Five Media Trends for HR Professionals Should Understand When Communicating With Employees
In an ideal world, employees would eagerly anticipate each written company communiqué; spend their free time exploring the corporate intranet’s self-service feature and curl up with the detailed company newsletter. The reality of today’s workplace, however, is different. This article notes that employees now get instant messages on their cell phones on the bus to work while they’re reading their e-mail. They’re watching TV programs on their computer screens, browsing the Internet on their TVs and getting quick updates from friends while Facebooking, YouTubing and Twittering. New technologies have created new media trends “that are changing expectations for how, why and when employees receive information.” Companies are advised to keep up or risk their messages to employees will be left behind.
The five media trends identified in this article are:
- Digitization and Convergence: Instead of print, radio and TV delivering separate types of information catering to different audiences we now see all types delivered by all channels for all people. Nearly everyone is online where they can find and do just about everything. Rather than thumbing through tables of contents, people want to find digital information instantly, preferably nicely integrated with other sources.
- User-Generated Content: Users want to contribute their voices, too. Websites are now emerging that are created and maintained by users. The buzz word “Web 2.0” refers to this new collaborative and the article discusses the impact of forums, social networking sites, blogs and Wikipedia. Research suggests people trust user-generated site content because its source is “real people” like them, perhaps even friends or colleagues. 77 percent of respondents in one Forrester Research study trusted e-mail from people they know; only 16 percent trusted company blogs.
- Social-Networking: Social networking sites are the fastest growing type of online content, with the average Facebook user logging on 18-20 times per day. News from these personal networks is more attractive to users than content from regular news sources, creating a rising bar for corporate communications as people become more and more accustomed to receiving news presorted and prioritized by the people they know and trust most – their friends.
- Personalization and Customization: It is growing more and more difficult for companies to craft messages compelling enough to compete with the personalized content being delivered to online viewers. Online devices like RSS readers allow users to pick the sources of their content feeds while many commerce sites remember visitors and customize content based on what users have visited in the past. Gen-X and Gen-Yers demand the most personalization but Boomers are heavier users of financial and medical info and twice as likely to receive e-mail daily.
- Gaming: This author does not believe gaming is at all frivolous, noting that 217 million people participate in online games and two-thirds of U.S. households play video games. She and others believe that the problem-solving and the creating and execution of strategies create legitimate learning experiences with direct business applications. For the 18-49 year age group gaming now outstrips DVDs, box office receipts, movie rentals, books and music. Players buy and plug small, simple games into their home pages and favorite social networking sites all the time. Both Kaiser Permanente and Humana have created small games tailored to different age groups that focus on healthy behaviors and the article advises companies to encourage their employees to add games to their customized views of the company intranet portal to encourage and prolong visits.
The article makes a solid case for its belief that most companies are out of sync with the way their employees communicate and it encourages readers to replace or supplement their traditional manuals, brochures and other communications with content that mimics and effectively competes with the ways employees have learned to receive information – “in time, on demand and across multiple channels.” The article ends with a discussion of four principles that will help company communications attract and hold the interest of employees.
Source: Jennifer Benz, Employee Benefit Plan Review (New York); May, 2009
