It's been more than 70 years since Dale Carnegie said, "To be interesting, be interested," in his book, "How to Win Friends and Influence People." Since then, several books and reports have been written that support personal relationships thrive when we take the time to pay attention, be honest, offer help, and relate to one another.
A few years ago, Dale Carnegie Training took the premise another step in a study that sought to understand what drives employee engagement. One of the findings was that a good relationship with the immediate supervisor is key.
As someone who has built consulting practices at two companies, Chris Boudreaux of EY knows first-hand that social media can give leaders fantastic tools to build trusted relationships. And he says, "Brands and leaders cannot execute social media in a silo; we achieve the greatest outcomes when social is simply part of how we do business: designed, planned, executed, and measured right alongside all the traditional methods for engaging and retaining employees."
The "State of the Global Workplace Report" Gallup study highlights that only 13 percent of employees are truly engaged at work, up from 11 percent in the 2009-2010 study. That's not much. It could be a lot better. You'd think that in today's socially connected world, we'd have only 13 percent of disengaged employees.
While research and information continues to develop, one thing that remains is people bond with people-whether on a personal or business level. "But why is it that businesses use technology to instead distance themselves from people?" That's what Brian Solis, one of the most prominent thought leaders in digital transformation, asked.
To answer his question and find out what puts employees in the 13 percent, LinkedIn partnered with Altimeter Group, a Silicon Valley-based research firm that studies disruptive technology and its impact on business, and where Solis is a principal analyst.
LinkedIn put together a list of the Top 25 Socially Engaged Companies that successfully use the professional networking site to engage employees and customers. These include Salesforce, Citrix, Bloomberg, MasterCard, Visa, and The Wall Street Journal, to name a few. The new data released Friday shows the effect of social media in transforming the world of work, collaboration, and engagement this infographic.
"Permanent changes in human communication are making trust building and online advocacy critical priorities for organizations. Trust in traditional media is declining while trust in social media is increasing. In addition, people trust information and official corporate channels less, while trusting employees more. The ways that brands connect with customers must change. Equipping employees at scale to engage effectively while building trust is a strategic imperative," says Susan Emerick, Susan Emerick, CEO and founder Brands Rising LLC and co-author of "The Most Powerful Brand on Earth: How to Transform Teams, Empower Employees, Integrate Partners and Mobilize Customers to Beat the Competition in Digital and Social Media."
LinkedIn and Altimeter Group conducted targeted (1,460) and controlled (1,378) online surveys with two employee groups to gather insights into how employees feel about their company's use of social media. The target group respondents were from the top 100 most socially engaged companies on LinkedIn: socially engaged across talent and recruitment, the most influential with content marketing, and the most active in social selling. They also weighed employee engagement through member actions such as viewing employee profiles, engaging in network conversation, visiting company page, and following companies. The control group respondents were from the general user base of employees whose companies are on LinkedIn, and only companies with more than 1,000 employees were surveyed.