Running head: IMPROVING EMPLOYEES LEADERSHIP SKILLS 1

Improving Employees Leadership Skills

Lijuan Shattuck

Yanfei Wu

Salt Lake Community College

IMPROVING EMPLOYEES LEADERSHIP SKILLS 2

Improving Employees Leadership Skills

In Utah, unemployment rates were 2.7 percent, and job growth rates were 3.0 percent

(Department of Workforce Services, 2019). This showed that most businesses in Utah are facing

a hard time to find the right skilled employees. One analytic team found that people stayed with

companies due to; enjoyable work 31%, used their strengths 33%, and they expressed 37% more

confidence that they were gaining the skills and experiences they need to develop their careers.(

Goler, Gale, Harrington, &Grant, 2018). Therefore, it’s important for businesses to help

employees build leadership skills and careers in order to keep employees in the company and

help businesses succeed. This communication campaign will provide employees with the tools

and resources they need to develop great leadership skills. The strategic communication plan that

follows will detail the campaign’s purpose, audience, messaging goals, key messages, channels,

and tactical plan.

Purpose / Objective

The purpose of this communications campaign is to help employees who show leadership

potential and want to build their leadership skills. We will utilize a variety of channels and media

that effectively delivery the skills to this target audience during the non-busy business season.

This communications campaign will help employees build their careers in the company and help

the company’s business success.

Audience

The target audience for this communication campaign is employees who show leadership

potential and want to build their leadership skills in Amazon. Below is a demographic and

psychographic profile of this audience:

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Demographics

 The company’s global workforce is nearly 150,000 and is composed of 37%

women, of which only 25% are managers. In the United States Amazon’s

managers are 71% white, 18% Asian, 4% Latino and 4% Black (Lin,2014)

 In the United States, Amazon’s workforce is 60% white, 15% black, 13% Asian

and 9% Latino (Lin,2014).

 The median age is 32 (American Community Survey,2017).

 The average household income is $81,225.70. The median Amazon employee

household income is $53,110.00(American Community Survey,2017).

Psychographics

 63% of Amazon employees would recommend the company to a friend

(Adams,2015)

 Over 16,000 Amazon associates have taken advantage of the career choice

program in over 10 countries (Hess,2018).

 0.75% have no high school, 15.44% have some high school, 11.69% some

college, 4.05% have an Associate Degree, 14.24% have a Bachelor’s Degree,

13.64% Graduate Degree (American Community Survey,2017).

Audience Analysis

This audience is approximately middle aged, most of them may have to support a family

and want a better career that can support a better living. Furthermore, many Amazonians have

taken advantage of the career choice program. As upper management helps them to build their

leadership skills in the company, they will appreciate the company’s efforts and stay longer with

the company.
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Messaging Goals

Given the purpose and objective of this campaign, as well as the demographic and

psychographic profile of the target audience, this team has set the following messaging goals:

Think

 Understand all the leadership skills communicated in the campaign.

 Understand there is no one-size-fits- all formula for being a great leader. It takes

time and dedication to achieve goals and inspire others.

 Understand that each employee must develop their own plan that can assist them

as a roadmap for their learning journey.

Feel

 Learning leadership skills is important to build my career in the future.

 Learning leadership skills is important to help the company grow.

 Learning leadership skills will help me have a better life and feel good about

myself.

Do
 Implement and practice all the leadership skills communicated in the campaign.

 Make a development plan that fits your personal status.

 Find a mentor in the company which enables learning differing perspectives, and

many aspects of the business.

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Key Messages

It’s not always necessary that everyone in a target audience remembers every single

message in a communications campaign. However, the four key messages this team wants the

target audience to retain are:

 Business requires an assigned dedicated roll for each employee. Leadership skills

will go beyond my current roll.

 I am in control of my skill learning speed; it’s up to me whether I succeed or not.

 I am smart enough and dedicated enough to practice strong leadership skills and

do well in this company.

 It will be great for me to build my career not only inside of the company, but also

outside the company.

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Channels / Media

In selecting the channels for this communication campaign, this team has considered the

nature of the message, its purpose, the channels available to the target audience, and how the

audience consumes information. Based on these criteria the team has selected the following

channels:

 In-house discussion

o Face-to-face, in-person discussions are the richest forms of

communication. This will also allow your direct supervisor to share his or

her own working strategy as a leader.

 Website article (Power Point)

o This has general information for this target audience to understand

leadership skills.

 Online video

o This is a preferred way for this target audience to access information. It

also has an increased level of richness over simple online articles.

 Laminated checklist / bookmark

o This bookmark can go with a target audience daily notebook and act as a

guidance on how to prepare themselves as a leader in any situation.

 Discuss with mentor and receive feedback.

o This will allow target audience to gather some great feedback from their

mentor.
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Tactical Planning

An effective communications campaign is all about delivering the right information to the

right audience at the right time through the right channels. Below is how the team plans to meet

this requirement:

Who (Audience) What (Message) How (Channel) When (Timing)

Employees who  Clear certain level of  In-house Non-busy business
show leadership leader’s job duty. discussion. season.
potential.  Leadership module.  Website article.
 Checklist for leadership  Online video.
principle.
Employees who  Clear statement of key  Laminated First week of the
show leadership messages. checklist / employment.
potential. bookmark.
Employees who  Clear statement of key  Discuss with Fourth week of
show leadership messages. mentor and non-busy business
potential. receive season.
feedback.

Conclusion

By developing leadership skills early on, employees will experience greater

encouragement and career building in the company. This in turn will open up the employee’s

enjoyment, loyalty, productivity and creativity in the company and help the business succeed.
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References

Department of Workforce Services, (2019). Utah’s Employment Summary: September

2019.Retrieved from https://jobs.utah.gov/blog/post/2019/10/18/utah-s-employment-

summary-september-2019

Goler, L., Gale, J., Harrington, B., & Grant, A. (2018, January 11). Why People Really Quit

Their Jobs. Retrieved from https://hbr.org/2018/01/why-people-really-quit-their-jobs

Lin, A. (2014, November 04). Amazon’s Demographic Data: More of the Same. Retrieved from

https://www.diversityinc.com/amazons-demographic-data/

American Community Survey. (2017). Amazon Population Demographics. Retrieved from

https://www.point2homes.com/US/Neighborhood/OR/Eugene/Amazon-

Demographics.html#Education

Adams, S. (2015). How People Who Work For Amazon Really Feel. Forbes. Retrieved from

https://www.forbes.com/sites/susanadams/2015/08/18/how-people-who-work-for-

amazon-really-feel/#4df91ab23305

Hess, A. (2018). Amazon will pay up $12,000 for employees to study these 4 fields. Make it.

Retrieved from https://www.cnbc.com/2018/04/19/amazon-will-pay-up-to-46000-for-

employees-to-study-these-4-fields.html