Want Employees to Be Brand Champions? Start with Their Experience

“We want our employees to be brand champions.”

How many times have we heard that from leadership? I’ve lost count, honestly.

And hey, the research backs them up. A study from MSL Group found that content shared by employees generates eight times more engagement than brand-owned channels, and employee advocacy can boost a brand’s reach by a whopping 561%.

More reach = more customers. Makes sense, right?

If only there were a magic wand to turn every employee into an engaged, enthusiastic brand champion. A fat stack of cash might do it, but the legal team would have a collective heart attack—so, hard pass.

Instead, the most reliable way to create brand champions is pretty simple: give employees a great experience.

Think about it. If you have a terrible experience at a restaurant, are you going to leave a glowing Yelp review? Nope. You’re going to unleash the unfiltered, hair-in-your-salad truth.

So, how do we empower those stellar employee experiences from an internal communication (IC) perspective?

Let’s dig in.

5 Areas Where Internal Communication Drives Employee Experience

The key thing is that we all have a role to play in IC. And while IC is a critical part of shaping the employee experience, it’s not the only thing. (I know, shocking. I’ll give you a moment.)

From an IC perspective though, here are five areas where we can make an impact:

1. Empowering Leaders to Be Effective Communicators

If leaders aren’t communicating well, it doesn’t matter how polished your emails or Slack updates are. Leadership sets the tone—and sometimes, they need a little nudge (or a full-on training program) to do it well.

2. Ensuring Communication is Two Way

A monologue isn’t communication. It’s a speech. Employees need to feel like their voices are heard—not like they’re yelling into the void.

3. Identifying Key Communication Moments in Employee Journeys

First day? Big promotion? Exit interview? These are prime moments where communication makes or breaks the experience. Miss them, and it’s like skipping the best parts of a TV series and wondering why the finale didn’t hit.

4. Getting Change Communication Right

Change is hard. Communicating about change poorly? Excruciating. Clear, consistent messaging can turn panic into clarity—or at least reduce the number of “Wait, what’s happening now?” emails.

5. Getting the Inside of Our House in Order Before Moving Outside

If your internal comms are chaos, your external messaging won’t save you. Employees are your first audience. If they don’t buy it, no one else will.