The role of the communicator is changing. As I've written before, employees demand dialogue; they expect that you'll solicit their input and engage them in conversation. Today, our role is less focused on cascading the final draft of communications messages and more facilitators of conversation. Our mandate is to help our employees make sense of the world around them through conversation and storytelling. When you engage employees this way, they stay.

The idea of an open intranet where employees can share ideas, comment on discussions, and recognize each other publicly is something so many organizations shy away from. Yet these same employees have the keys to the office, login to the network, and have face to face contact with customers. Outside of the office they are parents, baseball coaches, and community leaders who are empowered by the value others place on their views and feedback. To deny this in the workplace undermines employee confidence and has a negative impact on morale.

Did you know that Gallup estimates that lost productivity comes with a price tag of 300 billion?  When you add turnover, that number rises. It’s estimated to cost almost double a departee’s salary to find and train a replacement.

Srinivas Kandula recently offered Five Tips on How to Keep Employees Happy for the Huffington Post. I agree that leaders need to understand what truly motivates their workforce. I disagree that "using numerous surveys and studies will allow you to develop the best practices approach from leaders around the globe. This approach will garner you outstanding employee engagement."

Timothy R. Clark's The Employee Engagement Mindset has jumped to the top of my summer reading list. The catalyst for the book was the surprising answer to a simple question: Who owns employee engagement? As Clark and his team did their initial research the majority of leaders said engagement was an organizational issue. Surprisingly, "100% of the highly engaged employees said they owned their own engagement".

A recent study by SHRM reminds us that employee satisfaction and employee engagement are not one in the same. "While 83 per cent of employees said they were generally satisfied with their current positions, only 68 per cent claimed to feel passion and excitement and just 53 per cent felt tuned in at work."