State of Comms: Employee Experience Survey Results

As the way we work continues to evolve, so does the internal comms landscape, driving employees to adopt new ways to access information and bringing new strategies and best practices into play for communicators.

To maximize the value that employees get from communications, comms professionals must understand employee preferences and how employees experience communications at their organization.

To get to the bottom of this, Poppulo partnered with TINT—a leading marketing technology services company—to survey employees across a variety of industries and understand current trends in channel preference, hybrid work, comms satisfaction, and more. This article will share the key results and takeaways from the survey, plus share some recommendations based on our findings. Let’s dive in!

Survey Background

For this survey, we collected results from over 3,400 employees across North America working in a variety of industries at organizations with less than 100 employees to over 30,000. 38% of respondents stated that they have been working with their current employer for over 2 years, and 49% of respondents work for a company with 500+ employees. 81% of respondents are over the age of 35, and 83% of respondents identified as women. The top three industries respondents work in are healthcare & medical, retail & consumer products, and education & training, with 58% of respondents stating they are desk-based.

Key Findings

Looking at employee satisfaction, 71% of employees are either satisfied or very satisfied with their current employer, while 8% are dissatisfied or very dissatisfied. Despite the majority of respondents reporting that they are satisfied with their company, 40% of qualified respondents said the internal news their organization shares slightly or does not at all improve their employee experience. Only 28% felt that the news and updates shared by their employer extremely or significantly improved the overall experience as an employee.

40% of qualified respondents said the internal news their organization shares slightly or does not at all improve their employee experience.

The most popular sources people use for information related to their role are email, in-person meetings, mobile apps, and online messaging services. Here is the full breakdown:

• Email: 21%
• Intranet: 11%
• Mobile app: 6%
• Digital signage: 4%
• Online messaging: 11%
• In-person meetings: 14%
• Employer social media: 3%
• Printed materials: 6%
• Online portal/platform: 8%
• Physical mail:3%
• Other: 1%

We also asked respondents what common challenges they face related to finding or accessing information related to their roles, tasks, and organization. 22% of respondents feel that information is spread across too many tools or systems, while 19% feel that information is missing or not sufficiently documented, and 16% feel that information is outdated and inaccurate.

22% of respondents feel that information is spread across too many tools or systems.

Here is a breakdown of the top types of information that employees feel is most valuable to have quick and easy access to:

• Business performance: 8%
• Strategy, vision, and purpose: 10%
• Well-being: 11%
• Employee recognition: 14%
• Values, behavior, and culture: 9%
• Rewards and benefits: 16%
• New technology: 8%
• Regulations and compliance: 8%
• Ways of working: 8%
• Health and safety: 8%
• Career development: 11%

Additionally, the types of content that employees enjoy consuming the most are social media posts (13%), short-form videos (11%), short-written articles (8%), and images (8%).

Lastly, we asked employees how critical they believe two-way communication is in their organization, and 65% of respondents believe it is highly or more critical to use two-way comms to enhance the employee experience, while only 3% believe it is not critical at all.

65% of qualified respondents believe it is highly or more critical to use two-way communication to enhance the employee experience.

Recommendations

Here are four recommendations for communicators based on the results of the survey:

1. Considering social posts and videos are one of the most popular forms of content, create social media content, including videos, with a mix of employee recognition, well-being, and career development.
2. Run an EGC campaign to collect employee content, including videos, and re-share it across social media to boost engagement.
3. Launch an internal monthly newsletter highlighting important moments within the company.
4. Repurpose EGC and other exciting social content in an internal newsletter, where you can dive into rewards/benefits, employee recognition, well-being, and career development.

If you’re interested in learning more about how to leverage EGC to improve comms at your organization, check out our recent webinar where we partnered with TINT to shed light on the top strategies and best practices for employee-generated content. Or, if you’d like to talk to a Poppulo representative about how we can help reach employees with the content they prefer, fill out a form and we’ll be in touch.