There are significant changes shaping the world’s workforces and workplaces – more and more Gen Y joining organizations, diverse job expectations, erosion of trust of leadership, the rise of the activist employee, the employees’ passion to build their personal brands, and interest to be the brand’s spokesperson and affinity towards teams rather than organizations as an entity. Such changes pose interesting challenges and offer opportunities for communicators. On April 30, I ran a webinar  – ‘Tapping the Power of Your Employees as Brands’ on IABC’s website sharing perspectives and pointers on evolving trends and approaches that communicators can adopt to stay ahead of the curve.
My submission is that every organization’s culture and brand is shaped by the actions and messages shared by employees (current or former) and therefore every employee is in some way responsible for corporate communications. The explosion of social media only accentuates their power – to enhance or damage an organization’s brand. The reality is that in today’s context the communicator doesn’t control communication and needs to partner effectively with each employee to successfully build the brand from within. In that sense, employer branding isn’t as effective an approach in this new world order.
However, the role of the communicator is now more important than ever highlighting the need for revisiting skills to engage the new emerging workforce and changing expectations at the workplace.
Look up a framework that I shared to help communicators build and sustain their own program to engage employees.
