This document summarizes a webinar about internal communication and employee engagement. It discusses how only 27% of UK employees are highly engaged, and covers topics like leadership, communication, engagement, employee voice, and organizational commitment. It also presents research that correlations have been found between aspects of internal communication and organizational engagement based on surveys of over 2,000 employees across five organizations.

1. CIPR INSIDE
WEBINAR: Internal
Communication and
Employee
Engagement
2013

2. CIPR INSIDE WEBINAR
Welcome
Kevin Ruck
PR Academy
@AcademyKev
exploringinternalcommunication.com
kevin.ruck@pracademy.co.uk

3. Just 27% of employees
in the UK are ‘highly
engaged’, with an
equivalent proportion
of employees being
‘disengaged’.
Engage for Success

4. Leadership
Leadership
Provides aastrong
Provides strong
strategic
strategic
narrative.
narrative.
Engaging
Engaging
Managers
Managers
Facilitate and
Facilitate and
empower.
empower.
Communication
Engagement
Voice
Voice
Views are sought
Views are sought
out; people see
out; people see
that their
that their
opinions count.
opinions count.
MacLeod and Clarke (2009) Engaging for Success
Integrity
Integrity
Behaviour is
Behaviour is
consistent with
consistent with
stated values.
stated values.

6. Employee engagement theory
In his original study that outlines the basis for employee engagement, Kahn (1990, p.
693), defines it as, “…the harnessing of organization members’ selves to their work
roles; in engagement, people employ and express themselves physically, cognitively
and emotionally during role performances”.
Wave 1:
Wave 1:
1990s
1990s
•
Characterised by the beginnings of practitioner interest and
the term employee engagement came into use, widely
credited as being coined by consultancy firm Gallup in 1999.
•
Wave 2:
Wave 2:
2000 --2005
2000 2005
Robinson et al., (2004) defined the concept as a positive
employee attitude towards the organisation and its values,
involving awareness of business context, and work to
improve job and organisational effectiveness.
•
Wave 3:
Wave 3:
2006 --2010
2006 2010
Saks (2006) extended the employee engagement concept
to encompass both job engagement and organisation
engagement. Saks's work is significant because it tackles
the question of the status of the concept.
Welch (2011)

7. Work engagement
Organisational
engagement
The work you do
The vision of the organisation, where it’s
headed
The team work environment
The values of the organisation, what it
believes in
Personal development opportunities
The perceived support given to all
employees
The relationship with your line manager
The way that senior managers communicate
with all employees
The opportunity to have a say about what
goes on in your team
The opportunity to have a say about what
goes on in the organisation
The response provided by a line manager to
views expressed
The response provided by senior managers
to views expressed

8. Work engagement
Work engagement
Intellectual engagement
Intellectual engagement
I Ifocus hard on my work
focus hard on my work
I Iconcentrate on my work
concentrate on my work
I Ipay aalot of attention to my work
pay lot of attention to my work
Affective engagement
Affective engagement
I Ifeel positive about my work
feel positive about my work
I Ifeel energetic in my work
feel energetic in my work
I Iam enthusiastic in my work
am enthusiastic in my work
Social engagement
Social engagement
I Ishare the same work values as
share the same work values as
my colleagues
my colleagues
I Ishare the same work goals as my
share the same work goals as my
colleagues
colleagues
I Ishare the same work attitudes as
share the same work attitudes as
my colleagues
my colleagues

9. Organisational
Organisational
engagement
engagement
Think
Think
I Ithink about improvements to help
think about improvements to help
my organisation operate more
my organisation operate more
effectively
effectively
Feel
Feel
I Ifeel positive about working for my
feel positive about working for my
organisation
organisation
Do
Do
I Iput extra effort in to help the
put extra effort in to help the
organisation succeed
organisation succeed

10. Employees’ organisational commitment
(%)
21,981 respondents in
the UK
https://www.gov.uk/government/p
ublications/the-2011-workplaceemployment-relations-study-wers

11. Three components of
employee engagement
Feeling well
Feeling well
informed
informed
Opportunities
Opportunities
for
for
upward
upward
feedback
feedback
Manager
Manager
commitment
commitment
Truss et al.(2006)

12. 49% Employees feel fairly well informed about
important organisational issues
29% Received only a limited amount of information
13% Reported they received not much at all
Truss et al.(2006)

13. Informed Employee Voice
High
Informed Non-Communicators (6%)
Fully/fairly well informed but little
opportunity
to feed information upwards
Feel
informed
Informed Communicators (32%)
Fully/fairly well informed and have
opportunity
for upward communication
This group is highly engaged
Fence sitters
Fence sitters
(39%)
(39%)
Uninformed Non-Communicators
(18%)
Little/no information and lack of
opportunity
for upward feedback
Uninformed Believers (5%)
Little information but have opportunity
to feed information upwards
Low/med
Low/med
Have opportunity for
upward
communication
Truss et al. (2006)
High

15. Case study
HP
Discover 2012
“We highlighted times when Meg [CEO] would be
speaking about strategy, or when someone would be
talking about innovation or plans for the future. As
financial information was unveiled at the meeting,
MacNeil [VP Global Employee Comms] and her team
were able to simultaneously on the intranet.”
“They [employees] were getting information at the same
time as the analysts. But the key difference was that, for
the first time ever, the information was being put into
context for Hewlett Packard employees.”
Oct 2013
corpcommsmagazine.co.uk

16. Upward feedback
Basic
Basic
Surveys,
Surveys,
suggestion
suggestion
schemes,
schemes,
email boxes..
email boxes
Advanced
Advanced
Based on people
Based on people
feeling well
feeling well
informed in the first
informed in the first
place, face to face,
place, face to face,
actions taken as a
actions taken as a
result or reasons
result or reasons
why action not
why action not
taken provided.
taken provided.
Reinforced by
Reinforced by
managers who
managers who
are open to
are open to
critical feedback..
critical feedback

17. Employees’ rating of management’s active
consulting (%)

18. Case study
Essex County Council
Your Voice
“In 2011, we ran our first ‘Your
Voice’ engagement day. This was
followed up in 2012. On one day we
held 48 separate face-to-face events
which enabled over 800 employees
to have discussions with senior
leaders.”
http://ciprinside.co.uk/learnin
g/case-studies/

19. Case study
Glasgow Housing Association
Think Yes
“The objective of Think Yes was to raise
customer satisfaction levels by asking staff to
think positively when faced with a
customer request.”
“There is a popular Think Yes area on the
intranet. Colleagues can post any major
'blockage' anonymously if they feel it can't be
discussed with their manager. Again, we solve
the problem then openly publish the blockage
and solution.”
http://ciprinside.co.uk/learnin
g/case-studies/

20. PhD research
Internal Communication and Organisational
Engagement Questionnaire (ICOEQ)
123 closed questions using a 5 point Likert scale and
four open questions:
1. Information interests
2. Helpfulness of communication methods
3. General satisfaction with communication
4. Senior manager communication
5. Line manager level communication
6. Peer group level communication
7. Organisational engagement
Welch (2011)
5 organisations
2066 responses to survey
27 interviews
9 focus groups with 77
people
Differences in satisfaction
between organisations are
significant, for example,
satisfaction with ways to
communicate ideas to
senior managers varied
from 18% to 65%

21. Correlations: strategic planning
Analysing the strength of the
association of a specific aspect
of communication with a
specific aspect of engagement.
For example, satisfaction with
employee voice and emotional
organisational engagement.

22. Internal Communication
Senior
Managers
Organisational Engagement
Plans
and aims
Change
Progres
s
Informed
Informed
employee
employee
voice
voice
Employee Voice
Do
Diagram to represent summary of associations between internal communication and organisational
engagement based on 2066 responses from employees in five organisations
Source: Ruck (2013) Unpublished PhD research at University of Central Lancashire,

23. How to help employees get
strategy
Harvard Business Review – research
based on 60, 000 responses.
“Top management has a profound impact
on how well employees grasp and support
strategy – far more than any other variable.
Supervisors don’t play a direct role.”
“Only top leaders can give strategic
communication the appropriate weight.”
Galunic and Hermreck (Dec 2012)

24. Senior management
understanding
Practitioners’ perception of stakeholders who
think that internal communications is really
important:
Ruck and Trainor
(2012)

26. Changing internal communication practice
Q4. In an ideal world, how would you change
the amount of time spent on these priorities
More
Same
Less
Ruck and Trainor
(2012)

27. Evidence based practice