Employeeship & Advocacy

Read on

Companies keep rolling out advocacy programs and wondering why they feel forced. They write scripts. They track participation rates. They mandate authenticity. Then they’re surprised when nobody buys it. You can’t mandate authenticity. That’s the whole point.

[Replace: photo of Martijn working with teams or speaking about employeeship]
[Replace: secondary photo]

Why advocacy programs fail

In Scandinavia, there’s a word — medarbetarskap. Employeeship. No clean English translation. But the idea changes everything about how you think about advocacy.

Leadership and employeeship are two sides of one coin. Everyone assumes if you fix the leader, the rest follows. What I’ve found is that it doesn’t work that way.

Here’s the chain: leaders trust employees. Trust reduces control. Less control creates ownership. Ownership drives initiative. Initiative produces real engagement. Not the survey kind.

Most advocacy programs skip the entire chain. They jump straight to “post this on LinkedIn.” Three gaps kill them every time.

The approach gap. They mandate instead of enable. People post because there’s a KPI attached, not because they want to. Audiences spot the difference instantly.

The content gap. They hand out scripts instead of supporting real voices. Every post sounds the same. Corporate. Polished. Empty.

The value gap. They expect participation without offering personal benefit. If there’s nothing in it for the employee, don’t be surprised when they check out.

Not everyone advocates the same way

This is the mistake I see most. Companies treat everyone the same. Either they expect all employees to become content creators — which burns people out — or they ask so little that the high-potential advocates disengage.

Different people have different capacities. That’s not a problem. It’s the starting point. I use a framework called VIBE to map it out.

Voice. Thought leaders. They have a point of view and the ability to articulate it. They don’t need scripts. They need space.

Influence. Active ambassadors. They create content about their role and expertise. Not thought leadership, but authentic stories from the work itself. Equally valuable.

Boost. Engagement advocates. They amplify by sharing and commenting. They don’t create original content. A thoughtful comment or strategic share can be just as powerful.

Engage. Potential promoters. Partners and third-party advocates. People outside the organization who extend the brand’s reach because the relationship is real.

When you force someone into a role they’re not suited for, two things happen. They burn out or they disengage. Both are worse than doing nothing. Let people self-select. The Voice people get room to think. The Boost people get recognition for showing up. Nobody feels like they’re failing at someone else’s job.

[Replace: VIBE framework visual or team photo]