Developing Meaningful Employee Engagement Programs

Najuma Thorpe is the director of communications and stakeholder engagement at U.S. Steel. On April 20, she will lead a PRSA webinar titled “Corporate Environment and Personal Identity: Why Understanding Culture Is Key to Employee Engagement.” (Find more details here.) 

Here, Thorpe, who is also an adjunct professor at the University of North Carolina, talks about workplace culture and the importance of putting employees first.

What do many leaders still need to learn about workplace culture, especially in a remote-hybrid world?

It’s easy to forget that all workplaces are made up of individuals — people with different backgrounds, experiences and motivations. That makes organizational culture a tricky dynamic because what works for one employee will not work for another.

We see this even more acutely in today’s remote-hybrid world. Some people love remote; some don’t. You can have two employees in similar situations, yet they may have completely different views on remote work. Many of us work in environments where remote work was never an option for all employees, so that affects the culture as well.

Individuals make up organizations, and you have to account for that when you consider corporate culture. 

Is there more to an organization’s environment than corporate culture?

Absolutely. Most organizations have layers of “corporate culture.” As I said, individuals make up an organization and they all have different motivations and needs. Beyond that, most workplaces have employees with different job functions that shape their day-to-day experience. 

Workplace culture is not monolithic. And we shouldn’t expect it to be. You can establish a broad culture, but you have to recognize and understand the subcultures that develop are important as well. 

What is a crucial first step in creating meaningful employee engagement programs?

Step back and make sure you are thinking about your employees first. What do they need to know about the organization? What’s floating around the rumor mill that should be addressed? What motivates your employees? What scares your employees? What do they care about?

Put the employee first, then think about how your segments of employees relate to corporate messages or programs. Humans need to know how something affects them personally, as well as how it affects the company. 

If you can find the intersections between employee needs and corporate needs, then you are on the way to developing a meaningful employee engagement program.