Helping employees identify who they are
Preserving employee identity has never been more important than within the post-recessionary workplace, where roles are evolving and organizational change is constant. So, how can communicators ensure employees keep a strong sense of their workplace identity?
Key points
- Employee identity is the way in which someone views themselves in context to work and their perceived value within a company, and is a strong enabler for employee engagement.
- The labels people gain - or are given - in the workplace can differentiate employees and groups from one another and open up opportunities. However, employee identity can be affected heavily, and may inhibit workers, when a company enters a period of restructure or organizational change such as a merger or acquisition.
- The key to preserving identity is to help employees join the dots between the status quo and the new dialect. Communicators also need to make brand part of organizational culture and ensure that employees understand and experience the brand.
- Internal communicators have to be equipped to ensure employees are secure enough in their own identities at work, so work performance and engagement remain high.
At the heart of any company, you have the employees - the lifeblood of the business. Equally, at the heart of business, you have an environment of constant evolution and organizational change. How do employees identify themselves in context to their company during change and what can you do, as an internal communicator, to ensure your workers have a positive outlook on both themselves and their future at the organization?
Employee identity is the way in which someone views themselves in context to work and their position within a company - it is underscored by whether they feel valued or not and is a strong enabler for employee engagement.
Whether self-imposed, earned or bestowed upon them by others, people find themselves being labeled in the workplace. While these labels can differentiate employees from one another and open up opportunities, they also have the potential to inhibit people when organizations or roles change or shift focus. The product developer whose company stops new product development, the sales guy who struggles when the market drops away, the manager who gets extra responsibility and reports following a restructure.
You can also define identity through the idea of "tribalism" and how employees position themselves into different tribes within the organization, dependent on a range of different factors, such as job level, membership of a sports team and length of service. These groups serve as the backbone of the true diversity of an organization's culture. Organizations that see diversity as key to their success have to understand their tribal landscape and provide visibility to tribe leaders and members.
Demonstrating the importance of employee identity in the workplace, research studies on a group engagement model by US psychologists Tom Tyler and Steven Blader, held between 2000 and 2003, found that the social identities employees constructed around their work groups and organizations were a critical determinant of their work performance.
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