The world of work is changing – employees are becoming stakeholders in their organization

The world is changing, nothing will be the same. But maybe, that is not such a bad thing.

 If you stop to listen, to really see what is happening, this could be the beginning of something good, better, different. Yes, the world of work, the world of employees, is changing.

By now you must have heard about the ‘great resignation’. 4.43 million employees have resigned from work during September in the US alone, according to Statista.  If you are reading this, you might be as lost as most managers, looking for solutions. It caught many by surprise, but without sounding too arrogant, it didn’t surprise me that much.

Having devoted most of my career to training and engaging employees and, later on, creating a platform that helps other companies communicate and engage with their employees, the trend was evident to me.

However, when companies we serve started making off-boarding videos (we had previously only experienced onboarding), it occurred to me that I had underestimated the severity of this trend.

Before Bites, I was the owner and developer of 8 restaurants and bars, so when I went back to visit my former colleagues and employees, it suddenly became clear to me that en masse resignation of frontline employees was the tip of a very deep iceberg.

My former colleagues and I discussed why it is so challenging to maintain employee engagement. We realized that the pandemic simply accelerated and exacerbated issues that were already there.

Today’s employees want to find meaning and fulfillment in their work far beyond a means to pay for food and rent. Of course, we’ve always wanted to feel a part of something bigger than ourselves, but nowadays, we also want to think that we have an impact on the outcome. 

That’s why we are seeing (amazing) innovations like DAO. But truth be told, it doesn’t require something as drastic as blockchain-backed decentralized institutions to engage and communicate with your employees today.

Our experience shows that companies who put their people first and make employees true stakeholders in their organization can turn this trend on its head. Communicating with employees on real-time events, asking for feedback, and delivering professional content in a format that employees enjoy, can drastically lower an organization’s turnover rate. 

However, I’d like to focus on one key development: employee-generated content.

For me, employee-generated content (EGC in short) is the natural evolution of the (overused) term of user-generated content (UGC) but what really makes EGC so exciting for me is how simple and how effective it is.

By harnessing the wisdom of crowds and letting your employees generate professional content for you and the organization, you can achieve extraordinary results.

Most of the time, they are the ones who know best. They are the ones who are doing the actual work; many times, they are the most experienced personnel, both in terms of time spent on the floor and in terms of first-hand experience. So why not harness this knowledge to promote your company and meet your goals?

Another great thing about employee-generated content is that the person who created the content (and the people who feature in it) gains visibility within the company. They essentially become “workplace creators” (and a part of the creators’ economy, but that’s for a different blog post).

I genuinely believe that workplace creators are one of the most significant drivers that an organization can have, especially for everything that has to do with employee engagement and professional communication.

Imagine seeing a peer of yours sharing their tips, tricks, and best practices with you – you immediately feel connected and can relate to what they’re saying. You may also be inspired to share your own story and perspective. 

I can say without a doubt that these workplace creators generated some of the best Bites we’ve seen, and the effect it had on the company was astonishing.

Making it possible for your employees to become workplace creators and share professional content with colleagues is a win-win situation. Employees get to make a real difference, and you, as an employer, get high engagement rates and quality content.

There are also many options for rewarding these workplace creators, but that’s for next time…

Eran Heffetz
CEO