One step forward, two steps back

Treat employees like customers....(please)

I came across a thread on linkedin today on one of the employee engagement forums I’m part of that has seriously twisted my melons man. Yet another internal comms professional casting around for free creative ideas for an employee marketing campaign amongst the Linkedin community.

Grrrrr.

As Peter Simpson, the ex commercial director of employee engagement pioneers First Direct once said “Why would you want to be one kind of brand to customers and another to employees?” He’s so right. Emotional engagement is four times more valuable than rationale engagement in driving employee effort. There’s proof everywhere you look. Why oh why do companies still insist on lavishing all their time, effort, ideas and budget on consumer marketing while treating employee communication with a lack of reverence so acute it verges on the insulting. Crazy when you think that there’s a direct and proven link between quality internal comms and increased revenue and profitability – look after your employees and they’ll look after your customers.

For what it’s worth, here’s how I responded.    

Alas, it's one step forwards two steps back in the quest to have internal communications treated with the same reverence as external. Would anyone really ever use linked in to say 'Hey - we're launching a new consumer ad campaign, anyone got any ideas for what we can put in our ads?' Of course they wouldn't. Honestly, we are never going to get internal comms and employee engagement taken seriously as a discipline as vital to a company's success as consumer marketing unless we all start treating our employees with the same respect as we do our customers.

Take a look at this for some ways to start treating employees more like customers http://bit.ly/HkDjcQ

*Gets back in box*