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Listen for the answers: a new IABC Research Foundation study reveals opportunities to enhance employee engagement.

Article Excerpt
Communicating for optimal employee engagement is usually a topic of great interest within organizations, but even more so during challenging economic times. Employees who face a near-daily dose of unsettling or downright negative news can find it harder to focus on simply doing their jobs well.

Global employee engagement survey results released by the IABC Research Foundation reveal opportunities for communicators to have greater influence on delivering messages that encourage employees to remain productive, and to understand how their work contributes to achieving organizational priorities.

Buck Consultants, an ACS Company, partnered with the IABC Research Foundation on the Employee Engagement Survey, which includes responses from nearly 1,500 participants representing a broad industry and geographic base. A majority of the respondents were IABC members.

Fluctuating budgets, resources

There were no great surprises in the responses about shrinking budgets and resources, as about 35 percent of respondents said their communication staff levels had decreased over the past 12 months. Slightly more than half reported slight or significant budget decreases, with the economic downturn and mandated cuts called out as the most common reasons for the reductions.

Survey responses indicate that more senior leaders are relying on the expertise of professional communicators, especially during difficult times. Nearly half of respondents said their senior leaders were partnering with communicators more frequently than they did 12 months ago.

Forty-two percent said senior leaders were partnering with communicators at about the same frequency as before.

Growing use of social media

While social media is perhaps the hot topic among communicators, it is not the solution to effective employee engagement. It...

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