Last week I was the Chair of the ALI Strategic Internal Communications and Employee Engagement Conference in Chicago and I shared my perspective on the relationship between employee experience and employee engagement. It resonated with the audience, so I thought it would be helpful to elaborate further.
Considering that almost all of our current projects at Intactic have an employee engagement objective, I feel it’s important to propose a shared definition to be able to dig-deeper and understand how to move beyond theory and inspire action.
To begin, let’s not forget that this is another example of how the words we use to describe things often change, however the meaning remains the same.
This is how we see it:
An employee experience includes a collection of touch points (face-to-face interactions, emails, articles, events, classes, digital, etc.). Touch points are influenced by effective communications (content and design, up, down and sideways). When employees have the information they need to do their job, they perform better and tell their friends. When people perform better, they are happier. When people are happy at work, they are more engaged.
Definitions of employee engagement also include levels of discretionary effort, emotional commitment, someone who is fully absorbed by and enthusiastic about their work, etc. I understand that there are many ways to slice this, however not many folks with argue with happiness as a key measure of employee engagement.
Data also illustrates that employee engagement continues to be a key concern of leaders and communicators. I would propose that the investment currently being allocated towards measuring employee engagement is better spent on creating more effective employee communications that directly influence the employee experience.
Thoughts? Please share your comments and perspective.
To learn more about how we create modern employee experiences, feel free to contact us.