The key to creating employee advocates

You can’t create an employee ambassador overnight by simply having your leaders encourage employees to represent the brand. Ambassadors are created through intentional communication that inspires employees to believe in the mission they represent. When that happens, they’ll often want to share their story themselves.

At Ragan’s Employee Communications and Culture Conference last month in Boston, JJ Nelson, director of brand communications at Bergmeyer, shared some insights about “Bergapalooza,” a three-day employee-centered event that aimed to take more than 100 employees of the design firm and turn them into employee advocates who share the company’s culture publicly.

“Culture that lives in emails and announcements is just aspirational,” Nelson said. “It stays aspirational. You can’t create ambassadors by telling people what to say. They need to live it, breathe it and connect with it at a level that goes beyond force-feeding values down their throat.”

Nelson said that Bergapalooza’s entire agenda was centered on the company’s three main values — creative, curious and connected.