Here are notes from the "Taking Your Program to the Next Level" session at the Employee Advocacy Summit in Atlanta, GA on September 15, 2014. This is one of a series of posts recapping the day and key comments from speakers and guests.
SPEAKERS
Chris Boudreaux
Digital Strategy Executive, EY
DeShelia Spann
Digital Marketing Manager, Eaton
Sabrina Stoffregen
Director of Intel Ambassadors and Corporate Initiatives Marketing Manager, Intel
Tammie Wagner
Lead Internal Communications Consultant, AT&T
NOTES
"How are you thinking about taking your Employee Advocacy program to the next level? What's next?"
- "Trial and error." Taking it from a program to a movement. "Let go and let them lead." At first it may be scary, but it's the next step in terms of success and progression. - Sabrina Stoffregen
- Start with a pilot program, but now we're ready to scale globally yet slowly. However, before the program scales globally, you have to ensure the support mechanisms for the advocates can scale right along with it. - DeShelia Spann
- "The honeymoon phase is over." When it starts to be open to a larger pool of employees, a general population, you may have to take a step back and do more research. - Tammie Wagner
Where are you getting resources from for content/communications?
- "Using the ambassadors we've recruited from across the company." - Sabrina Stoffregen
- Find the stakeholders that will advocate for you as you move around the business with the program. It grows organically. - DeShelia Spann
- AT&T has a potential employee base of 80,000 employees for their advocac program. To tap into the "social sellers" requires a lot of personal conversations and networking. - Tammie Wagner
How do you keep advocates engaged?
- You have to know your advocates. Intrinsic over extrinsic. Collective and personal motivations such as people, events or technology is more effective than a gift card. - Sabrina Stoffregen
What is the biggest thing you have not yet figured out?
- Scale. - Sabrina Stoffregen
- Going global. - DeShelia Spann
- Leadership buy-in. - Tammie Wagner