Once a necessary evil, or completely ignored all together, employee communications is becoming a vital discipline and corporate function at leading organizations.

“I used to say often that we were in the back room instead of the board room,” says Insidedge President Keith Burton, in a video interview with PRWeek about the future of employee communications.

“10 years ago in employee communications I found that we were moving away from the classic, traditional forms of employee communications… and to this new age that we’re in: moving away from regional and cultural change into an age of new commitment,” adds Keith. “And that new age of commitment means we have to use listening tools better, we have to use the technology we have today better than we have ever in the past. And that includes intranet technologies, as well as other forms of digital and social media.”

The need for better “listening” and communications could not be more starkly highlighted in the Watson Wyatt Communication ROI Study™.  Among the findings, those companies that invest in employee communications realize greater profits:

• Companies that communicate effectively have a 19.4 percent higher market premium than companies that do not.
• Shareholder returns for organizations with the most effective communication were over 57 percent higher over the last five years (2000-2004) than were returns for firms with less effective communication.
• Communication effectiveness is a leading indicator of financial performance.

In becoming effective employee communications cultures, technology including the intranet and social media are becoming critical delivery and participation channels.

“I believe today that with the focus on authenticity, with the focus on new ways of delivering communications… and social media… our world is dramatically changing,” says Burton. “We have employees today, as an example, who are receiving information both in the media as well as inside the organization that influences their working different parts of the world.”

As for the future, story-telling models and social media (Web 2.0 / Intranet 2.0) might provide a sneak preview to the changes ahead  in an increasingly important field.

“I think the next 10-years will be dramatically different,” says Burton, who leads arguably the world’s top agency dedicated to employee communications in Chicago-based Insidedge. “I think we’ll see more focus around a grass-roots, bottom-up form of employee communications… rather than the hierarchal communication. I think it will be populated more by the story-telling model models that we seen in companies like Dow Chemical. We’ll see organizations that have to bridge cultures better… in creating a singularity in culture where employee communications is a very, very vital part of that world.”

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