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Employers Turn to Social Media to Keep Workers Engaged
The Employee Engagement Survey by the International Association of Business Communicators (IABC) Research Foundation in association with Buck Consultants found almost four-fifths (79%) of respondents report that they use social media frequently to engage employees and foster productivity, outranking even e-mail (75%). A press release said company blogs are the most popular social media tool currently in use (47%), with discussion boards ranking the highest for future planned use (33%).
Currently few respondents use social networking sites such as Twitter (21%), Yammer (20%), and Facebook (18%), but organizations are planning to use those tools even more in the future.
Other key survey findings, according to the press release, include:
- More than half of the respondents (52%) report their communication budgets have decreased and 35% report their communication staff has been reduced over the past 12 months;
- The most common reasons cited for communication budget and staff cuts are the economic downturn (46%) and organizational mandates (42%);
- 48% report their employee communication strategy has stayed the same despite the economic downturn;
- 62% of respondents regularly engage in employee listening activities such as surveys and focus groups, and 30% rarely or never engage in these methods;
- 56% of top executives are not using social media at this time, and nearly half (46%) of organizations are not measuring social media’s effectiveness;
- Almost six in 10 respondents (59%) think their company has a well established internal or employer brand.
The survey includes responses from nearly 1,500 participants representing a broad industry and geographic base.