The first three blog entries in this series addressed the three areas of employee engagement that deal with empowerment – confidence, autonomy and resources. This article, which looks at the importance of external discussion, begins our analysis of key areas of employee commitment.

Everyone has encountered one at a party before – a person whose small talk consists almost entirely of conversation about their job. A sort-of workplace evangelist, this person regales everyone he meets with stories of his company’s strategies and his role within that mission.

Such a guest might get a bit tiresome if you are seated next to him or her at dinner. But those employees are a blessing to their managers and a boon to their organizations. In fact, one of the most telling indicators of employee engagement is an eagerness to discuss the company with those outside its walls.

“External discussion,” as it is known in top engagement surveys, is so vital that innovative companies are doing more than just embrace employees who are known as promoters. They are actually recruiting “brand ambassadors” from within their building. As a recent article in “Inc.” magazine explains, the best publicity is often both homegrown and free.

“Brand ambassadors, or employee evangelists, are becoming an increasingly common way for brands to leverage their biggest asset—their workforce, of course—to reach new markets, generate buzz, and put a real face on the company,” wrote Eric Markowitz in the April issue. “They can be tweeters, bloggers, Facebookers—or they could just be the people you send to corporate events.”

The emergence of social media as an integral marketing tool has made it even more vital to identify employees who are adept at spreading your corporate message. In this plugged-in age, the workforce has endless opportunities to transmit information – good or bad – about an organization. While it may be tempting to limit employee exposure to social media, companies who identify ambassadors and equip them as de facto marketers are turning a potential distraction into a cutting-edge asset.

Brand ambassadors should be people who are enthusiastic about both the company’s message and social media, and they should also be connected with a network of other tech-savvy individuals, according to Ron McDaniels, an author and speaker on marketing techniques. "The first thing you want to know is if they're passionate, and give them information that they need,” he said. “Ask, ‘Who are your power players, and how do we tell them more stories?”

Of course, a vital part of developing a vibrant workplace culture is creating the kind of excitement that would make people want to talk on at a dinner party or send positive tweets. Employee satisfaction and understanding of the corporate mission is more important than it’s ever been, yet a 2010 Forester Research study found that many companies are failing to create evangelists within their companies.

Among the findings of the study, which surveyed 5,519 information workers in the U.S. and Europe, was the fact that 49 percent of the workers were rated as detractors for their companies, and only 27 percent were considered promoters. Those labels were determined by the respondents’ answer to the question:  “How likely are you to recommend your company’s products or services to a friend or family member?”

When the above results were broken down, they revealed that directors, VPs and executives were promoters and workers and managers tended to be detractors. Encouraging strategic use of social media and ramping up communication at every level of an organization could help remedy this top-down imbalance.

“In case you're wondering if you should allow employees onto social networks, try this fact on: workers who use social media are among the most positive,” wrote Josh Bernoff in an Ad Age article about the study. “Forty-eight percent would strongly recommend a company's products and services and only 22 percent were detractors.”

For those in the top echelons of a company who believe strongly in its mission, the challenge is to create a culture that makes the benefits of the organization evident to all who draw a paycheck from it. Last week in Harvard Business Review, Art Markman took the position the best companies – those in which employees promote their employers in a natural and winsome way – are the companies that cast themselves as neighborhoods, but with some elements of a hierarchy.

“A successful company has to have elements of a good neighborhood,” according to Markman. “When you walk down the street near your home, you might pick up some trash or set a neighbor’s flowerpots upright after a storm. You do that because you think of your neighborhood as an extension of yourself. You put in effort for the greater community, of which you are an essential part. Likewise, a company cannot succeed unless employees start to think of themselves as part of something bigger than themselves.”