WILL 2015 BE THE YEAR OF ADVOCACY?

COMMON SENSE for the C-Suite

Corporate & Strategy Volume 4 Issue 1 March 2015

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The first quarter of the year is usually a time of both reflection and forward thinking. What will 2015 have in store for organizations in terms of employee engagement and customer connectivity? What can we use and leverage from 2014 to inform and advance approaches and tactics?

We do know customers, employees and other stakeholders will continue to see more information at their fingertips and a rapidly increasing number of platforms where they can express their opinions, both good and bad. In this landscape, the traditional model of attracting and retaining business and talent simply won’t work.

..................................................The Case for Advocacy

...right at the heart of this digital world is your workforce.

A company’s reputation is no longer driven solely by paid content and messaging, but by relationships informed by all stakeholders involved with the organization. Relationships enhanced through a more sophisticated view of influence.

To start, there is a spending powerhouse generation of “Millennials,” that won’t buy much of anything without input from third-party sources, period. In fact, they are three times as likely to turn to social media before they purchase a product or service. And this is just one demographic. Global penetration of social media has reached mass maturity across age groups, spending habits and industries.

Over the past two years we have seen leading CEOs predict that social media will replace websites and call centers as the primary tool for customer interaction (IBM Study). And why not, with 53 percent of B2B buyers alone following the social media conversations of vendors they are considering?

Then there is the ever-pressing issue of employee recruitment. Companies that prioritize employer brand in 2015 are 250 percent more likely to rate overall talent acquisition efforts as highly effective and 130 percent more likely to see increases in employee engagement (Brandon Hall Group).

Social is significantly disrupting these areas of business and right at the heart of this digital world is your workforce. Employees are active on a multitude of platforms on a daily basis and their sentiments are heard by a cumulatively staggering audience.

To that end, empowering employees to take an active, informed role in sharing information, balancing arguments, promoting ideas and becoming an dynamic influence in shaping perspectives on the business is becoming an important element of an organization’s communications approach.

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1. Expanding the Organization’s Reach through an Authentic Voice

Employees want to work for a company they believe in. This sense of pride can and does compel engaged employees to speak positively and persuasively about the brand, online and offline. The authenticity of an endorsement from a personal Facebook page or a recommendation over lunch can’t be bought. It’s also essential to reach today’s customers, prospects and interested parties, who are savvy to traditional marketing tactics and disingenuous branding.

Employees are a believed community. By activating them through a disciplined effort you acquire a believable voice that customers are far more likely to trust than a paid advertisement or information on your company website.

Whether it’s which insurance plan to choose, which product to purchase or where to shop, your customers in 2015 will be listening for candor and fact that stems from how your employees convey their day-to-day realities of the company.

Employees’ voice is equally important when it comes to recruiting top talent, a key competitive differentiator when you’re fighting head-to-head with

attractive employers globally. Employees who are empowered to share their stories in a way that is positively and effectively aligned with the overall company story are incredibly powerful tools.

The proof is in the numbers. Employee social media accounts have 10 times more followers than corporate accounts, according to a 2013 Cisco study. When potential employees research your company they aren’t just going to the corporate website to find out more. They are looking for digital and in-person recommendations from the people who work there.

Whether it’s from Glassdoor or from a friend, new employees worth investing in aren’t going to take external messaging at face value without utilizing the current discovery tools available.

2. Leveraging Employee Knowledge and Experience

The benefits of activating your employees as advocates are not entirely around just the business. Digital is a complement to, not a replacement for internal

relationship-building. Now, perhaps more than ever, establishing internal connections through communications is paramount to success.

Studies show that people like to do three things online: share information and experiences; share perspectives; and solve problems. An advocacy effort allows employees to spread information, seek new ideas, and help customers with issues or problems.

In turn, satisfaction, engagement and motivation inside the company incubates happy employees. When a company’s employee value proposition aligns with reality and resonates with employees, it instills a sense of community across divisions and levels.

The 3 Key Benefits to Activating Workforce Advocates..................................................

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There are clear advocacy opportunities in 2015 with compelling benefits. There are also, however, significant business challenges specifically as it relates to the workforce.

The majority of employees around the world remain actively disengaged, most notably in the United States. Worse yet, less than half of employees understand their company’s vision and purpose—arguably the prerequisite for an engaged workforce. On top of this, work environments are changing, forcing organizational structures and businesses to shift quickly. This makes taking advantage of 2015’s customer and employee retention and acquisition lever – Employee Advocacy – even more difficult.

Further, the level of noise surrounding your business, brands, and products is causing customers to go deaf and maybe even blind to our message. In 2015, companies that can define and fuel an impactful, compelling employee advocacy effort have a real opportunity to break through, engender new and more robust relationships, and increase internal engagement.

For communications professionals, an advocacyinitiative positions the function and its valuefront and center with leadership while having your greatest asset – your employees – participate in the new age of influence.

3. A Credible Source

Armed with firsthand knowledge about daily operations and overall goals, an employee is a trusted resource when an organization is discussed, whether it’s over happy hour drinks or on an online forum such as Reddit.

Ultimately, all anyone without direct line of sight into an organization can do is guess.

An employee, however, has firsthand experience and can equally balance an argument in either direction. Considering the industry connections and links found in an employee’s personal and professional networks, this alone can be a significant factor in shaping corporate reputation.

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Looking to initiate an advocacy effort within your organization? Here is a template to assist with development and implementation.

The first step is to determine the Purpose. For example, many Advocacy programs are meant to: 1. Begin to tap into communities that were forming around the product segments the company is in and their growing influence.

2. Provide a new pathway for employees to participate actively in new conversations happening externally andinternally providing answers, perspective, and moving the company’s narrative forward.

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The public relations staff tasked with making this happen implemented the following tactics,which serve as a smart formula for others to emulate:

• Start with Pilot – Why? In order to fail fast. If things don’t work resources can be redirected quickly and lessons applied elsewhere. It’s also manageable.

• Find the Persuaders – No more than 50 people (or less depending on company size) – people who are already “socially adept” and comfortable with the process. • Establish a Network – From guidelines to training,

have the group first come together internally as a community before establishing specific social

channels to engage through. • Source Content - Segment resources to generate

content among the community against specific subjects important to the company such as Sustain-ability, Innovation, etc., to direct conversations.

• Identify KPIs – To keep both leaders and employees engaged, a set of metrics that allows people to determine if relationships are being formed, content is being amplified, and the company’s voice is being heard need to be solidified.

• Share Daily - A dashboard depicting conversations placed on the computer of each of the employees involved in the Network keeps track of various platforms connected to the effort allowing for regular discussion and learning.

As one communications leader recently shared, “We continue to gain major benefits from our advocacy initiative. The most valuable is the level of excitement and engagement from the employees involved. They’ve become a font of information for the business in addition to helping to convey important information by bringing new insights into the company.”

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WCG’s Corporate and Strategy Group is the organizational communications consulting practice for WCG*, a leading independent, global strategic marketing, digital, and corporate communications firm.

The mission of the WCG Corporate Strategy Group is to advise and assist organizations in effectively addressing reputational risk, change management, innovation, product supremacy, and brand leadership.

The group offers distinctive expertise in culture transformation, strategy implementation, CEO transitions, leadership positioning, internal branding, M&A post-merger integration, labor-management relations, advocacy and issues management, internal communications improvement programming, investor relations, training and development, and employee worldview research/measurement through a proprietary combination of analytics, management outreach, employee engagement and strategic communications.

*WCG is a firm of the W2O Group

For more information, please contact Meriel McCaffery:mmccaffery@wcgworld.com212-301-7221

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