Why Engagement is Key in ANY Business – Interview with Hayley Meakes

Today Christina talks with Hayley Meakes. Hayley, like Christina works in the world of marketing and is known for specialising in employee engagement. She is also a great speaker on marketing and a mentor to others.

In this episode they talk about why employee engagement is so important and it’s impact of the rest of the business. They also discuss some of the challenges of running agencies and dealing with clients. Listen today for an honest discussion about these challenges.

KEY TAKEAWAYS

Engagement is all about the employees emotional commitment to their employer and the brands goals

Employee engagement can be seen as ‘fluffy’ but there is great psychology behind it!

Engaged employees are: productive, less wasteful, more profitable and positive promoters of their brand who communicate well. They are also more innovative, work harder and take more risks.

By working with brands culture and engagement Hayley has been able to make a real difference about how the workforce is as a whole but also the effect on the company’s bottom line through things such as recruitment costs.

Celebrating successes is key to employee engagement, sometimes something just as simple as a ‘thank you’ can go a long way and can surprisingly be missing from company culture.

Investment in internal marketing can be the biggest change maker in employee engagement. Ensuring your employees understand the company and brand direction; employees are your biggest champions it’s essential they understand what it is you are trying to do.

Managers need to be accountable for the engagement on their teams. Cultural change starts with leadership.

Clear conversations are needed with clients about what ROI looks like for their business and what they expect. Is their budget realistic? It’s about managing expectations and ensuring that the clients know what they need to be doing to create success.

Be open to everything that happens around a marketing campaign, sometimes what you have aimed to happen doesn’t go exactly to plan but you gain invaluable data and gain ROI from sources you did not expect.

It’s important to take cultural differences into account when working with international clients. There are many things to consider e.g It isn’t good enough to just like-for-like translate things. Nuances and colloquialisms can change the meaning and emphasis of everything. Using a translator that speaks the language you are translating into can be effective in ensuring you don’t make faux pas.