It can be difficult to drive the uptake of online engagement activities in your community. One way to help with this is to ensure that those within your organization are on board with your engagement strategy and the EngagementHQ platform. There are some concrete steps you can take to increase organization buy-in, including:
Send internal emails about new consultations
Update intranets with consultation information
Write an engagement column in a company newsletter
Promote past outcomes and successes or engagement activities within the organization
These actions are quick activities to get you started; read on for five ways to drive continued engagement within your organization.
Present Case Studies
Prepare and present case studies to showcase successes and share your experiences. These real-life examples can help your staff connect to your community engagement practice on a tangible level.
When preparing case studies, consider including:
A brief explanation of the project and its goals
Your process, including how you presented information, promotion and communications, and which tools you used
The outcome highlights, including statistics and qualitative impacts
A summary of the benefits to your approach and what you want to improve in the process
A call-to-action to get involved
Once written, use all available and appropriate channels to spread it throughout your organization.
Empower Key Staff
Empowering key staff members can incentivize them to spread your engagement message. Choose a team of colleagues that are self-motivated and excited about community engagement and do the following:
Train them in engagement practice and methodology and EngagementHQ if they’ll be creating projects directly
Ensure understanding of internal engagement frameworks and processes
Ask them to develop resources and give them the tools to influence and support their departments
Keep them motivated with incentives, such as awards or recognition
Allow them to lead projects and try different approaches to engagement
Incorporate Engagement Training into Professional Development
Utilize an ongoing training program to reinforce your key engagement messages. You can:
Develop an onboarding module about engagement for new staff
Create or use a professional development course about community engagement for existing staff. This can include anything from brief internal courses to industry-recognized courses for community engagement.
Incorporating engagement training into professional development can bring engagement practices to the forefront of staff culture and make them more accessible. Staff members can feel more comfortable with your activities, and the tenets of engagement practice can help them in multiple areas of their careers.
Provide Engagement Opportunities and Transparency
Tell your colleagues when new opportunities for engagement arise and be transparent about how their input has affected decision-making in previous engagement activities. You should also take every chance to inform them of the positive impacts of engaging with the community.
You need to cultivate trust and value in your engagement work, which will motivate your staff to become more involved.
Build Engagement into Existing Frameworks
Incorporate community engagement methodology into your existing project frameworks to motivate staff to learn more and ensure all community projects benefit from engagement ideas.
You must have all training and procedural resources available to colleagues to help them and ensure that:
There are clear guidelines on when engagement should occur
A framework for evaluating community input is outlined
As a result, relations and sentiment can improve between your organization and the community it serves, and staff members can become more invested in the ideas behind community engagement.