Survey: Half of employers use social media to engage workers

Intranets, e-mail remain top channels, but social media is gaining steam, according to IABC

In what could be deemed the most unsurprising survey results of the year, the International Association of Business Communicators (IABC) announced this week that company e-mail and intranets are the two most common ways to communicate with employees.

Nearly 900 communication professionals responded to the “Employee Engagement Survey” conducted by the IABC Research Foundation and Buck Consultants. The results revealed e-mail is used 83 percent of the time while an organization’s intranet is used 75 percent of the time to “engage employees and foster productivity.” The survey also found that nearly half of employers—a slight increase from last year—communicate with employees via Facebook, instant messaging and Twitter.

“What the survey suggests is that there is still a huge requirement in many organizations for education and raising awareness of social media tools and channels,” said Neville Hobson, ABC, director of social media Europe for the communications firm WCG in London, England. “People at all levels need to better understand the business value of social media from their perspectives.”