STRATEGIC RECOMMENDATIONS REPORT

Group 8 – PUR 3500

I. Executive Summary

This report discusses the recommendations for the Miami based architecture firm QSRT
in regards to a possible employee advocacy program. This report was conducted upon request of
the company to research employee advocacy programs, how one could be successfully
implemented to the company, and if it would help reach the company’s current objectives.
QSRT’s current objectives are:
1. Attract qualified talent
2. Increase their number of clients
Upon further research into employee advocacy programs, strategic recommendations for
the firm have been concluded. Interviews from a sample of employees of various companies
showed that employees between the age of 20-27 actively use social media, but the majority do
not advocate for their company. With that being said employees typically engage in advocacy
programs when they value their corporate culture. A successful employee advocacy program
must have a solid foundation of a strong corporate culture, where employees genuinely want to
advocate for their company.
Further research into the relationship between employee advocacy programs and the
culture of a company showed recognition as the most important factor for both. A Harvard
Business Review study found that employee engagement of 72% of businesses increased
significantly when employees received recognition. Whether it be monetary recognition or
non-monetary, employees want to be recognized.
Many employees also would already be comfortable advocating for their employer, they
just don’t know how or why they would. Educating employees on how they can advocate online
or offline for their employer can easily boost social engagement. To take that further, employees
who are incentivized to engage in advocacy programs will be more willing to post online or
recruit new talent.
Based on research, a successful employee advocacy program must:
● Have a positive company culture
● Recognize employees
● Educate employees about employee advocacy
● Measure its own impact
● Communicate the impact to employees
II. Understanding Employee Advocacy

What is employee advocacy?

Employee advocacy is defined as the promotion of a company from its own
internal employees. According to HR Daily Advisor, employee advocacy is not just the
promotion of the company, but is promotion of their own personal actions on their
personal media accounts. Not only can employees advocated on their personal social
media accounts, but they can also advocate through word-of-mouth with fellow peers,
friends, or family members.

Why do employees engage in employee advocacy?

Employees typically engage in employee advocacy because they genuinely want
to, not because they have to. Employees advocate when they value their corporate
cultures. According to a Fidelity investment survey, the value millennials place on
corporate culture is so extreme that they are willing to take a $7,600 pay decrease in
return for a better corporate culture.
What can organizations do to encourage employee advocacy behaviors?
To encourage employee advocacy, a company must strive to have a great
corporate culture. Employees need to love where they work, or else they will not want to
engage in employee advocacy. To get employees to love where they work, good
relationships between the company and its employees must be established. Recognition
of employees also makes employees more likely to participate in employee advocacy.
According to DCR Strategies, a well-structured rewards program can increase
employee performance by as much as 44%. There are two types of rewards for
engagement: financial and non-financial. Financial rewards are gifts to employees,
usually monetary bonuses or gift cards for advocating on behalf of their company. At
Chesapeake Energy, a company engaged in producing petroleum and gas, over $8 million
in “safety bonuses” were handed out to more than 6,000 employees who work for the
company all because they followed safe work practices.
According to Richard Bead, vice president of human resources at the Telus
Corporation, pay raises are only effective for three months. This is where non-financial
rewards come in. Non-financial rewards are more varied: they can take the form of
recognition (social media posts honoring a worker, “Employee of the Month” programs),
allowing employees to use social media at work (social media use is usually frowned
upon in the workplace so it can be a useful reward to increase employee advocacy), and
even gamification. Non-financial rewards also include the classic, well-known method of
 giving away “swag” (t-shirts, bags, mugs, and hats with company logos/graphics on
them). Sometimes, depending on the individual, employees may just value a simple
“hello” from higher management to keep them advocating on behalf of the company.
According to our primary research however, it seems the majority of employees at
other companies would not want to engage in employee advocacy if it is tied to their own
personal brands. Many felt that the companies they work for already do a good job at it.
However, many of the employees interviewed would be okay with employee advocacy if
their companies had a program that was not tied to their own personal social media
accounts.

III. Objectives

An employee advocacy will help QSRT reach its business objectives of:
1.​ Attracting qualified talent
2.​ Increasing the numbers of clients
Employee advocacy helps companies attract qualified talent as well as increase their
number of clients. When employees are positively promoting their company, it attracts
potential employees to become a part of the company culture. Along with that it shows
potential clients the legitimacy of the company and how they treat their employees. When
employees are promoting a company’s goals and ideas it shows clients that they are
sincere.
Here are some objectives that will help you achieve these goals.
Objective 1: By August 19​th​, 2019, 95% of employees will be aware of our employee
advocacy program
Objective 2: By September 20​th​, 2019, at least 10% of all new employees will be referrals
who heard about QSRT through employees advocating on social media
Objective 3: By September 25​th​, 2019, at least 5% of all new clients will be referrals who
heard about QSRT through employees advocating on social media

IV. Strategies and Tactics

There are many strategies and tactics available to help achieve effective and efficient
employee advocacy.

Create a Positive Company Culture

A positive company culture is the single most important reason for most employees to want to
advocate for their employer.
 I. Hold sample interviews to see what employees would like from their company. This will
showcase smaller, easy changes to implement to improve the work environment.
II. Launch recognition programs: both monetary and non-monetary, to recognize hard work
and positivity. Recognize employees who contribute to the overall positive culture of the
company.
III. Grow a standard sized educational program to allow for employees to gain higher
education and certifications. This will allow employees to improve their expertise within
the company, or help those who have future goals.
IV.
Educate Employees on Employee Advocacy
It is important for companies to ensure the content employees are posting to social media aligns
with their beliefs and goals.
I. Employee social media training allows for employers to share their ideas and goals for
partaking in employee advocacy programs. It gives employees an idea of what to post
and what not to post about their company online.
II. Employee social media manual. Creating a manual will allow employees to look at their
employer’s at the employees' free will. This method will make employees feel like they
aren't being forced to do anything, but if they want to educate themselves they have the
tools necessary.
III. Bring in a speaker to a company meeting to show the positive effects of employee
advocacy, and examples of how to effectively use it. This will provide employees with
concrete evidence and ideas to motivate them to begin partaking in employee advocacy.

Use an Employee Advocacy Tool

An online employee advocacy tool allows companies to monitor what employees are posting on
social media.
I. Adopting a tool such as Dynamic Signal to help achieve employee advocacy without all
of the risk involved.
II. Preset company news for employees to post with the click of a button. This helps control
what is being posted online while also making it effortless for employees to participate.
III. Measure employee engagement through the use of provided graphs and statistics. This
will allow companies to view how employee advocacy is working for their company as
well as what employees are most active.

Recognize Employee Advocacy Efforts

Employees will be more likely to continue advocating for their company when they are being
recognized for their efforts.
 I. Recognize the employee with the top social media engagement at weekly meetings. This
allows employees to be recognized in front of their workforce and receive satisfaction for
their efforts.
II. Incentivize being the employee with the most social media engagement with rewards.
This will encourage employees to partake in employee advocacy.
III. Update employees with how their efforts are helping their company no matter how big or
small. People want to know they are making a difference. Companies acknowledging
their employees' social media efforts will encourage them to keep going. Showcase how
many new clients they have attracted, or new qualified talent for the company.

V. Evaluation

By implementing all of the strategies and tactics previously shared, employees will have
different ways to measure and evaluate success. The first step in this process, educating
employees on employee advocacy, is one of the most essential to finding measurable success
within these programs. This is due to the fact that most employees are unfamiliar with employee
advocacy or are unsure of the tools accessible to them to properly advocate on behalf of their
company. By starting the process of educating employees or even just putting the idea in their
head, companies will start the process of growing their employee advocacy rate and produce a
measurable impact for their company. Training programs for advocating on social media are
especially easy for employees to evaluate their success since users can see their engagement
directly and other users have the option to comment on or share posts.
Although hosting seminars and speakers to train employees how to advocate may not be
the easiest to measure with external success, internally these programs will make a noticable
difference even if it is just internally within the company. This is a tool that can be paired with
social media training and usage and can be coupled with other advocacy success statistics like
social media since this method affects employee advocacy rates as a whole. However, higher-ups
within the company may have their own methods to measure the company’s internal success
with these programs to meet their standards.
Using employee advocacy tools is one of if not the easiest to evaluate success since
companies can monitor exactly what their employees post to advocate on behalf of their
company. This can also eliminate risks for the company by eliminating poor things employees
may have to say about the company. On the other hand, since the company can view all of the
online advocacy and engagement through provided graphs and statistics, they have the capability
to keep track of employees’ advocacy and presence online and can use these numbers to
incentivize using the advocacy program.
Recognizing employee efforts can be measurable internally and externally through
regular company meeting discussing advocacy. When a company is persistent with a task and
continues to follow-up with their employees, the employees will feel more encouraged to
participate or continue participating in employee advocacy. Regular meetings also help managers
see who is continuing to put in more effort and deserves to be rewarded for their online
engagement. These are all internal ways for the company to measure the success of recognizing
their employees efforts but with this also comes with more external results as well. Just by
regularly checking up on employees and encouraging employee advocacy, employees feel more
encouraged to advocate and will be more likely to participate in speaking positively about their
employer. Employees who are recognized for their actions are also more likely to continue
advocating on behalf of the company which in return will provide more employee advocacy for
the company overall.

VI. Conclusion

Employee advocacy programs are a step into the future for companies and organizations
to better align with their employees. A successful employee advocacy program must have a solid
foundation of a strong corporate culture, where employees genuinely want to advocate for their
company. This allows employers to know that their company or organization is doing great
things for their employees to the point where they will advocate for them on social media. These
social media postings can be anything from using hashtags to advocate for their company to
posting photos following social media guidelines to sharing different events that are going on
within the organization.
QSRT can highly benefit from employee advocacy programs to increase engagement
amongst employees and the company. By participating in a program such as this, there are many
benefits including (and are not limited to): increased positive company culture, recognized
employees, increased dialogue between the company and its employees. By creating an
employee advocacy program, QSRT will be able to have employees post and share their thoughts
about the company. This can help QSRT achieve their main goals of attracting more qualified
talent and increase their number of clients. This is mainly because when potential employees see
how positive and engaging the company culture is, they are more than likely to want to apply and
be a part of that culture. In addition, it shows potential clients the legitimacy of the company and
how they treat their employees. When employees are promoting a company’s goals and ideas it
shows clients that they are sincere. Overall, this can help contribute to QSRT creating a more
engaging workplace while achieving their goals of attracting talent and increasing their number
of clients.