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.

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