company's culture that employees gravitate towards.
	Profile Completion Encourage employees to complete their digital workplace Personal Profile to promote their skills, expertise, interests, and to build a culture of professional connection. Robust profiles allow everyone to find information about colleagues quickly and easily. This campaign focuses on the employees and how they contribute to the business, providing a sense of belonging and contribution to the company.
	Company Playlist  Building a positive culture includes some non-work related activities.  As long-time Igloo customer Rich Copp, Vice President of Communications at Partners HealthCare puts it:  "It's important to give employees more than just vegetables. We occasionally have to give them Pizza!" In the war for talent, sometimes a fun, engaging company culture plays a significant role in the decision-making process for those entering the workforce.
	User-Generated Content Encourage the creation of user-generated content to increase relevance and engagement. Consider how much "freedom" you'd like to grant your end-users when it comes to publishing content within your digital workplace based on your desired company culture. Will you allow your end-users to post freely on appropriate channels? Will you actively seek end-user feedback about the type of content they'd like to see in their digital workplace?
	Champion Initiatives  Your team of influential Champions will be a source of inspiration for your entire organization. When Champions lead their own engagement initiatives, culture and excitement are built at the grassroots level. Rely on your Champions for more than just digital workplace initiative planning—get their feedback on other engagement projects and initiatives related to building company culture.

How has engagement impact employee retention within your organization? 

Share your thoughts and experiences about your own efforts related to employee retention by posting a comment below. We want to know about your challenges and successes! 

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Up Next

Stay tuned for my next post when I'll be focusing on the Role of the Digital Workplace Manager.