Learn how leading organizations use social and digital technologies to create holistic employee engagement strategies that drive business impact and cultural change. Download the full report at: http://pages.altimetergroup.com/strengthening-employee-relationships-report.html

1. Strengthening Employee
Relationships in the
Digital Era
with Jon Cifuentes and Brian Solis
A Market Overview Report
December 16, 2014
By Charlene Li
Includes input from 44 ecosystem contributors
How Digital Employee Engagement and
Advocacy Transform Organizations
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2. Executive Summary
Employees are disengaged at work, and organizations have been exploring how social and digital
technologies can address this problem. But Altimeter found that only 41% of organizations believe
they take a strategic approach to employee engagement, while only 43% believe they have an
organizational culture of trust and empowerment. Our research found that leading organizations
with strong digital employee engagement take a page out of marketing’s deep expertise around
digital customer engagement and apply it inside the organization by injecting marketing expertise,
practices, and technologies into its practices. The end result: These organizations drive business
impact and cultural change through their employees.
RESEARCH HIGHLIGHTS
• Most organizations don’t have a coherent employee engagement strategy — only 41% of organizations believe they
have a holistic and strategic approach to employee engagement and advocacy.
• Authentic employee engagement only happens when there is trust in the relationship — only 43% of survey
respondents believe they have an organizational culture of trust that supports employee engagement.
• Part of the problem is that there is no natural owner of employee engagement. In 41% of organizations, HR leads
employee engagement efforts, while 17% and 11% have Employee/Corporate Communications and Marketing
leading efforts, respectively.
• There remains significant untapped opportunity to use digital tools to enhance employee engagement. Only 36%
and 25% of respondents have organizations where many employees use their internal collaboration platform and
enterprise social network, respectively.
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3. Executive Summary ..................................................................................................................................................................................
The Dismal State of Employee Engagement and Advocacy.............................................................................
Defining Digital Employee Engagement ..........................................................................................................................
Leveraging Employee Engagement to Drive Business Impact ...............................................................
The Transformational Power of Employee Engagement ...............................................................................
Conclusion ..........................................................................................................................................................................................................
Endnotes ................................................................................................................................................................................................................
Table of Contents
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4
11
12
18
22
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4. THE DISMAL STATE OF EMPLOYEE
ENGAGEMENT AND ADVOCACY
Gallup reported that worldwide only 13% of employees are
engaged at work, while it rises to 30% in the US.1
And this
number has barely budged over the past decade, despite
advances in digital tools designed to engage workers.
A new generation of enterprise social networks and
employee advocacy platforms promised a new approach,
but to date they still struggle to connect activities to the
creation of business value.Altimeter published a report
on the value of enterprise social networks in 2012 and
we wanted to follow up and learn what impact digital and
social technologies can have on employee engagement.2
In the course of our research, we interviewed 12 organizations, 14
thought leaders, and 18 vendors, which provided vivid case studies
and best practices into what organizations are doing today. We also
conducted a survey of 114 people who are directly involved with the
employee engagement and advocacy programs at their organizations.
Lastly, we tapped data from a research study Altimeter conducted with
LinkedIn that looked at how employee engagement drove business
results at “socially-engaged” companies.
Organizations Struggle to Create Holistic Employee
Engagement Strategies
From our survey of 114 organizations, we discovered three reasons
why current digital employee engagement efforts stall and fail:
1. Most organizations lack a coherent strategic approach to digital
employee engagement.
2. Digital technology deployments suffer from a lack of business
focus and platform fatigue.
3. Measurement and evidence of business value remain anecdotal.
4
Strengthening Employee Relationships in the
Digital Era
A new generation of
enterprise social networks
and employee advocacy
platforms promised a new
approach, but to date they
still struggle to connect
activities to the creation of
business value.
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5. 1. Most companies lack a coherent approach to
digital employee engagement.
One of the first questions we sought to answer was where
employee engagement initiatives were taking place within
organizations. We found that while 41% of companies
had the HR department leading employee engagement
initiatives, 17% and 11% were led by Employee/Corporate
5
Communications and Marketing departments, respectively
(see Figure 1a). And when asked what other departments
were also involved, 58% said the Executive team and 36%
said the Digital/Social team (see Figure 1b). Employee
engagement has historically been seen as an HR function
— but is now dispersed throughout the organization, often
times with little or no involvement from HR at all.
FIGURE 1 EMPLOYEE ENGAGEMENT INITIATIVES EXIST THROUGHOUT ORGANIZATIONS
Sales
Marketing
Customer Support
HR
All Others
IT
Employee/
Corporate
Communications
Corporate Strategy
3%
11%
1%
41%
22%
1%
17%
3%
Executive
Team
SalesMarketing Customer
Support
Corporate
Strategy
Emplyee/
Corporate
Communications
HR ITOperationsDigital/
Social
Team
Other
58%
51%
47%
39% 36%
23% 22% 20% 19%
16%
12%
100
75
50
25
0
Figure 1a: “Which department leads Employee Engagement Initiatives in your organization?”
Figure 1b: “What other departments are involved in Employee Engagement initiatives in your
organization? (Select all that apply.)”
Base: 88 companies with more than 250 employees (surveyed by Altimeter Group Q3 2014)
Source: Altimeter Group
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6. Preview Only
To download this report in full at no cost, please visit our website at:
http://pages.altimetergroup.com/strengthening-employee-relationships-report.html

7. About Us
Charlene Li, Founder and CEO, Analyst
Charlene Li (@charleneli) is Founder and CEO of Altimeter Group
and author of the New York Times bestseller, Open Leadership.
She is also the co-author of the critically acclaimed bestselling
book, Groundswell, which was named one of the best business
books in 2008. She is working on a new book on the digital
transformation of leadership, to be published in March 2015 by
Wharton Digital Press.
7
Altimeter is a research and
consulting firm that helps
companies understand and
act on technology disruption.
We give business leaders the
insight and confidence to help
their companies thrive in the
face of disruption. In addition to
publishing research, Altimeter
Group analysts speak and
provide strategy consulting
on trends in leadership, digital
transformation, social business,
data disruption and content
marketing strategy.
Altimeter Group
1875 S Grant St #680
San Mateo, CA 94402
info@altimetergroup.com
www.altimetergroup.com
@altimetergroup
650.212.2272
Jon Cifuentes, Senior Researcher
Jon Cifuentes (@JonCifuentes) supports research in disruption on
leadership, collaboration, organizational change, and analytics at
Altimeter Group. In his previous work, Jon led social media efforts
for large-scale B2B and B2C organizations, with a focus on the
measurement and optimization of engagement across all digital
channels.
How to Work with Us
Employee engagement spans a wide variety of departments, objectives, and technologies. In conjunction with our research, there are are
several ways Altimeter can help with your employee engagement strategy:
• Executive Education and Workshops. A key factor in employee engagement success is the buy-in and active sponsorship
of key executives. But all too often, they are unaware or threatened by new forms for digital employee empowerment. Altimeter
frequently runs executive workshop that helps education these executives on how to think strategic about the use of new employee
engagement platforms - and also how these executives need to personally get involved.
• Employee Engagement Audit. What is the state of employee engagement in your organization? This quantitative asessment of
your digital employee engagement initiatives includes a scorecard and best practices recommendations.
• Employee Engagement Strategy. Develop and align engagement initiatives across the organization into a coherent strategy,
with the Employee Digital Journey Map as the foundation for that journey. This includes organization development and governance
to ensure that the strategy implementation is coordinated across the organization.
• Engagement Vendor Selection and Implementation Best Practices. Based on existing capabilities, employee engagement
goals and strategy, and stated needs and requirements, Altimeter Group will suggest a short list of vendors/solutions. Also included
are recommendations on how to support initiatives ranging from implementing an enterprise social network to social selling.
• Thought Leadership. We will present internally or externally-facing speeches or webinars on employee engagement for both
organizations as well as vendors. We can also provide written thought leadership that adheres, as long as it adheres to our research
and objectivity standards.
To learn more about Altimeter’s offerings, contact sales@altimetergroup.com
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