Your employees are often the first point of contact with your customers. A strong communication strategy from your company to them can nurture positive employee connections. In addition to quality training and adequate compensation, that sense of connection builds a force of built-in brand ambassadors while fostering a more productive and engaged team.
Among Yankee Custom Marketing’s clients is a large regional nonprofit with many locations. Some of those locations are relatively new mergers or partnerships. The client sought a way to encourage employees throughout the network to get to know and learn from each other. Though the organization already had a marketing and communications team, they were focused on external branding. That department lacked the bandwidth to take on a project focused exclusively on employee connections.
A publication fostering employee connections
YCM developed a plan for a monthly internal e-magazine distributed to all employees via the nonprofit’s email list. The 12-page publication has a few consistent features, including a page dedicated to testimonials of superb employee actions. The editorial plan of other articles highlights employees’ professional and personal accomplishments. Editors take special care to ensure that all locations receive representation as the magazine cycles month-to-month.
An experienced magazine editor from YCM, backed by our design team, works with a member of the organization’s team. The collaborative partnership leverages the organization’s internal knowledge with YCM’s storytelling expertise. Stories are designed to be engaging, relatable, and informative. They celebrate employee successes and encourage staff to continue their growth within the organization.
Overall, the goal is to foster employee engagement and pride in what they do.
In addition to the e-magazine creation, YCM staff curate and edit the content for an email newsletter that goes out to launch the monthly issue. The newsletter highlights and teases the magazine’s features, attracting employees to click through and read.
The nonprofit also receives a package of social media posts reformatted from the stories in the magazine each month. These are available for use on the organization’s public-facing social media channels at their discretion.
An engaged audience
The organization has reported back to YCM that there is an immediate response when they send out the magazine via email each month.
On average, about 2,000 employees click through the email to read the magazine each month – a 15% conversion rate. Readers spend about 5 minutes with the content and produce 17,500 page views monthly.
More recently, the organization opted to expand one month’s issue and order a printed run. Print copies of the magazine are now used as a recruitment tool at job fairs, in addition to a retention tool. Senior leadership positively reviewed the publication, too.
Happy employees, happy customers
Since the magazine’s launch, the organization’s measures of productivity and employee retention improved, even during a time when others in their industry are seeing staffing shortages.
This is not just an isolated example. Research from McKinsey shows that companies who support even small connections between colleagues see returns on productivity.
“Engaged employees make it a point to show up to work and do more work — highly engaged business units realize an 81% difference in absenteeism and a 14% difference in productivity. Engaged workers also are more likely to stay with their employers,” according to a Gallup article.
That feels like common sense in a lot of ways. Employees who feel connected to their workplace aren’t just there to do a job. They are there because they feel like it’s their purpose. Connection motivates employees to make the organization as successful as it can be because they are personally invested in the mission. Because they know what the company’s mission is through regular communications and messaging. In turn, they become brand ambassadors, sharing that mission and message with your customers.
If you feel like your employee connections could be improved through internal communications, contact our team at Yankee Custom Marketing and we can help you figure out the next steps you can take to boost employee engagement.