Delegates at March’s aspic communications café heard how two organisations have focused their communications to engage their people, and heard their top tips for success.

Virgin Atlantic’s Head of Internal Communication, Eleanor Tweddell, outlined how, with some 27 airlines going out of business, volatility in oil prices, huge capacity cuts, and service reductions leading to large redundancies, 2009 was dubbed the ‘perfect storm’ in the airline industry.

With the good times over – and the need to tell a different, more commercially-aware story- Virgin Atlantic’s internal comms team planned a tight proactive communication strategy based on three critical themes:

• Protect cash
• Protect brand
• Protect morale.

The aim was to align internal and external messages and to help people to understand the changed climate through the appropriate tone and delivery.

Their ‘back-to-basics’ approach has included:

• Increasing face-to-face comms
• a comms plan for the seven divisions
• rigorous planning and processes that challenge ‘what’s its purpose?’
• clear calls to action and making the most of good news opportunities
• more use of webinars and business briefings
• refreshed internal brand that puts people at its heart, maintaining confidence internally and externally.

Eleanor’s top tips included stay true to your brand; avoid temptations and distractions; listen to every noise but developing selective hearing; plan everything; choose your battles; and take every opportunity to say thank you to your people.

Meanwhile, the Foreign & Commonwealth Office’s Head of Change Communication, Justine Stevenson, spoke about the challenges and solutions in what they now refer to as ‘the business’.

Communication challenges include a 200-year-old culture, a diverse global audience from ambassadors to gardeners, and a very hierarchical organisation, so communication has to be endorsed and visibly supported by leadership.

‘More foreign, less office’ is the slogan for the change programme, which drives home the need for their people being out there abroad, where they make a difference, rather than back in the UK administrating. Engaging people behind the refreshed 21^st century vision of the FCO is key. Initiatives have included:

• Back to basics communication – it is common sense but not everyone finds that easy
• surveying staff, measuring effectiveness of comms rigorously and linking to country plans
• highly visible and high profile feedback programme ‘You said. We did’ to demonstrate that the FCO does deliver
• creating a network of volunteer change agents to spread the word
• instigating a 24-hour global online conversation – the FCO Jam – to allow people to have a say in the FCO’s future.

To be included on the mailing list for future Communications Café events, send an email with ‘Mailing list’ as the subject to hello@sequelgroup.co.uk.

At November’s aspic communications café event, delegates heard Andrew Saffron of Innermost Consulting and Alana Renner from the Post Office share their lessons learned and key tips.

“You have to engage rather than just inform,” Andrew told the audience. Only by engaging your audience, he said, will you get them to “galvanise behind a common cause”.

Go on – do it really badly!

Andrew gave the audience six top tips on how to communicate with your disparate audience really badly.

1. Don’t use the right medium. Understand that at best, your broadcast emails may inform a few people, but will do little more than that. To move from awareness to commitment, you need to be using face-to-face communications channels and acting on feedback.
2. Assume that one size fits all. Different groups of people within any organisation will need different messages at different times. Understand your audience segments and target messages to them at the right time with the right medium.
3. Don’t try to grab their attention. If you want people to listen, you’ve really got to empathise with them. And be creative! No one is interested in the same old boring corporate rubbish.
4. Don’t tell the truth. Politicians’ answers only alienate people. As communicators, our default should be to challenge upwards when we know a message won’t work.
5. Assume that managers can effectively communicate with and engage their staff. In most organisations, managers’ communications skills range from mediocre to appalling. Effective communication requires emotional intelligence, which can be learnt, but not in a presentation skills course. Attaching consequences to poor communication should be a priority.
6. Don’t try to ‘galvanise behind a common cause’. Every organisation has silos, but you should at least be aiming to get them down to fence level so that people can step over them. Sharing resources, particularly people resources, is the best way to achieve this.

Not the Daily Mail again!

For Alana, communicating to a disparate workforce is an issue close to her heart. When she arrived at the Post Office three years ago as Head of Internal Communicaton and Engagement, most of Andrew’s ‘rules’ rang true. There was a one-size-fits-all approach to communicating with multiple stakeholders, an instructional tone of voice and no two-way channels at all.

Alana communicates to 9,000 white and blue collar employees, 10,500 subpostmasters with 50,000 employees in 12,000 branches, and 5,000 contact centre employees. It goes without saying that this approach was not working.

The franchised model of the Post Office and the number of interested stakeholders – from unions to Ofcom to various government offices and departments – make communicating in this environment a challenge.

On top of all that, there’s the Daily Mail. Always keen for a Post Office muckraking story, Alana has built her communications strategy by asking, “How will I ever be able to beat the Daily Mail to my people?”

Alana has taken a five-pronged strategy to improve communication, raise engagement and get all stakeholders to feel committed to the Post Office’s five-year transformation plan.

1. Reduce noise. Work with the rest of the organisation to develop channel and message gateways. Sales & Marketing bought into a comms calendar so product messages were planned and unified.
2. Develop channel strategy. Audience segmentation was key to this process. Stakeholders no longer get the same messages in the same way. Face to face and two-way communication channels have been strengthened.
3. Define employer brand. A lot of work has been done on defining the Post Office vision. For this to happen, leadership behaviours have had to change and a dramatic change in tone of voice has taken place.
4. Drive recognition. Reward and recognition schemes have been reviewed to reward more people with more modest rewards. A peer nominated behaviour-based scheme has been introduced.
5. Have Your Say. An engagement index was developed by asking employees what they thought was important for engagement. This pulse check takes place regularly and feedback is acted upon.

The result of all this?

The engagement index has risen from 34 per cent in July 2008 to 52 per cent in July 2009; the Post Office went from making a loss of over £200 million in 2006 to turning a profit in 2009; and, most importantly perhaps, senior leaders can now be found wandering the floors speaking to people at their desks.

To be included on the mailing list for future Communications Café events, send an email with ‘Mailing list’ as the subject to hello@sequelgroup.co.uk.

aspic features two shared experiences.

Alana Renner, Head of Internal Communications and Engagement at the Post Office, will answer the question ‘Will I ever be able to beat the Daily Mail to my people?’. She will talk about the complexities of engaging 60,000 people in 12,000 branches across the UK during one of the Post Office’s most exciting times in its 360-year history. As the fastest growing Financial Services Business in the UK, protecting the brand and getting the social and commercial mind-set right is a continuing challenge.

During her time at the Post Office, Alana has developed, launched and embedded a new engagement framework to run alongside the five-year transformation programme. Eighty-six per cent of people now agree that they know how their role contributes to the plan – a key measure of the campaign’s success.

Meanwhile, Andrew Saffron of Innermost Consulting has worked with clients including Barclays, Vodafone, The Foreign & Commonwealth Office and Morgan Stanley.
His session – Communicating with Disparate Workers: how to do it really badly – looks at why it’s key to use the right communications medium; making the message specific to differing groups; putting the right management skills in place; and getting creative.

He established Innermost Consulting 12 years ago and specialises in Organisation Design, Culture & Behaviour Change, Leadership Development and Change Management.

TO BOOK:
Email suzanne.peck@sequelgroup.co.uk

COST:
The morning’s seminar costs £45 +VAT and includes
refreshments and seminar materials.

VENUE:
The Soho Hotel has been voted one of the world’s most glamorous hotels. It’s located in a quiet street in the heart of London’s entertainment neighbourhood between Dean and Wardour Streets in Soho. Piccadilly Circus is the nearest Underground station

Never lose sight of the business benefit of communicating openly and honestly with employees. That was the clear message at this month’s aspic event, which looked at employee communication during tough times.

For many leaders, it is a natural reaction to close up and stop communicating when the only news is bad. Communicators know this is counter-productive, but how do you convince those above you?

Both speakers at the May aspic event stressed the importance of a communications programme based around tangible business benefits.

James Harkness of Harkness Kennett outlined the changing internal communication landscape. He said that skills levels in the internal communication function have improved hugely, which is providing real opportunity for internal communicators to make a difference, but with that opportunity comes the burden of quality.

[hidepost=1]Make sure every piece of communication adds value, James told the audience, don’t just continue to put out ever more information. Find the proof that your method is working and look for innovative solutions that reflect the culture and personality of the business.

Internal communicators must show value for money and this point comes back directly to the importance of showing the business benefit of employee communication. Look for ways to demonstrate that communication is influencing behaviour and show this to the leaders in your organisation, James concluded.

His advice on top priorities for communicators was to:
•    Build networks and relationships internally and externally.
•    Demonstrate the value and impact of communications.
•    It’s a great time to develop skills.
•    Build wider experience through pro bono work or internally in a business partner role.

The seminar was also presented with a case study of how a major retail bank had so far ‘weathered the storm’ of the global financial crisis. Communicating to 35,000 staff in more than 3,000 locations under intense media scrutiny was a challenge for the internal team. Good foundations had been built two years ago with the restructuring of the internal team to have clear areas of responsibility such as strategy, comms planning, editorial, internal media and event management.

Extensive research ensured that the communications received were what the audience wanted. All channels – the printed magazine, the intranet and TV channel – were integrated to ensure consistent messaging. Raising the visibility of the chief executive had been vital in keeping employees informed and engaged. All this meant that when the storm hit, employees knew where to go for information and trusted what they were told.

A robust roundtable discussion followed in which attendees came to the conclusion that during hard times, communicators must:

STOP
•    Overloading people with information – it’s about quality not quantity.
•    Producing communications that are not cost effective because they fail in their objective. (NB: But do consider how many employees will print out an electronic newsletter if you stop a print publication to save money).
•    Hiding or sugar coating tough messages.

START
•    Researching which channels are right for your audience so you can justify it at all levels.
•    Helping reluctant communicators come out of their shell by finding a channel or method that is authentic to them.
•    Studying the political map of the organisation so you know who you need to influence.
•    Predicting where the flashpoints will be and preparing for them.
•    Considering whether your key messages are still relevant in this environment.

CONTINUE TO
•    Ensure your communications are tightly linked to the business strategy.
•    Demonstrate employees have a voice by gathering feedback and doing something with it!
•    Develop social media platforms. Learn the rules and know when to use different tools.
•    Give people the environment internally to complain so that they don’t have to complain to the outside world.
•    Work with other teams (eg PR) to make sure messages are timely and consistent.

Notes from the event:

Sheila Hirst and Domna Lazidou made it clear from the start that this was going to be an Aspic session that asked plenty of questions about communicating across cultures – but wouldn’t have all the answers.

The result was a mix of thought and discussion about what internal communicators should consider in order to be effective when they’re working across cultures, plus shared experiences on good practice.

Culture in organisations is functional, hierarchical, geographic, historic, impacting behaviour, speech and dress, Domna stressed. People learn to behave differently in different cultures, which in turn informs our preferred communication styles.

All this matters to the internal communicator because it affects the way we communicate (language and structure) and how we understand each others’ messages. The problem comes when we equate what we mean by our messages with the receiver’s understanding.

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Can social networking sites, blogs, pod-casts and other Web 2.0 channels successfully transfer into the employee communications arena?

That was the question at the recent aspic event, Harnessing Web Technology for Effective Communications, which featured case studies from Vodafone and the Arts Council England plus round-table discussions.

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Delegates heard how storytelling has turned round business and performance at Parcelforce Worldwide as well as winning the hearts and minds of nearly 5,000 employees.

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Delegates at last week’s Aspic seminar on ‘shaping leadership communications’ heard case studies from business as well as creating their own ‘checklist’ for how IC professionals can help leaders in their role.

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