In October of last year, Gallup reported that worldwide only 13 percent of employees are engaged at work. With one in eight employees feeling fully committed to their work, it deserves to be labeled a crisis, especially at a time of economic instability. Furthermore, 24 percent of employees feel “actively disengaged” in the workplace. Every integrator who does business with enterprise clients should be armed with this staggering statistic. The challenge for business leaders everywhere is to dramatically increase employee engagement. Integrators play a vital role in this mission; a mission that is vital to helping companies sustain profitability and retain key employees.
Visual communications is an important part of the solution. Current communications trends—such as BYOD (bring your own device), realtime data, targeted messaging, and the use of video content—are all tools that can help foster more engagement. However, the secret weapon appears to be the social media news feed. More and more research is indicating that by sharing content and expertise via internal social media, employees are not only more engaged they are more productive. The idea here is that instead of locking up information behind email inboxes or in secure databases, employees who can easily access the content they need and be able to put it into context can simply get more done and be more involved in the process.
A communications channel that is interactive, consistently up to date, and visually strong is the ideal delivery method for these kinds of engagement-building solutions. Integrators cannot only provide corporate enterprises with hardware and software, they can put forward important business solutions that serve to reinvent businesses through impactful, meaningful communications. It’s very important that enterprise clients view the role of the integrator as an important partner who is keenly aware of the engagement crisis and is well prepared to offer innovative solutions.
Vern Freedlander is vice president of production services for Montréal-based X2O Media, a full-service provider of technology, network management, and content services for professional digital signage applications. With more than 20 years of broadcast television experience as a producer, director, and executive, Freedlander oversees all of X2O Media’s content initiatives. He can be reached at vern@X2omedia.com.
