In the post, What does a strong community offer to corporations? I explored how there are a number of different groups of individuals who play key roles in whether or not a company thrives and flourishes. A great company is one that understands all of these external influences AND who knows when they should take the time and energy that is required in order to turn one of those external groups into a community.
Three of these groups are particularly vital to build communities for: current employees, alumni employees, and customers.
This post takes a deeper dive into some of the top benefits that a corporate company can experience from building and nurturing a community for their current employees.
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1. Engaged employees increase workplace productivity.
When employees are actively engaged in the workplace, they are more inspired to attain and apply their skills. They have higher levels of motivation and productivity, less conflict with their peers and managers, and less absenteeism. Actively engaged employees also report significantly less “unhealthy” work days compared to disengaged employees.
2. When staff feel that they are a part of a community, they are more likely to remain in the company.
It’s one thing to show up, do work, and get paid. It’s another thing entirely to truly care about the team and to enjoy doing the work. When employees are connected to other employees through support networks and affinity groups, it deepens their sense of connection to the company at large.
As their engagement and sense of belonging deepens, employees are less likely to pursue an alternate job offer which means that their talent and drive remains in the company.
3. Healthy and happy staff members communicate with each other, which leads to dispersing talent, skills, knowledge, and innovation throughout the company.
Peer to peer connections increases skills, talent and creates the pathways for innovation. The more diversity (i.e. of perspectives, skills, and ideas) that exists in a team, the more innovative that team will become. Open channels of communication also support those who need to develop their skills and knowledge base and allow for both formal and ad-hoc opportunities for talent sharing. It’s undeniable that more talent leads to more productivity.
Additionally, as senior employees impart their expertise to more junior employees, it reduces knowledge loss if and when employees leave the company.
4. Satisfied and valued employees are more likely to recommend the work environment to others, which helps to bring in new talent.
When employees truly enjoy working for a company, they sing the company’s praises and encourage other employees to join. This leads to better reviews on sites like Glassdoor, which are extremely important since individuals are more likely to trust information that comes from employees or peers, rather than from an official company spokesperson.
Satisfied employees are also more likely to give word of mouth recommendations.Candidate referrals from current employees account for 10% of reported job interviews. An employee-referred candidate is also more likely to be offered a job compared to other candidates. This means that employees are acting as scouts of new talent, and are actively contributing to talent acquisition.
5. Creating an environment where employees feel valued can give a branding advantage over your competitors.
Doing things like increasing the minimum wage for employees, building trust through establishing open communication channels, or other efforts to make employees feel valued can create a branding advantage over competitors. These actions matter not only to improve employees’ experiences (which is worthwhile in and of itself!), but because the employee experience also affects the public opinion of your company.
More than ever before, customers are choosing which companies to support based on an assessment of that company’s values and ethics. Conscious consumerism was identified in 2020 as one of the top trends for the coming years. Thus, one of the ways that you can gain the respect and interest of your customers is to create an environment where your employees are valued and respected members of your community.
We’ll work with you to better understand your corporate community and how to build and sustain deeper interactions between all your members. And of course, the stunning Aluminate Community Builder, our cutting-edge community platform, is available to meet the critical digital requirements of any modern community.
