5 Ways a Creative Agency Can Help You Improve the Employee Experience

One of the most important benefits of effective workplace communication is its ability to change hearts and minds. In fact, clear, authentic messaging that aligns with your organization’s culture and values doesn’t just educate employees and help them do their jobs better. It also inspires employees and helps them build deeper connections with their colleagues and work. And that’s exactly what a great employee experience (EX) creative agency delivers: smart, well-designed campaigns and experiences that help HR and internal communications teams inspire and inform the workforce.

You probably already have several programs and initiatives in place to support employees and ensure they have a positive work experience, including competitive comp and benefits, recognition, mentorship, and career development, to name a few. With a creative agency as your partner, you can bring these benefits to life, so employees are excited to take full advantage of everything the organization offers.

What a Creative Agency Brings to the Employee Experience

In a 2022 Cella survey, 77% of in-house teams said they partnered with outside creative agencies for help with special projects and other work requiring niche expertise. When you decide to work with a creative agency as your partner, you gain all the benefits of the agency’s unique perspective, including its team of subject-matter experts dedicated to making your projects a resounding success. Of course, having that agency perspective doesn’t guarantee perfection, but it goes a long way in ensuring your project moves in the right direction and aligns with your vision, values, and culture.

As you weigh the options of working with an agency partner, here are a few benefits an EX agency can provide to help you reach and engage employees:

1. Strong understanding of EX challenges and opportunities

In working with many types of organizations, an EX agency builds experience with similar employee experience challenges, and can bring that experience to your project. No matter your industry, a strong agency partner can identify and recommend solutions that have been tested and refined in the real world. These solutions reflect the wisdom and know-how of the agency while also being tailored to fit your unique needs and challenges.

2. Knowledge of trends and best practices

A great EX agency is passionate about everything that affects an organization’s ability to become (and stay) a great place to work. To demonstrate that passion, agency principals and employees are constantly learning — attending webinars, reading the latest research, and staying on top of trends in the world of work. Many of us do all of that so you don’t have to. It also allows us to bring you the freshest ideas for supporting and engaging your workforce.

3. Expertise in multiple areas of the employee experience

When you hire an EX agency, you’re also hiring a well-rounded team with expertise managing projects that span across HR, internal communications, and employee engagement. The team’s knowledge and experience in strategy development, branding, marketing, and writing, can scale with your needs and help you launch successful projects in any of the following areas:

• Employer branding
• Diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging (DEIB) initiatives
• Company meetings and multi-day offsites
• Training program design
• Recruiting and onboarding campaigns
• Culture-building efforts

4. Sound strategy and project management 

An excellent creative agency builds captivating campaigns rooted in strategic thinking and delivered with excellence. Starting with strong insight and strategic focus, the best creative agency brings resonant ideas, discipline, and focus to the project, and keeps everyone on track with key deliverables and timelines. Moreover, agencies with deep EX experience manage each project with the required sensitivity; we know projects affecting the entire workforce must be managed with the appropriate level of discretion and confidentiality. With this kind of support from brief to implementation, the process feels easier, lighter, and more manageable for your internal communications, HR, and leadership teams.

5. An advocate for success

An EX agency only wins if projects help clients meet organizational goals and employee needs. This means the agency must be just as committed to supporting employees as it is to meeting the objectives of internal teams in HR, internal communications, DEI, marketing, IT, and other areas. A great agency helps you execute your employee experience strategy, whether it involves making a business case to senior leadership or working to overcome an employee engagement issue. Ultimately, your agency partner should be completely aligned with your goals and committed to your success.

Tailor-made employee experience campaigns can make all the difference in how you connect with your workforce. Ingenuity helps organizations transform everyday HR and internal comms initiatives into unforgettable employee experiences. Learn more about how we do it, and follow us on LinkedIn for more insights.