Tecnologie digitali a supporto dell'Internal Employer Branding. Uno studio nel contesto Italiano.

The objective of this study is to carry out an analysis of the internal communication tools most frequently used by companies in order to understand whether and to what extent they use digital technologies and artificial intelligence to support their internal reputation and internal employer branding (IEB) strategies. A desk analysis of the existing literature has been conducted to understand the topic of employer branding, by paying specific attention to the internal dimension of the concept (i.e., IEB), aimed at retaining and satisfying talent. This dimension has been still under-explored by the literature, while it is recognized as critical to counter the current "war for talent". As several authors showed, enhancing the collaboration between marketing, communication and human resources would enable the IEB strategy to succeed. Therefore, through the administration of an online questionnaire on a sample of 184 employees working in the Italian business context, this study investigated which communication tools are most frequently used by companies and which of them are considered as the most effective tools by the internal employees. The findings allowed us to group the digital tools in three categories: the first one concerns the digital tools that are mainly used by companies and are considered most effective by employees, such as meetings, the intranet and messaging apps. The second group is represented by those communication tools that are considered highly effective by employees but are not used by companies, such as informal meetings, one-to-one meetings with managers and online/physical social events. Lastly, the third group consists of a variety of digital technologies and artificial intelligence tools that are not yet considered by both companies and employees, confirming the little investment in this type of equipment (Gallagher, 2023). The study offers useful implications for the management, including (i) the need to introduce new forms of internal communication based on the relational dimension and (ii) the improvement of digital technologies and artificial intelligence making each phase of the working experience more distinctive and satisfying.