Or, the future of employee engagement

In March 2014, I was contacted by Osney Media to see if I would be willing to answer some questions about the future of Communications.
I was very candid (I prefer the word ‘passionate’, but this is what I hear more often), so my answers totally reflect what I believe in. There were exactly 7 questions.

I forgot all about it, and carried on juggling work-life balance, even attended a conference where I was invited to a panel discussion by the same organisation. Thinking about it now, I wish I would have remembered this interview, as some of my then written answers would have come handy during the live discussion. But life is busy – and so is my memory.

However, to my great surprise and delight, the answers have now been compiled in an e-book just recently published by Osney Media: http://bit.ly/1lb0TB1
You can read all about The Future of Employee Engagement, in the answers provided by a ‘panel of experts’ (as mentioned in the introduction) – nine professionals* from the HR and Communications fields across different industries.
I feel honoured to be in such great company.

*Gary Kildare, IBM – Carol Muldoon, Starbucks – Ingrid Eras, Starwood Hotels & resorts – Ralf Larsson, Electrolux – Katharina Auer, Zurich Insurance Group – Minna Tornikoski, Tieto – Serge Peeters, Belgacom – Katri Heikkila, Fiskars – Muriel Pineau, APM Terminals.

Question samples, and some quotes:
Who will be the future drivers of employee engagement? Will it come from HR or is it down to the line manager to create culture where their teams, or individual staff, feel valued and heard?
“Leaders need to look for ways to ‘hear’ their employees outside of the traditional surveys…” – Gary Kildare, IBM
Will ‘engagement’ become replaced with empowerment or enablement?
“Engagement is a word that has been abused and misused – often confused with being a process when, in reality, engagement is a result” – Muriel Pineau, APM Terminals
Employee engagement surveys are dead. Long live crowdsourcing – true or false?
“…crowdsourcing is great to get a pulse as to what is working or not, but it is also a great way to innovate”- Carol Muldoon, Starbucks