It has been more than 60 years since Marshall McLuhan told us that the medium is the message. The decades that have passed since then have done nothing to diminish the truth of McLuhan's prescient statement. For today's employees, the medium for most information is the digital interfaces the company provides. There's an interface for the intranet, for email, for internal social networking and collaboration, for emergency alerts, for calendaring, and for all manner of resources employees need to get their work done.

What message do these interfaces send to employees? If they're unified, consumer-grade, and make it easy to do the job, the message is one of caring. If they're confusing, difficult to navigate, and result in frustration, employees can perceive that message as one of dismissal or even contempt. It certainly signals that the company doesn't care.

Who should own the digital employee experience (DEX)? A number of recent commentaries have argued that internal communication should be at the helm, which may be counterintuitive in many organizations where anything digital is IT's responsibility. We explore the case for internal communication's DEX role in this short midweek episode.
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The post FIR #473: The Digital Employee Experience is the Message appeared first on FIR Podcast Network.