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Between April and July 2018, Poppulo conducted a unique piece of research into how employee communications are conducted by IC teams and resonate with employees across a diverse range of industries in the US and Europe.
With internal communications playing a key role in the employee experience, we set out, in conjunction with the world's leading ethnographic research company, Human Factors International, to investigate what communications mean from an employee perspective.The industries included: pharmaceuticals, infrastructure engineering, mail and transport services, healthcare and manufacturing.
Research methods included a combination of work environment observation and in-depth interviews with employees, line managers, and Internal Communicators - to obtain a full picture of communications flow through each organization.
During the research, four distinct generalized personas emerged, with commonly shared characteristics irrespective of industry or sector. The results also show a gulf between the priorities and activities of IC teams, on the one hand, and the needs and wants of employees on the other.
The Marketing & Product Team
In recent years, employee communicators have taken center stage, navigating through periods of uncertainty and redefining the employee experience in an era where the traditional “workplace” is evolving rapidly.
Artificial Intelligence (AI) is inescapable these days. You’ve no doubt heard a ton of noise around what AI—specifically generative AI—means for the future of work. Tools like ChatGPT for text generation and Midjourney for image generation are changing the way that people do their jobs.
Employee communications teams face several barriers that hold them back from making decisions on how to effectively reach their employees. Many of these barriers can be tied back to human behavior, the expectations of employees today, uncertainty in business, limited resources, and the fear of messing up. And often, these barriers prevent communicators from making the right decisions about communications strategy—or even making any decision at all.
