Striking the Balance:

Social Tools + Engagement

Sara Roberts and Lisa Bonner

@RobertsGolden + @LisaCBonner

2007 study based on input

from 2,100 communicators

Social + Engagement = Results

Engaged workforces have an earnings per share 3.9X higher

than other organizations in the same industry.

At Best Buy, they have precisely identified that the value of 0.1

percent increase in engagement in a particular store translates

to more than $100k in the store’s annual operating income.

Balance of Push + Pull

Roberts Golden’s

*E* Employee™ Framework

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Highlighted in Sara’s book, “Light Their Fire…”

The way we see it is that organizations need to go “beyond engagement” – it’s critical to communicate to employees but that’s only a foundational piece; alone it’s insufficient to driving and sustaining change. It’s critical to provide the right environment, autonomy and accountability measures to ensure results.

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Engage – Communicating

Your Vision

Involve employees in helping

create your vision and then

paint a clear and vivid picture

of how you will execute

together

Engage – Leadership on the “Ground”

Meet & connect with groups of employees – share &

show your vision

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Enable Employees > Providing

the Skills and Environment

• Creating a successful environment

with tools and training

• Curriculum for every role in the

organization

• Cost effective & cool ways to train

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Enable Employees >

Just a Day in the Life

• Keep leadership and management

focused on walking in shoes of

front-line employees

• Conduct “Immersion Sessions” for

leadership, to expose them to the

world of social business

applications and technologies,

demonstrating the bottom-line

benefits and opportunities…

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• A “safe” environment for

execs to learn & explore

social media & trends

• “A-ha” moments led to execs

listening with an open mind

and generating ideas

• Bringing unrelated groups

together can spark the next

“great idea”

Enable Millennials + Executives

> Reverse Mentoring

Enable > Connecting

Alumni & Retirees

• Encourage ongoing

relationships

• Referrals-product & employee

• Re-join the company

• Advocates in the community

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Empower Employees through

Decision Making Authority

• Help more people become more

powerful

• Letting them solve business

problems that are better solved by

them

• Collective intelligence is stronger

than individual, or in other

words, “crowd wisdom” is a real

thing…

• Crowdsourcing business strategy

and getting ear-to-the-ground

info

Empowering your crowd

The results show that the crowd guesses 91% correctly,

whereas experts only have a 61% likelihood of getting

the right answer.

Empower >

diversity of contribution

• Crowdsourcing solutions often

allow us to include voices and

talent we've never heard from

before.

• One such "game," Fold It, allows

any individual to work with

sequencing amino acids to figure

out how that protein is going to

fold.

• Who is the best protein folder in

the world?

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Connecting unrelated ideas

& expertise in new ways

• Advanced technology team in R&D learned

how to ink-jet a photo onto a chocolate bar

– insufficient market demand

• Second team tried to use lithographic

technology to print faces of characters

onto M&Ms – low resolution, but high

market interest

• Each team had incremental success but no

market viability

• A manager brokered a connection and

translated – “ah ha!”

– Conveys the importance of clear hubs

& connectors

From “Driving Results through Social Networks,” Rob Cross & Robert Thomas

Mobilizing internal & external

networks and collaboration to

result in breakthrough

innovation

Ensure Results

• Clearly outlining

expectations, measurement

& incentives

• Means setting clear

objectives, coaching for both

good and poor performance

and rewarding and

recognizing for job well done

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Reinforce Collaborative

Behavior & Expectations

• Important to reinforce value-add

collaborative behaviors…

Outlining:

– What does collaboration look like in

terms of tangible behaviors?

– What is our unifying goal?

– For what tasks and activities is

collaboration important / when is it

needed?

– How do we promote collaboration

through what we say and do?

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Ensure Results – through

Measuring & Providing Timely

Data

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• Measure and have concerted way to share data with employees for

meaningful action

– Tracking customer ‘moments of truth’ and sharing with

employees on a timely basis

Maturing metrics over time •Leadership and management advocacy of technologies

•Growth velocity of new technologies/adoption

•Active & continual participation/balanced givers + takers

•Investment in social technologies

Action

•Demonstrated results from social technology

usage/connections

•#/type of new tools used/introduced

•Length of stay/usage

•User demographic quality

Ability •Quality/tonality of discussion

•# of new connections/products/ideas generated

•# of calls to Help Desk/Requests of Stewards

Attitude

•# of profiles created

•Documents uploaded/viewed

•Amount of discussion

•# of departments/business involved

Awareness

•# of people trained

•Communication events/channels

•Levels of access

•Initial log-ons

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3

2

1

Advocacy 5

Imp

act

Source: Roberts Golden Consulting, Inc.

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How have you *engaged*

your employees?

Connect With Roberts Golden

sara@robertsgolden.com

www.robertsgolden.com @RobertsGolden

Headquarters office: San Francisco, CA

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Sara Roberts Lisa Bonner

lisa.bonner@robertsgolden.com

@LisaCBonner

East Coast office: New York

Us in a

Nutshell

Organizational transformation +

effectiveness consultancy

Deep expertise in employee

experience, engagement, and

strategic communications

One of the leading consultancies in

helping large, global organizations

successfully leverage and gain

adoption for enterprise social

networking tools to mobilize

engagement + collaboration