A study of Canadian best practices in employee engagement communication: Practitioner, academic and consultant views together with a guide for organizations

Abstract

The value of effectively engaging employees in the work of their organizations is well recognized in Canada and globally. Managed internal communication with employees has long been viewed as an important contributor to the involvement and productivity of employees and the alignment of employee effort with organizational goals. The use of New Web 2.0 media technologies in the workplace can support innovation in managed communications and engagement with employees. This paper looks at managed employee communications in Canadian organizations -- some operating internationally -- that have been highly rated for employee engagement and appear at or near the top of the list of best employers --small, medium and large -- in Canada. The results provide an insight into what may be considered best practices in employee engagement communications. The study's findings are pertinent for organizations of all sizes both within Canada and beyond. The results demonstrate that employee communication in leading Canadian organizations is becoming much more an ongoing conversation than the top-down or even two-way communication that characterized this field in the past. While many organizations are using new social technologies for internal communications, they have not, as yet, found ideal ways of measuring the results. A practical guide for use by CEOs, senior teams and internal communications managers is one of the paper's outcomes. This study contributes to the currently limited academic field of employee engagement communications -- including the provision of a definition -- and calls for additional academic study of this topic.