As internal communicators move on in their careers, what makes them stand out from the crowd is their ability to translate organisational objectives into meaningful communication strategy and implement this smoothly, taking senior managers and colleagues with them.

Accelerate has been designed to help practitioners achieve just that, providing a thorough grounding in the fundamentals of strategic internal communication within a short time frame – two blocks of two days.

Subjects covered include: the fundamentals of planning; hardwiring communication to organisational objectives; choosing and using the right channels; driving engagement through leaders; becoming a trusted adviser; leading organisations through transition; managing project effectively; creativity for communicators; and research and evaluation.

This programme is fast-paced, interactive and pragmatic with a focus on equipping delegates to deliver practical solutions while also covering the vital theory. It includes techniques and insights to fine-tune those vital people skills.Going forward, the programme offers ongoing benefits and networking opportunities for course alumni.

We know that communicators may find a training course interesting and informative, but still find it difficult to apply in the real world. So we have developed Accelerate specifically to deliver practical tools and techniques that enable participants to make a real difference in the workplace, supported with robust theory.

IoIC chief executive Steve Doswell adds: “Opportunities have grown for internal communicators as organisations take the function more seriously. But that means they are also expected to achieve quantifiable results that support organisational objectives.

“The Institute is passionate about improving the strategy skills of practitioners – it’s key to their career success and the future of the sector. We’re delighted that we are able to support this focus with Accelerate which is fully integrated with the rest of our learning and development programme.”

Further information on the programme is available at http://gatehousegroup.co.uk/accelerate/

As part of the deal, founder Ian Harris, has joined us as Head of Content to oversee the launch of a number of innovative products and content platforms that will be rolled out in the coming months.

Ian comments: “With so much competition for employee’s attention, it’s harder than ever to reach people in a meaningful way. That presents a huge opportunity for internal communicators who can punch through the noise. Gatehouse is all about setting high standards and taking the opportunity to do something different, which is why I’m thrilled to be joining them.”

We’re excited to have Ian join us at such a pivotal time, his enthusiasm, insight and ambition will be a great asset to the team. Work has already begun on the development of brand new products that will seek to revitalise the industry and help our clients make a tangible difference within their own organisations.

We will continue to provide industry news and opinion at www.internal-communication.com, and publish the Journal of Internal Communication — a 100 page bi-monthly book, featuring stories and case studies from leaders in internal communication — available via subscription at www.joic.eu.

Ian will be based between our studio in Shoreditch, London and our recently opened second office in Brentwood, Essex.

Mark

Nick joins following a period of rapid expansion for us, including winning a raft of new creative projects with big name clients including Coca Cola, DENSO, Ernst & Young and National Grid, as well as opening our second office in Brentwood, Essex.

As Creative Director he will lead our growing team of graphic and digital designers, web developers, animators and writers and oversee the development of the creative services arm. This will include launching a new design-only brand within our portfolio.

Nick explains: ”Since its formation six years ago, Gatehouse has built a strong reputation and an impressive client list within the internal communication and employee engagement space, and is now recognised as one of the fastest growing agencies in this sector. Creative flair – combined with robust thinking and strategic insight – has always been at the heart of the Gatehouse offering and I am looking forward to building on that foundation by expanding the range of creative services we provide and extending into new areas like branding.”

Nick is an experienced design professional who has worked both in-house and in consultancy. After gaining client side experience within financial and professional services organisations including BNY Mellon and Nat West, Nick went on to lead the in-house design function at law firm Baker Tilly. He has successfully managed client relationships with design agencies such as Rareform and Branding by Garden, and will be utilising his in-house knowledge to build our creative business.

Bringing Nick on board will enable us to expand the depth and breadth of our creative offering and ensure first class service delivery for our existing clients. His client side experience – particularly within the financial and professional services sector where we have a number of high profile clients – and his creative flair and leadership skills will provide the foundation for our future growth in this area.

Hearing Mark Comerford’s provocative take on social media and the rise of the digital / network age at the Simply Summit conference, was a brutal piece of honesty. And he’s right, wishing that we could all go back to how it was, is the worst thing we can do.

Every organisation still has those people who refuse to accept the pace of change, who shy away from new technology and trends, hiding behind as many excuses as they can find – yet how long do those excuses remain valid for? Not for long in Mark’s opinion.

Most employees wouldn’t freely admit to liking change, therefore the whole notion of change management should be replaced with ‘pain management’. As internal communicators, we not only need to proactively keep pace with change, trends and technologies, but encourage others to do so as well.

Mark

Indeed, most of us tend to over complicate things and often lose sight of the fact that we have two core responsibilities.

1. Distribute information to employees in order for them to do their jobs more efficiently
and
2. Don’t bore the pants off them in the process.

So naturally we must always look to make our content as engaging as possible through the channels we use. Not surprisingly, animation is fast becoming a popular antidote to the uncomfortable looking CEO ‘hostage type’ video and other communication car crashes.

So what are the main benefits of using animation…

1) It instantly makes your website / intranet more interactive and dynamic.
2) Versatility – it can be used in just about any electronic channel.
3) It’s cost effective – compared to producing a high quality video.
4) Greater control – it doesn’t rely on human performance.
5) They are generally fun to watch and engaging.

Like one great animator once said, ‘observe the masses and do the opposite’ – although I doubt Mr. Disney had internal communications in mind at the time – there’s still no reason to not give it a go within your own organisation, you can check ours out here

Mark

Well, beyond the hysteria of an early finish and a free lunch (if there is such a thing), research still suggests that no matter how many corporate videos, animations and newsletters that are pumped out – face to face interaction is still the most effective and preferred way to capture hearts and minds.

Summertime – British weather permitting, is the perfect opportunity to consider running an event, as it opens up more scope and flexibility. However, simply getting the logistics of organising a successful event takes a huge effort and should not be taken lightly.

Therefore, to deliver a great summer event, and pretty much any event, you should consider getting the following elements right…

Timing – The most popular (and therefore most expensive) days to hold an event at an outside venue are from 10am Tuesday – 4pm Thursday.

Location – Base your event where you have (or close to) a lot of staff. Make sure that the location is easily accessible for public transport and has parking.

Venue – This will be mostly determined by your budget, however, remember that audience expectation will be set by the style of venue that you choose – make sure you visit the venue before hand.

Ensuring attendance – Invitations should go out as early as possible along with detailed itineraries and directions to the venue.

Registration – For larger events you will need to set up a registration desk for your guests – report arrivals, absences and problems.

Audio Visual – You will undoubtedly need suitable AV equipment – make sure you know what equipment is provided by the venue and what you need to organise yourself.

Content – Make sure you have a clear structure for the day – that you are clear on what you’re trying to communicate during each part of it and that the overall event ‘flows’ nicely.

Food & drink – Whether it is just jugs of water in a meeting room or a full banquet, you need to make sure that your audience aren’t dehydrated or distracted by hunger.

Resourcing – Don’t try to manage large groups on your own. You will need plenty of help so gather as many willing volunteers as you can.

Pre and post-event communication – To get the most out of the event, continuing dialogue with your audience with well planned pre-event, on-site and follow-up communication is needed.

Finally, be careful not to get too caught up in the logistical haze by losing sight of why you’re running the event in the first place, relax and have fun.

PS – if you do need some extra help with your live events and want to ensure you deliver something that works without breaking the bank, don’t hesitate to give the Gasp! team a buzz on 0207 033 8712.

Mark

BiteSize training

What We Did:
Gatehouse Academy was invited by Prudential’s global internal communication and employee engagement lead to facilitate a developmental workshop and participate in a team away day.

The workshop – entitled ‘Becoming a Trusted Advisor’ – explored the expectations senior leaders have of their internal communicators, looked at how being an internal consultant differs from being a superb communication tactician, and outlined a robust process for planning and executing a typical project or assignment. With the focus on building great client relationships, the session provided a timely stimulus ahead of a critical period in the team’s development.

It got me thinking about what work will be like when we’re at that age, and the peculiarities of it – will technology replace a lot of jobs? Will the average cleaner be earning circa £500,000 a year? And will we be exchanging our pre-rehearsed ‘the train was late’ excuse for “sorry boss, my driver-less car took the wrong turning or my James Bond-esque jet pack wouldn’t start…again!” Will we need to even turn up at the office at all? Probably not, but then, do the majority of us need to turn up at the office now to do an honest days work? Probably not!

The way we work now is based on an old fashioned way; turning up at the same time every day, smartly dressed, sitting at your desk for eight hours a day – conforming to the processes, structure and control of your employers. Admittedly, part of me feels nothing can beat ‘being there’ for building culture and camaraderie within a company, yet the benefits of ‘not being there’ vastly out weigh this.

Building a more diverse workforce is one of the positives – where age, gender, nationality and disability are pushed aside. Besides, there have been numerous examples in recent times were cultures, morale, networking and professional relationships have been developed through technology.

Working from home or anywhere but the office obviously raises a question of trust for employers – many would be uncomfortable without having such control and would question productivity – but should it? If you doubt your employees’ integrity, should you have even hired them in the first place?

Not before too long, flexible ways of working will undoubtedly become commonplace, and as internal communicators, we may have more of a job on our hands – we should start to embrace it now.

Mark

As professional communicators it is not only up to us to deliver impactful and effective presentations of our own, but to educate others in to doing so as well. Brutal honesty is required here, one or two ego’s may be damaged, and plucking up the courage to tell a senior leader…”I’m sorry, but you were completely wasting your time, nobody was listening in there, let me help you” may be daunting, but its needed.

One of the biggest factors that contribute to a poor presentation is the design of the slide deck itself (individual presentation skills is a whole other blog). Many basic mistakes are made that can easily be rectified that would instantly make a presentation more appealing, and provide some assurance for the least confident of presenters.

So here goes, an instant PowerPoint improvement guide:

1. Only include what is relevant to that audience and ditch everything else, trust me – they don’t care. If you have an order of importance in your slides, start again, it should all be important and relevant.

2. Pictures are more memorable than words – use them as much as possible and reinforce your point with them instead of describing it with text. Use your own notes to describe what’s going on, nobody wants to hear you reading bullet points from a slide deck.

3. Use white space – it signals elegance and clarity and paradoxically it grabs peoples attention.

4. Repetition – reuse of the same or similar elements in a design to create a sense of unity, cohesiveness and consistency. At its most simple this could involve using a standard template or repeating a logo or other motif on every slide.

5. Alignment – ensuring that nothing in your slide looks like it’s been placed there randomly.

6. Contrast – It’s what we notice in a design, it’s what gives a design its energy. It’s a powerful design principle because any element of design can be contrasted with another – colour, perspective, typeface, positioning, line, size, shape, etc.

Finally, if you aren’t known for your award winning design skills, then there’s no shame in asking somebody else for a little help or a second opinion before you begin.

Mark

Dreams of becoming the next JK Rowling aside, taking the theory behind creating a six word story and using it within different situations can be incredibly useful for managers and communicators – icebreakers , getting to know each other or simply practising how to become more concise in saying what you need to say and avoid waffling on – is where this technique can help. It’s also a lot of fun to do.

My own six word story refers to an unremarkable three day episode after accepting a Christmas job with a well-known retail company. Not least to say it didn’t end up being one of the best Christmases I’ve ever had on three days wages, but at least I got a story to tell from it, albeit a very short on. I’m sure we’ve all been there.

The beauty of this technique is that it can be used to describe yourself, your team, department, organisation, what you do etc, and, in a variety of different ways face to face, blogs, newsletters, intranet, website. Furthermore, it intuitively paves the way for your story to include a couple of magic ingredients that every story needs – intrigue, entertainment, characters, suspense, surprise, emotion and above all simplicity.

Mark

DESIGNER

David joined us in 2013 and is a recent BA (hons) graduate of graphic design and has studied design for 6 years.He is a skilled conceptual designer thinking creatively out of the box, he has a particular interests in screen printing and all things vintage.

David also likes following art with Shepard Fairey being a particular favourite with his urban activist illustrations.

Senior Developer

An experienced developer who has worked with many companies developing web applications, systems and services.

Embracing the Zeitgeist, he employs the best ideas, technology and tools whenever and wherever possible.

He spends much of his time focused on web services and mobile applications and divides the remainder by collecting metrics, practising 改善 and drinking coffee.

The new developments come on the back of an extremely busy 12 months for the team which has seen a sustained demand for creative content from many of our clients, alongside our traditional consultancy offering. With offices in London and the midlands, the new studio, based in Hornchurch, Essex will become home to our growing design and media team.

The studio is going to be launched with two immediate additions to the team, Alice Chan and Javier Moreno, who bring with them enviable international design experience having worked for a number of blue chip businesses across a range of industries, predominantly in the Far East and mainland Europe.

We have big ambitions for 2012, and having experience of overseas markets, especially in China, will be a huge asset to us in the coming months.

If you would like to see our impressive creative portfolio just get in touch…

Mark

Consequently, with that thought process, we are only contributing to one of the biggest myths that surrounds creativity, the ‘eureka moment’. Lets face it such moments are few and far between, even for ‘creatives’ and in trying to come up with something totally original we try to hard, over engineer things and look for something that ultimately isn’t there. Most creativity is actually incremental – ideas grow, develop, progress, adapt and often emerge in a fairly haphazard way. For example according to the UK Patent Office, 95% of new patents are merely adaptations of existing ones.

Take a look around at some well known products and services that have contributed to the most successful companies in history. There you will find that the majority have been born out of slow burning ideas or mere adaptations of something that already exists.

One of the best examples of this comes from a man called, Alfred Bird. After serving an apprenticeship to Phillip Harris of Birmingham, he registered as a pharmacist in 1842 and became a qualified chemist and druggist. In 1837, Bird invented an egg-free custard, (due to his wife being allergic to eggs) supplied in powdered form. Advertising started around 1875 and Bird’s Custard quickly became known as a wholesome and nutritious food. It is now considered one of the most recognised brands in the market, consumed by millions and a great British export.

We can all learn from Mr Bird, his idea was a simple adaptation to something that was already there, he didn’t reinvent the wheel and nor did he try to, most people who do try are doomed to be run over by it. As communicators, we shouldn’t be scared to express ourselves, nor scared of ideas that are laden in simplicity. In truth, the solutions to many problems can be found on our own doorstep, yet we are all guilty of trying to desperately seek them elsewhere first.

Mark

Phillip Landau, contributor to the article affords the perpetrators of bullying somewhat of an excuse in the form of a ‘difficult financial climate’ or more ‘highly pressurised workforces’, for my mind his explanations are slightly over engineered.

There has always been pressure, there has always been difficult financial periods, and indeed this is only relevant from one from organisation to another. The real reason for bullying is the matter of a struggle for power, as Benjamin Disraeli once said “courage is fire, and bullying is smoke”.

Bullying is a lot of bluff and bluster, a cover up for that persons own inadequacies and insecurities, the bravado is deep rooted in underlying social anxieties that manifest in a thick smoke screen.

Therefore, we should take pity and try to rehabilitate them. Rolling out a half baked anti bullying policy wont quite cut it, a severe ticking off wont either. The best way to eradicate bullying would be through a prolonged commitment from senior leaders to fixing the problem in the form of a frequent health check.

• Research – specific and targeted communication audits conducted by an external agency around difficult and sensitive issues are a great place to start, including surveys, one to one interviews and focus groups with a randomly selected sample of the workforce.

• Awareness – the research will allow you to realise the severity of the situation and provide obvious or indicative clues to finding the culprits and victims involved.

• Punishment – of course bullying can’t go unpunished, take any grievances seriously, investigate them immediately and, naturally, the punishment should fit the crime.

• Investigation – attempt to get behind the bravado, speak to bullies and find out those insecurities and problems and thus helping them to overcome them will be a cathartic process for all concerned.

• Development – increase the visibility of senior leaders in the work place and interaction between them and the offenders. Regular follow up meetings, awareness courses and rewarding their future successes will contribute to the development and overall rehabilitation of that person.

Mark

http://www.shortlist.com/home/are-you-being-bullied

However, part of me feels that the jury is still very much out when it comes to internal communications and social media, the two don’t sit as comfortably as they do for external comms… Imagine if you will, the life of Sarah, 27, account manager and a valuable employee, she’s just got in from a 10 hour day and sat down with a microwaveable meal for one and ready to watch some TV whilst simultaneously browsing the web…

Now one could assume that she might log onto Facebook and here’s the question… would she really want to read a message on there from work whilst talking to her friends? Would she really want to have to think about work at home for another second? In fact…would you?

We all have that one person (or sometimes many people) on your social media account who constantly churn out annoying, self obsessed and irrelevant drivel…the danger is that without careful planning, that person could be you, hence the pervasiveness of social media has become a double edged sword in internal communications.

It has almost become a form of escapism for people, to socialise and to talk with friends, to gossip and sometimes laugh at others behind the relative comfort of your laptop. The blurring of professional and personal boundaries is a familiar problem and social media has provided a platform by which these boundaries have become increasingly blurred (more on that next time).

Therefore, if you’re going to use social media to communicate with your people, make sure A) you’re doing it for the right reasons, and not out of vanity, B) your people really want to be communicated with in this way and C) your messages are relevant and timely.

Remember as Mr. Cameron once said.. too many tweets might make a t#@!

Mark

http://business-review.ro/talent/internal-communication-contributes-to-certainty-in-organizations/12634/

“Internal Communication contributes to certainty in organisations” – interesting, I thought, as it confirmed what we at Gatehouse talk about all the time. From increasing the focus on employee training, to getting the CEO out talking to the people, the delegates seemed largely to agree with what I imagine we all talk about across our industry.

“Don’t turn up the volume…but focus on the right channel.” Wise words indeed from Jeppe Glahn, the Corporate Comms Director for Novozymes, before going on to nail it by emphasising the role of the manager as the a) works manager; b) change agent and c) visionary strategist.

I suppose the cynic in me would suggest that they are bound to be talking like this as this was an Internal Communications conference organised by an organisation called the Saga Business Community. But then I realised this conference was hosted in Romania! I’m not sure why that should surprise me as Romania is a fast growing economy, but I guess what made me think was that few organisations in the UK (a country which I have always believed to be leading the way in IC) would stand up and make these claims, so it was welcoming to hear it coming from outside of these borders.

Perhaps I might go along to next year’s conference…

Not only are penguins intelligent, smart and attractive but they are also highly accomplished communicators.

Penguins are very sociable creatures – they live in colonies and communicate with others through a rich variety of sounds. Similar, in fact, to the modern day organisation.

Researchers believe that penguins are able to communicate on different frequencies and levels. That is why they are able to find each other in a huge colony, rather than being drowned out by the sheer volume of other penguins in the area. That’s quite a feat when you consider they all look the same!

It is believed that the vocalization for each penguin is slightly different from the next – that each individual (rather like each employee or manager) has its own unique style and tone.

It is also believed that they tune in to those of their mate and offspring – and that they can memorize that pitch and sound after only hearing it once or twice. So they are great listeners too.

Oh and they also look really nice on the website!

M

Simon was invited along with chief executive of the IoIC, Steve Doswell, to talk about the findings from the research. After spending several hours in make up, and making diva-like demands from the relative comfort of the green room, both Simon and Steve gave an assured performance.

The pair explained how more than one third of respondents said they had no dedicated internal communications budget with a further 27 per cent having less than £10,000 at their disposal. Continuing, they commented on why IC budgets are so low in the public sector and what these limitations mean for communicators and employees alike.

To view the podcast click the link below:

http://www.prweek.com/uk/news/login/1097604/

Here’s a copy of the article:

SCM article – leadership comms

The Fundamentals of Change Communication is designed to provide an introduction to organisational change and change related communication. Following a brief review of the history of change – including key theories and approaches from the past 60 years – it shines the spotlight on the role communication plays in supporting and enabling it within the modern organisation. It is geared towards internally-focused communicators and provides a solid foundation of knowledge for a number of other more advanced BiteSize modules focused around change and transition management.

Also new to the growing Gatehouse Academy training prospectus is The Fundamentals of Writing & Editing – an introduction to writing and editing for communicators. It begins with an overview of the text-production process, looking at the different processes and skills involved, then covers the fundamentals of producing and polishing copy, exploring the roles, skills and tools that are required to do it well. Practical hands-on exercises, group discussion and case studies help participants develop the confidence that is key to both effective communication and appropriate intervention in text produced by others.

BiteSize is designed to provide access to the very latest thinking, good practice and practical advice on a wide range of must-know subjects without the considerable time commitment, inconvenience and high costs usually associated with training courses. BiteSize is team-based learning and can be delivered to up to 15 participants at a time, usually on the client’s premises. It represents excellent value for money, priced at as little as £100 per delegate.

To date BiteSize modules have been delivered to over 1,000 communication practitioners working in a wide range of organisations including Ernst & Young, NHS London, the Financial Services Authority, HM Revenue & Customs and the Ministry of Justice. It is also the only programme of its type to be backed by the Chartered Institute of Public Relations (CIPR).

To find out more about these new modules, or the dozens of other BiteSize sessions that are now available off-the-shelf, call (+44 [0]207 754 3630) or email (lee.smith@gatehousegroup.co.uk) Lee Smith today.

Mark joins us after completing an MSc in International Public Relations at Manchester Metropolitan University, where he undertook research into the use of social media as an internal communication tool.

He started off in PR with industry giants Weber Shandwick and has since worked with the NHS, Preston City Council and the Labour Party. Mark recently supported our senior team on one of our biggest research projects this year – a Gatehouse Channel Audit for E.ON UK – and after impressing us, now joins on a full time basis.

These are exciting times for Gatehouse and this year looks set to be our most successful to date. With many exciting client projects in the pipeline, we are all looking forward to the coming months.

An internal programme called Project Oxygen set out to identify the traits of engaging managers, with a view to raising the bar for the rest.

The project was launched after Google discovered that the single biggest variable in employees' reasons for leaving was the quality of their line managers. As the saying goes, people don't leave organisations, they leave their managers.

Through its analysis Google identified eight key leadership qualities:

1) On the job coaching – providing specific feedback and solutions and balancing the positives and negatives.

2) Allowing team members a degree of freedom and not micromanaging.

3) Showing an interest in an employee's wellbeing.

4) Being productive and results driven and helping the team achieve its goals.

5) Listening to people's concerns.

6) Helping team members develop their careers.

7) Having a clear vision and strategy.

8) Having the skills they need to be able to roll up their sleeves and help the team when it needs it.

Interestingly, that list isn't dissimilar to one I brainstormed earlier today with a group of Government communicators. So perhaps working at Google isn't that different after all?

The company reckons it has improved the performance of 75% of its poor performing managers by focusing coaching in these eight areas.

Lee, Gatehouse

Alongside the guilt-induced dieting, hopeless resolutions to get fit and short lived promises to quit smoking, alcohol and other assorted vices, now is the time to dust off our personal development plans and contemplate, albeit briefly, the future direction of our careers.

Like so many of those well intentioned resolutions, our own development is quickly forgotten as work returns to its normal frenetic pace. Development plans inevitably end up at the very back of the filing cabinet, only to be revisited a year later when it’s time for the obligatory annual review.

But it doesn’t have to be this way. The key, as with any self improvement programme, is discipline – setting realistic goals at the outset, approaching the challenge in a balanced, holistic way and staying focused throughout the entire year.

The development landscape

The development landscape for internal communicators has changed considerably over the last few years. At the start of the decade you’d have struggled to have found more than a handful of specialist courses, publications and events for internal communicators, and many of those that did exist were pretty poor.

Thankfully things have changed and today we’re almost spoiled for choice. There are now three decent professional bodies to choose from, a number of excellent degree programmes, a wealth of specialist training courses and qualifications (see below) and dozens of networking events, publications, websites, LinkedIn Groups and blogs to inspire you. We’re still some way behind our colleagues in HR, PR and marketing, but we’re a lot better off than we once were.

Yet internal communicators continue to struggle with their own development. Proper development plans are few and far between. Many of us remain uncertain about the options and unclear about our roles and future career paths. Some of us are just plain lazy.

But if you’re serious about internal communication; if you want to become a bona fide professional, a credible practitioner and a trusted advisor to your clients and colleagues, then it’s time to get serious about your own development.

So, before reading the rest of this post, think briefly about your own views on development. Do you take it seriously? Have you learned new skills in the last 12 months? Do you have a realistic but stretching development plan in place? Does it cover the next 12 months and map out what you’re going to do to broaden your knowledge, sharpen your skills or widen your experience? If the answer to any of those questions is no, then read on…

There are two very basic questions to consider before embarking on your professional detox – “where am I?” and “where am I heading?”

Every good development plan starts with an honest and critical assessment of your current skills, competencies, knowledge and experience. It can be hard to be objective, so make sure you seek input from your colleagues and clients. If you’re organisation offers it (and you’re brave enough to stomach it), 360-degree feedback is a great way to find out how co-workers at all levels – above and below – perceive you and where, in their eyes, you need to develop. Another useful self-assessment tool is the InterComm matrix.

The InterComm matrix

A few years ago representatives from the Internal Communication Alliance (now known as CIPR Inside), CiB (now known as the Institute of Internal Communication) and IABC came together to identify the knowledge, skills and experience internal communicators should ideally have at various stages in their careers. I was part of this small group. The result, the InterComm matrix, is the closest thing we have to a common industry-backed professional development framework.

Although it’s now a little dated (the matrix was first published back in 2004) it remains a very useful tool and I believe it continues to be recommend by all three organisations as a basis for planning your personal or team development, and as a guide to recruitment.

The matrix is based on four career stages:

• Band One – Entry level (6 – 12 months in internal communications)
• Band Two – 12 months to 2 – 3 years
• Band Three – Manager or supervisor with at least 2-3 years communications experience
• Band Four – Senior practitioner – at least 5 years operating at band 2 and above

For each level, the matrix defines the generic business and management knowledge and skills internal communications professionals should ideally have, and their specialist communication knowledge, skills and direct experience.

If you haven’t thought about it already, that’s a great way to approach your development – to adopt a two-pronged approach by focusing on your generic/business skills on one hand and your specialist IC skills on the other.

The bands are slightly arbitrary and they don’t take account of the fact that many internal communication practitioners move sideways from related functions like HR, PR or marketing. But it’s a useful yardstick and a good guide to the sort of areas you should be gaining exposure to as you progress through your career.

More recently Sue Dewhurst and Liam FitzPatrick of Competent Communicators created an excellent framework that builds on the foundation provided by InterComm and takes it to the next level. I’m a big fan – see my previous post for details.

Looking forward

Clarifying where you’re heading can be tougher.

First there are the practical issues. Many internal communication teams are small and there is often little room for career progression without jumping ship. Even then, depending on the sector, suitable managerial or senior level roles may be few and far between. If your desire is to head up a team then you’ll be restricted to large organisations. Then there’s the London bias which can make it more difficult to progress if you’re based in the regions. It’s important that your career goals are realistic, so it pays to think about these factors early on.

Where do you see yourself in five years time? It’s a question that’s often asked in job interviews, but it’s one that’s worth pondering every year. Do you see yourself as a dedicated internal communicator, or as a broader corporate communicator? What aspects of your current role do you most enjoy? And what do you detest? Do you want to lead a large team, or would you prefer to become expert at delivery, perhaps focusing on publications, the intranet or events? Do you enjoy budgeting? Really? These are important questions and will help you avoid the promotion trap – where you end up securing a high status senior role only to find that you hate it.

There are a number of career models out there which suggest a nice, linear progression from being a doer (at the bottom of the career ladder) to being a thinker (at the top). Unfortunately the reality is rarely like that. Whilst there is no doubt that broader managerial skills, like budgeting and business partnering, become more important the higher you climb, there are very few senior communicators who don’t have to roll up their sleeves and muck in at least some of the time. Rock solid tactical skills are important whether you’re a junior team member or a high flying communication director. Ignore them at your peril.

Your development menu

Once you’ve identified where you are and where you’re heading, it’s time to create your development menu – to identify what exactly you should do to plug your career gaps.

As any decent HR person will tell you, there are numerous options for professional and personal development and the obvious choices may not always be the best. In addition to traditional classroom-based training courses, you could consider coaching, mentoring, diploma or degree courses, webinars, teleseminars, secondments, volunteering, planned reading, networking, on the job experience and work shadowing. Indeed, a combination of three or four of these development options will make for a much more rounded and effective development programme.

There are pros and cons to each. Coaching, for instance, is very expensive and not everyone can afford to leave the office for two days to attend a training course (though that’s changing thanks to programmes like BiteSize from Gatehouse Academy which are short, focused and delivered to your door). Your choices will depend on a number of factors, including your budget, your availability, your location and your preferred learning style.

Don’t be fooled into thinking that a limited budget means poor development either – there’s an enormous amount you can do on a shoestring. Many internal communicators are very happy to talk about their work and to share their secrets of success, even with communicators from competitor organisations. Just catching up with a respected communicator over an occasional coffee can be a very effective form of mentoring. And there’s also a huge amount to be gained from getting more involved in one of the professional bodies.

If you need additional inspiration when it comes to formal learning, check out the following links:

• CIPR Internal Communication Certificate from PR Academy
• CIPR Internal Communication Diploma from PR Academy
• IoIC Foundation Diploma of Proficiency in Internal Communication
• IoIC Advanced Diploma of Proficiency in Internal Communication
• Melcrum’s Black Belt Programme
• Kingston University’s Internal Communication Management PgDip/MA top-up

And if you’re interested in team-based learning, our own BiteSize modular learning and development programme from Gatehouse Academy could be just the ticket.

A highly focused and flexible programme backed by the Chartered Institute of Public Relations (CIPR), it is designed to cover the fundamentals of effective internal communication in a fast-paced, hassle-free way. 

Delivered in stand-alone ‘bite sized’ sessions of just 90 minutes by an independent and highly experienced practitioner, this is a great way to provide a programme of targeted learning for your team for a small one-off fee.  What’s more it’s also available as a webinar programme for larger or geographically dispersed teams.

Check out the new Gatehouse website or get in touch with me if you want to know more about BiteSize – lee.smith@gatehousegroup.co.uk.

Continuous development

The best approach to professional development is, of course, a continuous one. Rather than thinking about your skills and experience once a year, you should look for, and seize, development opportunities on a day-to-day basis. You should make learning a habit, not an afterthought.

At present I believe the Chartered Institute of Public Relations (CIPR) is the only UK body for communicators to operate a continuing professional development programme, though the Institute of Internal Communication is hot on its heals with its own CPD programme in the pipeline.

A habit, not a once a year purge…

If we really want to be recognised as a profession, then we need to invest a lot more time and energy in our own development. Continuing professional development is, for me, a vital ingredient for success. Whatever your level, there’s simply no excuse for not learning new skills or sharpening existing ones, whether you do it formally or not.

As your other resolutions begin to fade next month, make a commitment to yourself – to create a well balanced and stretching development plan and to review it monthly. If you do, I promise you’ll be an even better communicator by 2012.

Lee, Gatehouse

In the last six to eight weeks Gatehouse has won a pile of work and my blogging has undoubtedly paid the price. I know this is a cardinal sin for anyone who wants to retain an online audience but, unfortunately, needs must.

Along with the rest of the Gatehouse team I’ve been focused on delivering a variety of projects for a handful of new big name clients. These have included two major communication audits, a global research exercise to guide a series of strategic messages, various training assignments and the construction of a social media-based web site and supporting campaign. Exciting times!

Anyway, I wanted to take the opportunity now, thanks to a very long transatlantic flight, to discuss one theme that has come up again and again during this period and before – that dangerous affliction known as Ivory Tower Syndrome (ITS).

One of our key areas of specialism at Gatehouse is employee and stakeholder research – from full scale ‘roots and branch’ audits to more focused projects.

Every time we are asked to do work like this I feel incredibly privileged – because we inevitably get to talk to board members and front line employees alike, ask lots of awkward questions without worrying about internal politics, hear some incredible stories and, without fail, uncover some valuable insights into the reality of organisational life.

Our core methodology involves us talking confidentially to senior leaders – the qualitative interview phase – before undertaking organisation-wide quantitative research, usually involving a bespoke survey. For many clients we often carry out a third phase – another qualitative phase – based around a series of exploratory focus groups with employees. These are designed to get under the skin of any issues and challenges discovered in the earlier phases.

We’ve done dozens of projects like this over the past few years and one thing it always highlights is a disconnect between those at the top – those responsible for running the organisation – and those on the ground who are responsible for delivering whatever it is the organisation delivers.

When I say those at the top I not only mean board members and other senior executives, but also those who advise them, including head office communicators.

Of course, some leaders and communicators are more connected than others. Some have a good feel for life on the front line, while others have their heads buried deep in the sand. Some have a gut feel that things aren’t quite right (often one of the reasons they call us) while others are in complete denial, living in cloud cuckoo land. But the general pattern we’ve observed is that the head office strategy makers are often out of touch with those on the ground to a greater or lesser extent.

Thankfully, it’s relatively easy for us to see the gaps. As an independent third party we can get to the truth a whole lot quicker than those on the inside. We have no baggage, no agenda. Thanks to our methodology, which emphasises confidentiality, we find that people at all levels are incredibly open and honest with us – from the board down, they tell it as it is. This enables us to quickly identify the disconnects and explore the reasons for them, as well as potential solutions.

As a general rule, the more geographically dispersed the organisation is, the more risk there is of ITS. The further away from head office you get – both physically and culturally – the more hazy the view from the top becomes. Put simply, if your world revolves largely around the London HQ then the chances are you will be very surprised by the attitudes, opinions and practices of those in the far flung parts of your corporate empire – whether that’s Newcastle or New England.

You may not believe that, but this is something we find again and again in organisations of all sizes and shapes, many of them with highly professional comms teams.

We all know deep down that there is no such thing as ‘one company’ – organisations comprise a variety of cultures and life differs across teams, locations, levels, regions, divisions and just about every other split you can imagine.

One of the big symptoms of chronic ITS is a collective belief at the senior level that what you see and hear at HQ is somehow representative of the wider organisation. Nine times out of ten it isn’t. And that can be a dangerous thing.

The impacts are fairly obvious. Messages developed at HQ don’t resonate or, worse still, make no sense to large segments of your audience. Policies and initiatives are developed in isolation from those who actually need to implement them. This in turn alienates those on the ground who do not feel they are being consulted or listened to. This breeds disengagement and distrust. Employees check out and increasingly see those at the top as being on another planet. Needless to say, none of this is good for productivity.

So what can you do to avoid ITS?

The good news is that remedies are widely available. Here’s a few off the shelf:

- If you think your top team might be suffering from ITS then commission some research to investigate. Call in external help (ideally Gatehouse ) and get them to present the results of their research findings, warts and all. That way you get the necessary home truths across without limiting your career!

- Create and cultivate a strong champion network to act as your eyes and ears across the organisation. Give them training in the basics of internal comms (we can help there too) and then actively involve then in developing and testing your communications, not just delivering them. Make sure this group is representative of your organisation, genuinely well connected and vocal. Make it clear that they are not the mouthpiece of management, but are there to ensure decisions are well informed and your communications reflect reality.

- Put in place a programme to ensure your senior leaders get sufficient exposure to employees at all levels and across locations. This might involve a back to the floor exercise (where leaders actually work alongside front line employees, for instance in the call centre) or a series of brown bag lunches (simple round table discussions with randomly selected participants). It might be less formal – perhaps rotating the venue for board meetings, so execs have a reason to be there. Where face-to-face is impossible, it might involve technology-led approaches like online forums, ask the boss intranet tools or online town halls. The important thing is that leaders get out there, are visible and actually talk to people. Of course, the same goes for communicators – this is not a job you can do well if you’re not willing to venture outside the corporate tower!

- Listen, really listen. Effective communication is two parts listening and one part talking – so make sure you’ve got all the tools you need to tune into your audience. From having a mole in the smoking room, to pouring over the latest engagement survey data, there are plenty of approaches that work.

- Create an imaginary friend. I’m serious. Develop a fictional character representing a typical employee from a distant and sometimes forgotten part of your business – then put yourself in their shoes as you’re developing your comms. What would they think? What would they say? Would it pass the snigger test or would they fall about laughing at your new strategic message? When I headed up comms for part of a retail bank, I had an imaginary friend, Billy of Bridgwater, who fulfilled precisely this role. Now i know you think I’m nuts.

- Acknowledge that advising senior leaders about the views, opinions and mood of the workforce is a critical part of your job. The internal communicator should be able to adopt the voice of employees and explain how messages will land in different parts of the organisation. This knowledge should be built on insight as well as gut feel. Know your audience.

- Perhaps most importantly of all, actually involve people. Ask them their views on new policies, new products, new initiatives, commercial challenges, cost saving or anything else. Then enlist their support in making it happen. Most employees want to be part of the action and hate it when things are simply done to them. If your organisation does insist on hatching its plans at HQ, at the very least make sure those away from the centre have chance to have their say and be listened to. Communication is two way. Dialogue is everything.

That’s it for now. I promise not to leave it so long next time…

Lee, Gatehouse

You can download it by clicking here:

Download PM Magazine, June 2010 – Lee Smith, Gatehouse

In it I discuss the challenges of cross-selling services and provide some pointers on how firms might be able to create the right internal environment for it to happen more easily and effectively.  There are also a wealth of practical ideas – brainstormed in a workshop I ran at the PM Forum conference last year.

Hope you find it useful and interesting. 

Lee, Gatehouse

HR Magazine reports today on new research from the Chartered Management Institute (CMI) showing that many businesses are panicking about the impact the World Cup will have on employee productivity.

It is estimated that the big tournament could cost UK businesses up to £1bn in lost working hours, as employees skive off or call in sick (due no doubt to those Champagne-induced hangovers!)

According to the CMI, however, business leaders should look on the positive side and see the World Cup as a golden opportunity to re-engage employees. 

I couldn’t agree more.

I remember the feel good factor that was created by some employers back in 2002 and 2006, just by screening one or two of the day time matches and inviting employees along for a few hours. 

My own employer at the time, Ernst & Young, did exactly that and it worked wonders, helping break down barriers between teams and build a stronger sense of community.  Everyone agreed that for a reasonably small investment of time and money, the positive impact these little football-based get-togethers had was enormous. 

So, rather than worrying about absenteeism, why not turn this to your advantage by screening a few key matches, inviting people along on a first come, first served basis and laying on some nibbles and refreshments? 

Of course, if England performs well it could have a longer lasting impact on engagement levels!

Lee, Gatehouse

PS – sorry if you’re Scottish, Welsh or follow any other team apart from England!

If you’re an internal communicator operating in the financial services sector, you’ll be interested in a new piece of research we’re conducting in conjunction with the Institute of Internal Communication (IoIC).

The first State of the Sector research project for 2010 will shine the light on the employee communication and engagement practices of companies operating in the financial space – including retail and investment banks, building societies, credit card providers, insurers and others. 

Given the turmoil of the last 12 months, it promises to be an extremely timely piece of benchmarking research, providing useful insights into the strategies and tactics currently deployed by FS communicators, resourcing trends, predicted issues and challenges and much more.

Everyone who takes part in the survey will receive a FREE BENCHMARKING REPORT on the current state of internal communications within financial services. All you have to do is spare 10 minutes to complete the online questionnaire. It’s that easy.

What’s more, for every completed questionnaire, Gatehouse will be donating £1 to our favourite charity ‘I Can’ (www.ican.org.uk), which works to support the development of speech, language and communication skills in children.

So what have you got to lose? You can access the survey right now at www.stateofthesector.co.uk. Simply enter the password ‘SOS2010’ and make sure you complete it before the deadline of Friday 11 June.

As part of the study we’ll also be interviewing a cross section of senior communicators operating in the field – if you fit the bill and have a story to tell about the way you’re communicating internally, just drop me a line at lee.smith@gatehousegroup.co.uk and I’ll get in touch to organise a short (circa 30mins) meeting or phone call.

Lee, Gatehouse

PS- don’t forget to include your contact details so IoIC can send you your free report!

 Download State of Sector – CiB

With CiB soon to be reborn as the Institute of Internal Communication (IoIC), we thought that now would be a great time to show our support by joining forces and delivering something that will be of real value to many of its members. The move follows a pilot State of the Sector study we ran last year in conjunction with PM Forum, which focused on professional services.

The first piece of research to carry the IoIC brand, the initial wave of State of the Sector 2010 will focus exclusively on the financial services sector – looking at the current state of employee communication and engagement in banks, building societies, credit card companies, insurers and other FS businesses.  As a sector that has been through the wars recently, it should be fascinating and enlightening stuff!

Our arrangement with CiB/IoIC covers a minimum of two State of the Sector reports and later in the year we plan to turn our attention to the public sector  – another interesting area to put under the microscope in the post-election period.

The State of the Sector research will combine quantitative and qualitative measures to build up a robust and useful insight into the state of IC within each sector – what channels and tactics organisations are using, how they resource the function, what messages they’re communicating, key issues and challenges and much more. 

An online survey will be used to collect key benchmarking data and we will also be undertaking a series of qualitative interviews with senior players and influencers operating in each sector.   

If you work as an internal communicator in the financial services sector and you’d like to participate in this research – either by completing a short benchmarking survey or by participating in the interviews – then please drop me a line or contact Tim Beynon at CiB (tim@cib.uk.com). 

The survey will take no longer than 10-15 minutes to complete and interviews will be face-to-face or over the telephone and are likely to last around 30 minutes. Needless to say, everyone who takes part in the research can opt to receive a free copy of either the full or abridged research reports.

Lee Smith, Gatehouse

Lee, Gatehouse

Responding to a post by US marketing guru and writer Seth Godin in which he urges corporations to axe big ‘set piece’ events, Leandro explains why events like the annual sales conference or office party are often much more than the sum of their parts – they are important corporate rituals.

Of course, events can be done well or they can be done badly. They can be efficient or inefficient and so getting the substance and the delivery right is absolutely critical (one of the reasons we set up an events business, Gasp!, last year).

But, as Leandro rightly points out, events are often about much more than sharing a set of messages or rallying the troops. They are social rituals. And rituals are an important component of organisational culture.

To quote Leandro: "[Events] serve the extra-functionality of any ritual: they create a glue, a link, a sense of belonging (even if temporary), a ‘reason d’être’, a door to get through, a point in the calendar that provides some sort of meaning, a punctuation in time, ‘something to go to’, or to ‘get through’”. 

I couldn’t agree more Leandro.

Lee, Gatehouse

Focused on the critical role of line managers in the communication/engagement mix, it was attended by in-house communicators for the UK, France, Germany, Denmark, the US, Canada, Australia and New Zealand (if you’re an in house practitioner and you missed it, don’t worry – we’ll be running it again on March 11 so make sure you sign up today). 

One of the topics we discussed during the session was the business case for investing time and energy in line managers – a topic I’m passionate about.

Survey after survey reinforces what we already know in this area and what our gut has told us for years. For example, a recent Watson Wyatt survey ‘Capitalising on Effective Communication’ headlines that “the best [companies] invest is in helping managers communicate with their employees”. They go on to say that companies that are highly effective communicators had 47 percent higher total returns to shareholders over the last five years compared with firms that are the least effective communicators.

Meanwhile Best Companies, the organisation behind the respected annual Sunday Times Best Companies to Work For survey lists “How employees feel about and communicate with their direct manager” as one of their leading engagement indicators.

Elsewhere there is evidence that poor line management is, quite literally, making people and organisations sick. The National Institute for Health & Clinical Excellence (NICE) reckons the total cost to the UK economy of work related stress, anxiety and depression is now a staggering £28bn – more than 14 million work days are lost every year due to these conditions. It says that businesses can make their employees happier, reduce costs and boost productivity by following a few basic guidelines – like giving positive feedback, encouraging flexible working and giving days off as a reward. These are all influenced, at least in part, by line managers.

Underlining this point recruitment firm Badenoch & Clark recently found that 91% of employees are stressed at work – and worse still, seven in 10 are too scared to raise their concerns with their bosses. And back in the Spring a Finnish study concluded that poor team spirit at work can increase the chance of developing depression by more than half.

The evidence has been stacking up for over a decade now and there are dozens of studies that can be used to show the links between line manager behaviour (good and bad), employee engagement (and disengagement) and the bottom line.

Recent experience has underlined our long held view that creating the right environment for effective and valued line manager communication to flourish is the real battleground for communicators. More than ever before organisations are crying out for their employees to be more engaged. We all know the theory and buy the logic – the question now is can we now deliver on it?

Lee Smith, Gatehouse

Internal communicators are increasingly turning to Web 2.0 tools, such as employee and executive blogs, online video, and internal Twitter-style forums, to deliver key strategic messages, stimulate collaboration and knowledge sharing and boost productivity.

In a recent Melcrum member survey, 40% of respondents said the business case for social media within internal communication was clear and that there is visible return on investment, while 53% of the 2,212 senior communicators who responded said they were planning to increase investment in their organization’s intranet in 2010.

When asked about channels used for internal communication, online video and webcasts were cited as of increasing importance, with the intranet ranked as the most effective channel by 73% of senior communicators worldwide.

The business benefits of investment in social media highlighted included improved levels of employee engagement (21%), better communication with remote workers (16%), knowledge management and collaboration (25%), improving employee feedback (20%) and making business leaders more visible and accessible (14%).

“Many organizations have now moved beyond the experimentation phase and begun embedding social media into the way they do business,” said Victoria Mellor, CEO of Melcrum. “There is a fundamental shift happening with how information flows inside an organization. Peer-to-peer online networks are enabling real-time feedback from employees to inform decision-making, not to mention facilitating collaboration between remote workers,” she added.

Highlights of the research study will be presented at Melcrum’s London conference on February 9-10^th, 2010: “Social Media for Internal Communication”. The full findings will be made available to members of Melcrum’s Social Media Benchmarking Group and subsequently published as a major new research report in March 2010.

If you haven’t already completed the survey, there’s still time – just follow this link.

Lee, Gatehouse

New from Gatehouse Academy, BiteSize is a unique modular programme comprising a growing number of stand-alone sessions on all aspects of organisational communication.

Responding directly to the changing development needs of in-house communication professionals (not least reduced budgets and more limited scope to travel) it is designed to provide access to the very latest thinking, good practice, case studies and practical advice on a wide range of must-know subjects without the considerable time commitment, inconvenience and high costs usually associated with externally run courses.

Two BiteSize programmes are currently available – the Master Communicator programme is aimed at in-house communication teams, whilst the Engaging Manager programme is geared toward line managers and team leaders. See our website for further information.

Delivered in single stand-alone sessions of just 90 minutes (face-to-face) or 60 minutes (webinar) by an independent and highly experienced practitioner, this is a great way to provide targeted learning to multiple members of your team or wider communication network for a small one-off fee.

In summary, BiteSize delivers the following benefits:

• Condensed learning – BiteSize covers the fundamentals of each subject in just 90 minutes (face-to-face) or 60 minutes (webinar), providing delegates with maximum returns for a minimal investment of time
• Delivered to your door – BiteSize sessions are designed to take place on your premises or online at a time and date to suit
• Team-based learning – BiteSize can be delivered to up to 15 members of your team (face-to-face) or 100 (webinar), helping drive consistencies and build a common foundation of knowledge and skills across your network
• Pick & mix – you can choose to run just one module as part of a team away day or combine a handful of modules to create an integrated programme delivered on a regular basis over a period of time
• Low cost – delivered for as little as £100 per person per session (face-to-face), BiteSize represents excellent value for money
• Created by communicators, for communicators – all our trainers are practicing communicators who have spent considerable time operating in-house
• Professional endorsement – BiteSize is supported by the UK’s only Chartered body for communicators, the CIPR, and participation qualifies for Continuing Professional Development points for delegates who are CIPR members

BiteSize has been piloted successfully within the UK Government over the last six months and is now being rolled-out to other public and private sector organisations.

If you’d like to discuss how BiteSize can help your team members and managers develop and hone their skills and knowledge don’t hesitate to get in touch – lee.smith@gatehousegroup.co.uk.

Happy New Year!

Lee, Gatehouse

New from Gatehouse Academy, BiteSize is a unique modular programme comprising a growing number of stand-alone sessions on all aspects of organisational communication. 

Responding directly to the changing development needs of in-house communication professionals (not least reduced budgets and more limited scope to travel) it is designed to provide access to the very latest thinking, good practice, case studies and practical advice on a wide range of must-know subjects without the considerable time commitment, inconvenience and high costs usually associated with externally run courses.

Two BiteSize programmes are currently available – the Master Communicator programme is aimed at in-house communication teams, whilst the Engaging Manager programme is geared toward line managers and team leaders. See our website for further information.

Delivered in single stand-alone sessions of just 90 minutes (face-to-face) or 60 minutes (webinar) by an independent and highly experienced practitioner, this is a great way to provide targeted learning to multiple members of your team or wider communication network for a small one-off fee. 

In summary, BiteSize delivers the following benefits:

• Condensed learning – BiteSize covers the fundamentals of each subject in just 90 minutes (face-to-face) or 60 minutes (webinar), providing delegates with maximum returns for a minimal investment of time

• Delivered to your door – BiteSize sessions are designed to take place on your premises or online at a time and date to suit 

• Team-based learning – BiteSize can be delivered to up to 15 members of your team (face-to-face) or 100 (webinar), helping drive consistencies and build a common foundation of knowledge and skills across your network

• Pick & mix – you can choose to run just one module as part of a team away day or combine a handful of modules to create an integrated programme delivered on a regular basis over a period of time

• Low cost – delivered for as little as £100 per person per session (face-to-face), BiteSize represents excellent value for money

• Created by communicators, for communicators – all our trainers are practicing communicators who have spent considerable time operating in-house

• Professional endorsement – BiteSize is supported by the UK’s only Chartered body for communicators, the CIPR, and participation qualifies for Continuing Professional Development points for delegates who are CIPR members

BiteSize has been piloted successfully within the UK Government over the last six months and is now being rolled-out to other public and private sector organisations.

If you’d like to discuss how BiteSize can help your team members and managers develop and hone their skills and knowledge don’t hesitate to get in touch – lee.smith@gatehousegroup.co.uk.

Happy New Year!

Lee, Gatehouse

To celebrate the launch of our Engaging Manager learning programme for line managers and aspiring leaders, Gatehouse Academy invites you to participate in a free 60 minute BiteSize webinar exclusively for in-house communicators.

Available on a first come, first served basis, this special web-enabled learning session will make the case for increased investment in line manager communication and explain how to begin creating truly Engaging Managers within your organisation.

In this fast-paced interactive session, which I’ll be leading, you’ll learn:

• The business case for investing more of your budget in line managers
• The six traits of The Engaging Manager – what makes the great ones stand out from the average
• Fascinating evidence and case studies from a handful of organisations that have put line managers at the heart of their communications
• Our blueprint for improving line manager communication
• How to build managers’ communication skills and competencies
• How to hardwire employee communication and engagement excellence into line managers’ roles
• How to ensure you feed managers the right content and avoid overloading them

The session will take place from 0930-1030 GMT on Monday 1 February 2010.

Space is limited. Reserve your Webinar seat here.

After registering you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the webinar.

System Requirements

PC-based attendees

Required: Windows® 2000, XP Home, XP Pro, 2003 Server, Vista

Macintosh®-based attendees

Required: Mac OS® X 10.4 (Tiger®) or newer

Join us for a free Gatehouse Academy webinar on 1 February 2010 and learn how to put line managers at the heart of your internal communications

To celebrate the launch of our Engaging Manager learning programme for line managers and aspiring leaders, Gatehouse Academy invites you to participate in a free 60 minute BiteSize webinar exclusively for in-house communicators.  

Available on a first come, first served basis, this special web-enabled learning session will make the case for increased investment in line manager communication and explain how to begin creating truly Engaging Managers within your organisation.

In this fast-paced interactive session, which I’ll be leading, you’ll learn:

• The business case for investing more of your budget in line managers
• The six traits of The Engaging Manager – what makes the great ones stand out from the average
• Fascinating evidence and case studies from a handful of organisations that have put line managers at the heart of their communications
• Our blueprint for improving line manager communication
• How to build managers’ communication skills and competencies
• How to hardwire employee communication and engagement excellence into line managers’ roles
• How to ensure you feed managers the right content and avoid overloading them

The session will take place from 0930-1030 GMT on Monday 1 February 2010.

Lee

Alongside the guilt-induced dieting, hopeless resolutions to get fit and short lived promises to quit smoking, alcohol and other assorted vices, January is the time when many of us dust off our personal development plans and contemplate, albeit briefly, the future direction of our careers.

And like so many of those well intentioned resolutions, our own development is quickly forgotten as work returns to its normal frenetic pace. Development plans inevitably end up at the very back of the filing cabinet, only to be revisited a year later when it’s time for the obligatory annual review.

But it doesn’t have to be this way. The key, as with any self improvement programme, is discipline – setting realistic goals at the outset, approaching the challenge in a balanced, holistic way and staying focused throughout the entire year.

The development landscape

The development landscape for internal communicators has changed considerably over the last few years. At the start of the decade you’d have struggled to have found more than a handful of specialist courses, publications and events for internal communicators, and many of those that did exist were pretty poor.

Thankfully things have changed and today – as we steam towards the second decade of the millennium – we’re spoiled for choice. There are now three decent professional bodies to choose from, a number of excellent degree programmes, a wealth of specialist training courses and qualifications (see below) and dozens of networking events, publications, websites, LinkedIn Groups and blogs to inspire you. We’re still some way behind our colleagues in HR, PR and marketing, but we’re a lot better off than we once were.

Yet internal communicators continue to struggle with their own development. Proper development plans are few and far between. Many of us remain uncertain about the options and unclear about our roles and future career paths. Some of us are just plain lazy.

But if you’re serious about internal communication; if you want to become a bona fide professional, a credible practitioner and a trusted advisor to your clients and colleagues, then it’s time to get serious about your own development.

So, before reading the rest of this post, think briefly about your own views on development. Do you take it seriously? Have you learned new skills in the last 12 months? Do you have a realistic but stretching development plan in place? Does it cover the next 12 months and map out what you’re going to do to broaden your knowledge, sharpen your skills or widen your experience? If the answer to any of those questions is no, then read on…

There are two very basic questions to consider before embarking on your professional detox – “where am I?” and “where am I heading?”

Every good development plan starts with an honest and critical assessment of your current skills, competencies, knowledge and experience. It can be hard to be objective, so make sure you seek input from your colleagues and clients. If you’re organisation offers it (and you’re brave enough to stomach it), 360-degree feedback is a great way to find out how co-workers at all levels – above and below – perceive you and where, in their eyes, you need to develop. Another useful self-assessment tool is the InterComm matrix.

The InterComm matrix

A few years ago representatives from the Internal Communication Alliance (now known as CIPR Inside), CiB and IABC came together to identify the knowledge, skills and experience internal communicators should ideally have at various stages in their careers. I was part of this small group. The result, the InterComm matrix, is the closest thing we have to a common industry-backed professional development framework.

Although it’s now a little dated (the matrix was first published back in 2004) it remains a very useful tool and I believe it continues to be recommend by all three organisations as a basis for planning your personal or team development, and as a guide to recruitment.

The matrix is based on four career stages:

• Band One – Entry level (6 – 12 months in internal communications)
• Band Two – 12 months to 2 – 3 years
• Band Three – Manager or supervisor with at least 2-3 years communications experience
• Band Four – Senior practitioner – at least 5 years operating at band 2 and above

For each level, the matrix defines the generic business and management knowledge and skills internal communications professionals should ideally have, and their specialist communication knowledge, skills and direct experience.

If you haven’t thought about it already, that’s a great way to approach your development – to adopt a two-pronged approach by focusing on your generic/business skills on one hand and your specialist IC skills on the other.

The bands are slightly arbitrary and they don’t take account of the fact that many internal communication practitioners move sideways from related functions like HR, PR or marketing. But it’s a useful yardstick and a good guide to the sort of areas you should be gaining exposure to as you progress through your career.

More recently Sue Dewhurst and Liam FitzPatrick of Competent Communicators created an excellent framework that builds on the foundation provided by InterComm and takes it to the next level. I’m a big fan – see my previous post for details.

Looking forward

Clarifying where you’re heading can be tougher.

First there are the practical issues. Many internal communication teams are small and there is often little room for career progression without jumping ship. Even then, depending on the sector, suitable managerial or senior level roles may be few and far between. If your desire is to head up a team then you’ll be restricted to large organisations. Then there’s the London bias which can make it more difficult to progress if you’re based in the regions. It’s important that your career goals are realistic, so it pays to think about these factors early on.

Where do you see yourself in five years time? It’s a question that’s often asked in job interviews, but it’s one that’s worth pondering every year. Do you see yourself as a dedicated internal communicator, or as a broader corporate communicator? What aspects of your current role do you most enjoy? And what do you detest? Do you want to lead a large team, or would you prefer to become expert at delivery, perhaps focusing on publications, the intranet or events? Do you enjoy budgeting? Really? These are important questions and will help you avoid the promotion trap – where you end up securing a high status senior role only to find that you hate it.

There are a number of career models out there which suggest a nice, linear progression from being a doer (at the bottom of the career ladder) to being a thinker (at the top). Unfortunately the reality is rarely like that. Whilst there is no doubt that broader managerial skills, like budgeting and business partnering, become more important the higher you climb, there are very few senior communicators who don’t have to roll up their sleeves and muck in at least some of the time. Rock solid tactical skills are important whether you’re a junior team member or a high flying communication director. Ignore them at your peril.

Your development menu

Once you’ve identified where you are and where you’re heading, it’s time to create your development menu – to identify what exactly you should do to plug your career gaps.

As any decent HR person will tell you, there are numerous options for professional and personal development and the obvious choices may not always be the best. In addition to traditional classroom-based training courses, you could consider coaching, mentoring, diploma or degree courses, webinars, teleseminars, secondments, volunteering, planned reading, networking, on the job experience and work shadowing. Indeed, a combination of three or four of these development options will make for a much more rounded and effective development programme.

There are pros and cons to each. Coaching, for instance, is very expensive and not everyone can afford to leave the office for two days to attend a training course (though that’s changing thanks to programmes like BiteSize from Gatehouse Academy which are short, focused and delivered to your door). Your choices will depend on a number of factors, including your budget, your availability, your location and your preferred learning style.

Don’t be fooled into thinking that a limited budget means poor development either – there’s an enormous amount you can do on a shoestring. Many internal communicators are very happy to talk about their work and to share their secrets of success, even with communicators from competitor organisations. Just catching up with a respected communicator over an occasional coffee can be a very effective form of mentoring. And there’s also a huge amount to be gained from getting more involved in one of the professional bodies.

If you need additional inspiration when it comes to formal learning, check out the following links:

• CIPR Internal Communication Certificate from PR Academy
• CIPR Internal Communication Diploma from PR Academy
• CiB Foundation Diploma of Proficiency in Internal Communication
• CiB Advanced Diploma of Proficiency in Internal Communication
• Melcrum’s Black Belt Programme

Kingston University’s Internal Communication Management PgDip/MA top-up

And if you’re interested in team-based learning, our own BiteSize modular learning and development programme from Gatehouse Academy could be just the ticket.

A highly focused and flexible programme backed by the Chartered Institute of Public Relations (CIPR), it is designed to cover the fundamentals of effective internal communication in a fast-paced, hassle-free way.

Delivered in stand-alone ‘bite sized’ sessions of just 90 minutes by an independent and highly experienced practitioner, this is a great way to provide a programme of targeted learning for your team for a small one-off fee. What’s more it’s also available as a webinar programme for larger or geographically dispersed teams.

Check out the new Gatehouse website or get in touch with me if you want to know more about BiteSize – lee.smith@gatehousegroup.co.uk.

Continuous development

The best approach to professional development is, of course, a continuous one. Rather than thinking about your skills and experience once a year, you should look for, and seize, development opportunities on a day-to-day basis. You should make learning a habit, not an afterthought.

At present I believe the Chartered Institute of Public Relations (CIPR) is the only UK body for communicators to operate a continuing professional development programme, but the soon to be rebranded Institute of Internal Communication – the successor to Communicators in Business (CiB) – will no doubt be heading down this route as it pursues Chartered Status itself.

If we really want to be recognised as a profession, then we need to invest a lot more time and energy in our own development. Continuing professional development is, for me, a vital ingredient for success. Whatever your level, there’s simply no excuse for not learning new skills or sharpening existing ones, whether you do it formally or not.

As your other resolutions begin to fade next month, make a commitment to yourself – to create a well balanced and stretching development plan and to review it monthly. If you do, I promise you’ll be an even better communicator in 2010.

Lee, Gatehouse

With the festive season in full swing and the New Year nearly upon us, now is the time to start thinking seriously about the state of your career, to plan how you’re going to tone-up those flabby tactical and strategic muscles and to commit to a healthy regime of continuous learning and development for the next 12 months. Yes, it’s time for your professional detox.

Alongside the guilt-induced dieting, hopeless resolutions to get fit and short lived promises to quit smoking, alcohol and other assorted vices, January is the time when many of us dust off our personal development plans and contemplate, albeit briefly, the future direction of our careers.

And like so many of those well intentioned resolutions, our own development is quickly forgotten as work returns to its normal frenetic pace. Development plans inevitably end up at the very back of the filing cabinet, only to be revisited a year later when it’s time for the obligatory annual review.

But it doesn’t have to be this way. The key, as with any self improvement programme, is discipline – setting realistic goals at the outset, approaching the challenge in a balanced, holistic way and staying focused throughout the entire year.

The development landscape

The development landscape for internal communicators has changed considerably over the last few years. At the start of the decade you’d have struggled to have found more than a handful of specialist courses, publications and events for internal communicators, and many of those that did exist were pretty poor.

Thankfully things have changed and today – as we steam towards the second decade of the millennium – we’re spoiled for choice. There are now three decent professional bodies to choose from, a number of excellent degree programmes, a wealth of specialist training courses and qualifications (see below) and dozens of networking events, publications, websites, LinkedIn Groups and blogs to inspire you. We’re still some way behind our colleagues in HR, PR and marketing, but we’re a lot better off than we once were.

Yet internal communicators continue to struggle with their own development. Proper development plans are few and far between. Many of us remain uncertain about the options and unclear about our roles and future career paths. Some of us are just plain lazy.

But if you’re serious about internal communication; if you want to become a bona fide professional, a credible practitioner and a trusted advisor to your clients and colleagues, then it’s time to get serious about your own development.

So, before reading the rest of this post, think briefly about your own views on development. Do you take it seriously? Have you learned new skills in the last 12 months? Do you have a realistic but stretching development plan in place? Does it cover the next 12 months and map out what you’re going to do to broaden your knowledge, sharpen your skills or widen your experience? If the answer to any of those questions is no, then read on…

There are two very basic questions to consider before embarking on your professional detox – “where am I?” and “where am I heading?”

Every good development plan starts with an honest and critical assessment of your current skills, competencies, knowledge and experience. It can be hard to be objective, so make sure you seek input from your colleagues and clients. If you’re organisation offers it (and you’re brave enough to stomach it), 360-degree feedback is a great way to find out how co-workers at all levels – above and below – perceive you and where, in their eyes, you need to develop. Another useful self-assessment tool is the InterComm matrix.

The InterComm matrix

A few years ago representatives from the Internal Communication Alliance (now known as CIPR Inside), CiB and IABC came together to identify the knowledge, skills and experience internal communicators should ideally have at various stages in their careers. I was part of this small group. The result, the InterComm matrix, is the closest thing we have to a common industry-backed professional development framework.

Although it’s now a little dated (the matrix was first published back in 2004) it remains a very useful tool and I believe it continues to be recommend by all three organisations as a basis for planning your personal or team development, and as a guide to recruitment.

The matrix is based on four career stages:

• Band One – Entry level (6 – 12 months in internal communications)
• Band Two – 12 months to 2 – 3 years
• Band Three – Manager or supervisor with at least 2-3 years communications experience
• Band Four – Senior practitioner – at least 5 years operating at band 2 and above

For each level, the matrix defines the generic business and management knowledge and skills internal communications professionals should ideally have, and their specialist communication knowledge, skills and direct experience.

If you haven’t thought about it already, that’s a great way to approach your development – to adopt a two-pronged approach by focusing on your generic/business skills on one hand and your specialist IC skills on the other.

The bands are slightly arbitrary and they don’t take account of the fact that many internal communication practitioners move sideways from related functions like HR, PR or marketing. But it’s a useful yardstick and a good guide to the sort of areas you should be gaining exposure to as you progress through your career.

More recently Sue Dewhurst and Liam FitzPatrick of Competent Communicators created an excellent framework that builds on the foundation provided by InterComm and takes it to the next level. I’m a big fan – see my previous post for details.

Looking forward

Clarifying where you’re heading can be tougher.

First there are the practical issues. Many internal communication teams are small and there is often little room for career progression without jumping ship. Even then, depending on the sector, suitable managerial or senior level roles may be few and far between. If your desire is to head up a team then you’ll be restricted to large organisations. Then there’s the London bias which can make it more difficult to progress if you’re based in the regions. It’s important that your career goals are realistic, so it pays to think about these factors early on.

Where do you see yourself in five years time? It’s a question that’s often asked in job interviews, but it’s one that’s worth pondering every year. Do you see yourself as a dedicated internal communicator, or as a broader corporate communicator? What aspects of your current role do you most enjoy? And what do you detest? Do you want to lead a large team, or would you prefer to become expert at delivery, perhaps focusing on publications, the intranet or events? Do you enjoy budgeting? Really? These are important questions and will help you avoid the promotion trap – where you end up securing a high status senior role only to find that you hate it.

There are a number of career models out there which suggest a nice, linear progression from being a doer (at the bottom of the career ladd

er) to being a thinker (at the top). Unfortunately the reality is rarely like that. Whilst there is no doubt that broader managerial skills, like budgeting and business partnering, become more important the higher you climb, there are very few senior communicators who don’t have to roll up their sleeves and muck in at least some of the time. Rock solid tactical skills are important whether you’re a junior team member or a high flying communication director. Ignore them at your peril.

Your development menu

Once you’ve identified where you are and where you’re heading, it’s time to create your development menu – to identify what exactly you should do to plug your career gaps.

As any decent HR person will tell you, there are numerous options for professional and personal development and the obvious choices may not always be the best. In addition to traditional classroom-based training courses, you could consider coaching, mentoring, diploma or degree courses, webinars, teleseminars, secondments, volunteering, planned reading, networking, on the job experience and work shadowing. Indeed, a combination of three or four of these development options will make for a much more rounded and effective development programme.

There are pros and cons to each. Coaching, for instance, is very expensive and not everyone can afford to leave the office for two days to attend a training course (though that’s changing thanks to programmes like BiteSize from Gatehouse Academy which are short, focused and delivered to your door). Your choices will depend on a number of factors, including your budget, your availability, your location and your preferred learning style.

Don’t be fooled into thinking that a limited budget means poor development either – there’s an enormous amount you can do on a shoestring. Many internal communicators are very happy to talk about their work and to share their secrets of success, even with communicators from competitor organisations. Just catching up with a respected communicator over an occasional coffee can be a very effective form of mentoring. And there’s also a huge amount to be gained from getting more involved in one of the professional bodies.

If you need additional inspiration when it comes to formal learning, check out the following links:

• CIPR Internal Communication Certificate from PR Academy
• CIPR Internal Communication Diploma from PR Academy
• CiB Foundation Diploma of Proficiency in Internal Communication
• CiB Advanced Diploma of Proficiency in Internal Communication
• Melcrum’s Black Belt Programme
• Kingston University’s Internal Communication Management PgDip/MA top-up

And if you’re interested in team-based learning, our own BiteSize modular learning and development programme from Gatehouse Academy could be just the ticket.

A highly focused and flexible programme backed by the Chartered Institute of Public Relations (CIPR), it is designed to cover the fundamentals of effective internal communication in a fast-paced, hassle-free way. 

Delivered in stand-alone ‘bite sized’ sessions of just 90 minutes by an independent and highly experienced practitioner, this is a great way to provide a programme of targeted learning for your team for a small one-off fee.  What’s more it’s also available as a webinar programme for larger or geographically dispersed teams.

Check out the new Gatehouse website or get in touch with me if you want to know more about BiteSize – lee.smith@gatehousegroup.co.uk.

Continuous development

The best approach to professional development is, of course, a continuous one. Rather than thinking about your skills and experience once a year, you should look for, and seize, development opportunities on a day-to-day basis. You should make learning a habit, not an afterthought.

At present I believe the Chartered Institute of Public Relations (CIPR) is the only UK body for communicators to operate a continuing professional development programme, but the soon to be rebranded Institute of Internal Communication – the successor to Communicators in Business (CiB) – will no doubt be heading down this route as it pursues Chartered Status itself.

If we really want to be recognised as a profession, then we need to invest a lot more time and energy in our own development. Continuing professional development is, for me, a vital ingredient for success. Whatever your level, there’s simply no excuse for not learning new skills or sharpening existing ones, whether you do it formally or not.

As your other resolutions begin to fade next month, make a commitment to yourself – to create a well balanced and stretching development plan and to review it monthly. If you do, I promise you’ll be an even better communicator in 2010.

Lee, Gatehouse

Study after study shows that face-to-face is the communication channel most preferred by employees for certain types of information. It is the key to unlocking engagement, to building internal trust and commitment and to creating a culture and climate for success.

To build a robust and effective face-to-face (f2f) communication strategy, you need to focus your time and effort in three key areas:

1. Leadership

Senior leaders have a vital role to play in setting the tone within organisations and your face-to-face efforts will only succeed if they demonstrate their support through their words and actions.

Empower your leaders by creating opportunities for them to interact with employees, by playing to their own unique style and capabilities, by giving them feedback on their communication performance, and by challenging them if there’s an obvious mismatch between what they say and what they do.

2. Managers

Managers represent the front line in the battle to improve f2f communication. As communicators we rely heavily on them to provide context, to translate strategy into action, to build trust, to create ‘line of sight’, to communicate performance and to listen to and involve frontline employees.

Help managers by providing clarity about their roles as communicators and by explaining what they are accountable for. You can support them through coaching and skills development (though be careful not to patronise them by labelling it ‘training’). As with leaders, you can observe them in action and give them candid feedback on their performance.

3. Tools, resources, and techniques

The other big area to focus on is communication ‘stuff’ – content, materials, templates, formats, processes, resources and training. You will need to work hard to create the right briefing pack – one that captures the key messages succinctly, yet allows for local interpretation. Managers, in particular, will look to you to help them structure their team meetings and find unusual way to break the ice, capture feedback, bring the numbers to life or involve participants in business planning.

The good news is that, for the most part, you’ll be knocking on an open door. Many managers and leaders feel ill equipped in this area and welcome robust knowledge and practical suggestions that help them engage their people more effectively.

Lee, Gatehouse

Study after study shows that face-to-face is the communication channel most preferred by employees for certain types of information. It is the key to unlocking engagement, to building internal trust and commitment and to creating a culture and climate for success.

To build a robust and effective face-to-face (f2f) communication strategy, you  need to focus your time and effort in three key areas:

1. Leadership

Senior leaders have a vital role to play in setting the tone within organisations and your face-to-face efforts will only succeed if they demonstrate their support through their words and actions.

Empower your leaders by creating opportunities for them to interact with employees, by playing to their own unique style and capabilities, by giving them feedback on their communication performance, and by challenging them if there’s an obvious mismatch between what they say and what they do.

2. Managers

Managers represent the front line in the battle to improve f2f communication. As communicators we rely heavily on them to provide context, to translate strategy into action, to build trust, to create ‘line of sight’, to communicate performance and to listen to and involve frontline employees.

Help managers by providing clarity about their roles as communicators and by explaining what they are accountable for. You can support them through coaching and skills development (though be careful not to patronise them by labelling it ‘training’). As with leaders, you can observe them in action and give them candid feedback on their performance.

3. Tools, resources, and techniques

The other big area to focus on is communication ‘stuff’ – content, materials, templates, formats, processes, resources and training. You will need to work hard to create the right briefing pack – one that captures the key messages succinctly, yet allows for local interpretation. Managers, in particular, will look to you to help them structure their team meetings and find unusual way to break the ice, capture feedback, bring the numbers to life or involve participants in business planning.

The good news is that, for the most part, you’ll be knocking on an open door. Many managers and leaders feel ill equipped in this area and welcome robust knowledge and practical suggestions that help them engage their people more effectively.

Lee, Gatehouse

Described as “an entertaining journey into the world of communicating inside large and complex organisations” it features a wealth of original illustrations by our good friend, graphic facilitator Paul Richardson.

Each page introduces the reader to one of the common issues, complaints or question marks facing internal communicators – and offers helpful tips, suggestions and solutions to help overcome them.

Just to manage expectations, this is most definitely a light read – a tongue-in-cheek look at our profession, rather than a weighty text book (if you’re looking for the latter check out my reading list).

Well, if you fancy getting hold of a copy for yourself you can now purchase it over at Amazon. I understand they’re flying off the shelves…

Alternatively, if you’re an in-house communicator and you would like to invite us in to present our impressive credentials – or respond to a specific brief – we’ll happily give you and your colleagues a copy for free!

A few months ago my co-director at Gatehouse, Simon Wright, put the finishing touches to a fun little book all about the world of employee comms – The A-Z of Internal Communication. 

Described as “an entertaining journey into the world of communicating inside large and complex organisations” it features a wealth of original illustrations by our good friend, graphic facilitator Paul Richardson. 

Each page introduces the reader to one of the common issues, complaints or question marks facing internal communicators – and offers helpful tips, suggestions and solutions to help overcome them.

Just to manage expectations, this is most definitely a light read – a tongue-in-cheek look at our profession, rather than a weighty text book (if you’re looking for the latter check out my reading list).

Well, if you fancy getting hold of a copy for yourself you can now purchase it over at Amazon. I understand they’re flying off the shelves…

Alternatively, if you’re an in-house communicator and you would like to invite us in to present our impressive credentials – or respond to a specific brief – we’ll happily give you and your colleagues a copy for free!

Lee, Gatehouse

A friend of mine has recently returned from a two day management conference. The event follows a long and extremely painful period for the organisation (and the broader industry) and was, I imagine, intended to inspire and motivate the troops and to prepare them for a new, different and hopefully more successful 2010.

Those sound like sensible objectives to me and I imagine the team behind the event explored lots of options around event content and style, before finally nailing their approach.

I bet they sat there and brainstormed lots of ideas and grilled lots of agencies in their search for an event that combined a fun team building exercise with something valuable and cathartic. Something that fused real fun with serious business. Something that would be both memorable and impactful. The holy grail.

From what I can gather they settled on some sort of music-based theme centred around an exercise that required participants to listen to some tunes as a group and use them to uncover and explore their emotions. You know the sort of thing – a bit of Mahler, Barber or maybe Girls Aloud to stimulate a discussion about your feelings relating to the past year. Cute.

Jesting aside, I do see the logic – get them to identify and verbalise their negative emotions before symbolically parking them up at the door and marching on together as one. Indeed, I’m pretty sure I used a similar rationale myself during my in house days (though times were, admittedly, a little more buoyant back then).

My own personal favourite, rather appropriately given this post, was a management conference we developed themed around the book Who Moved My Cheese? Complete with rubberised cheddar desk drops, it was certainly different and memorable but, like this one, with hindsight I’m not convinced it actually hit the mark.

Back to the recent event, the problem is that my mate and her peers – the target audience in comms speak – thought all this was cheesy beyond belief. I think Stilton may have been mentioned at once stage. The intention was clear, but the execution somehow undermined the validity of those [very real] emotions and made light of them. Own goal.

I guess the lesson here is to be very sensitive to the emotions of the audience and the context in which an event is happening. Oh, and not to get too wrapped up in searching for that funky theme or super cool hands-on exercise.

It’s all about context.

Many organisations have experienced pain in the past year and, even for those that haven’t, the fact remains that most employees have family and friends who have lost their jobs.

Before rushing to the door of your nearest ‘motivational’ events company to book the very latest musical, theatrical or art-based exercise for your people, stop to think how it will play out. If you’re not careful it could, like this one, be rather counter productive.

Big events have a powerful role to play in engaging employees, but the fact that they are high profile also means they are high risk – get it wrong and you could spend the next 12 months trying to re-establish credibility.

As a rule of thumb, treat your employees as adults and, if there’s negative stuff to surface, address it head on. You know, sometimes just talking can work wonders….

A friend of mine has recently returned from a two day management conference. The event follows a long and extremely painful period for the organisation (and the broader industry) and was, I imagine, intended to inspire and motivate the troops and to prepare them for a new, different and hopefully more successful 2010. 

Those sound like sensible objectives to me and I imagine the team behind the event explored lots of options around event content and style, before finally nailing their approach.

I bet they sat there and brainstormed lots of ideas and grilled lots of agencies in their search for an event that combined a fun team building exercise with something valuable and cathartic. Something that fused real fun with serious business. Something that would be both memorable and impactful. The holy grail.

From what I can gather they settled on some sort of music-based theme centred around an exercise that required participants to listen to some tunes as a group and use them to uncover and explore their emotions. You know the sort of thing – a bit of Mahler, Barber or maybe Girls Aloud to stimulate a discussion about your feelings relating to the past year. Cute. 

Jesting aside, I do see the logic – get them to identify and verbalise their negative emotions before symbolically parking them up at the door and marching on together as one. Indeed, I’m pretty sure I used a similar rationale myself during my in house days (though times were, admittedly, a little more buoyant back then).

My own personal favourite, rather appropriately given this post, was a management conference we developed themed around the book Who Moved My Cheese? Complete with rubberised cheddar desk drops, it was certainly different and memorable but, like this one, with hindsight I’m not convinced it actually hit the mark.

Back to the recent event, the problem is that my mate and her peers – the target audience in comms speak – thought all this was cheesy beyond belief. I think Stilton may have been mentioned at once stage. The intention was clear, but the execution somehow undermined the validity of those [very real] emotions and made light of them. Own goal.

I guess the lesson here is to be very sensitive to the emotions of the audience and the context in which an event is happening. Oh, and not to get too wrapped up in searching for that funky theme or super cool hands-on exercise.

It’s all about context.

Many organisations have experienced pain in the past year and, even for those that haven’t, the fact remains that most employees have family and friends who have lost their jobs.

Before rushing to the door of your nearest ‘motivational’ events company to book the very latest musical, theatrical or art-based exercise for your people, stop to think how it will play out. If you’re not careful it could, like this one, be rather counter productive.

Big events have a powerful role to play in engaging employees, but the fact that they are high profile also means they are high risk – get it wrong and you could spend the next 12 months trying to re-establish credibility.

As a rule of thumb, treat your employees as adults and, if there’s negative stuff to surface, address it head on. You know, sometimes just talking can work wonders…. 

Lee, Gatehouse

PS – if you do need help with your live events and want to ensure you deliver  something that really works without breaking the bank or destroying credibility, don’t hesitate to give the Gasp! team a buzz on 0207 033 8712.

NICE reckons the total cost to the UK economy of work related stress, anxiety and depression is now a staggering £28bn – more than 14 million work days are lost every year due to these conditions.

It says that businesses can make their employees happier, reduce costs and boost productivity by following a few basic guidelines – like giving positive feedback, encouraging flexible working and giving days off as a reward.

And it’s not the only study to highlight this issue recently. Recruitment firm Badenoch & Clark found that 91% of employees are stressed at work – and worse still, seven in 10 are too scared to raise their concerns with their bosses. And back in the Spring a Finnish study concluded that poor team spirit at work can increase the chance of developing depression by more than half.

Now line managers clearly aren’t solely to blame for rising levels of stress and depression at work – the state of the economy doesn’t help – but their actions can play a big part in reducing or encouraging it.

And it’s often the little things that make the biggest difference – like saying hello to team members in the morning, recognising and celebrating successes, communicating regularly as a team, listening, providing constructive performance feedback, ensuring employees are clear on what they need to do by when and promoting a sense of ‘esprit de corps’. These are all practical things that line managers can do to help create a healthy and happy workplace.

Again and again in study after study the pivotal role of line managers is underlined. They hold the key to so many aspects of organisational success and, in my mind, represent the frontline in the battle for hearts and minds – and health – in the workplace.

If they are not already, I believe internal communicators should be focusing the bulk of their time, resources and energy on enhancing the quality of line managers, equipping them with the right skills and information and directly engaging them. As my old boss used to say, happy people + happy customers = successful business – and the first part of that equation rests largely in the hands of line managers.

NICE reckons the total cost to the UK economy of work related stress, anxiety and depression is now a staggering £28bn – more than 14 million work days are lost every year due to these conditions.

It says that businesses can make their employees happier, reduce costs and boost productivity by following a few basic guidelines – like giving positive feedback, encouraging flexible working and giving days off as a reward.

And it’s not the only study to highlight this issue recently. Recruitment firm Badenoch & Clark found that 91% of employees are stressed at work – and worse still, seven in 10 are too scared to raise their concerns with their bosses. And back in the Spring a Finnish study concluded that poor team spirit at work can increase the chance of developing depression by more than half.

Now line managers clearly aren’t solely to blame for rising levels of stress and depression at work – the state of the economy doesn’t help – but their actions can play a big part in reducing or encouraging it. 

And it’s often the little things that make the biggest difference – like saying hello to team members in the morning, recognising and celebrating successes, communicating regularly as a team, listening, providing constructive performance feedback, ensuring employees are clear on what they need to do by when and promoting a sense of ‘esprit de corps’. These are all practical things that line managers can do to help create a healthy and happy workplace.

Again and again in study after study the pivotal role of line managers is underlined. They hold the key to so many aspects of organisational success and, in my mind, represent the frontline in the battle for hearts and minds – and health – in the workplace.

If they are not already, I believe internal communicators should be focusing the bulk of their time, resources and energy on enhancing the quality of line managers, equipping them with the right skills and information and directly engaging them. As my old boss used to say, happy people + happy customers = successful business – and the first part of that equation rests largely in the hands of line managers.

Lee Smith, Gatehouse

This is the culmination of the third phase of the project – preceded by qualitative interviews with the leadership team (phase one) and an all employee survey (phase two).

We used the initial interviews to identify key themes to explore, to investigate perceptions of internal comms by the top team and to understand their needs and expectations of the function. We then used the focus groups to ‘get under the skin’ of the issues identified in the survey, to test the findings and explore some of the themes in more detail. All in all during this process we’ll have canvassed the views of more than 2,500 employees and actually spoken to around 150 in person.

What this project has reminded me of is the enormous power of qualitative research in general – and focus groups in particular – and the importance of doing communication research in a thorough, joined-up way.

Now we get asked to design and run a lot of communication surveys and benchmarking projects on behalf of clients – and they’re always useful and enlightening exercises. But I have to confess that the real value often comes from the qualitative side, where the budget permits this to happen (and unfortunately it doesn’t always).

Useful as the numbers are, the really rich insights often emerge from conversations – whether it’s the one-to-ones with the senior team, or focus groups with a selection of front-line employees. Indeed, this is so important it’s something we try to incorporate into every Gatehouse research project.

We are, of course, lucky to be working with a client right now who really understands the value of research and genuinely wants the insights this sort of approach brings – and who is willing to allocate a meaningful budget to enable it to happen (particularly commendable in this economic climate).

And insights it will bring by the bucket load. It is, for instance, fascinating to contrast the results of the survey with what’s said in the focus groups – to get to the reality behind the numbers and really understand why people answered (or not) in the way they did. It’s also extremely eye-opening to talk to employees in different regions – the US, Europe, the Middle East and Asia on this occasion – and to see how different their views and perceptions on organisational communication are. We often forget the impact of culture on employee attitudes and opinions.

Had we not been able to talk to people to the extent we have been, we just wouldn’t have unearthed half the insights we have.

I can’t go into the results of this research for obvious reasons, but it has once again provided a range of genuinely valuable perspectives on internal comms – from all levels and across a wide geography – which will inevitably have a direct impact on the activities and approaches our client adopts next year and beyond. Put simply, it will change the way they do things and help improve the quality and effectiveness of their employee communication. And that’s the acid test when it comes to investing in research – whether it makes a difference.

Having seen this project through from the start, it’s a process I wouldn’t hesitate to recommend to other clients. In fact, i think every in-house internal comms chief should do comprehensive research along these lines every three or four years – backed up by a more frequent survey to keep tabs on the trends.  This exercise has been so valuable it should be mandatory.

No matter how strong and connected you are, the truth is that as a full time communicator sitting in head office you rarely get the opportunity to immerse yourself in the organisation like this.  But the value that comes from doing so is immense.

The other challenge in-house practitioners face when trying do do something like this themselves is around honesty – and therefore the overall reliability of the results. From the leadership team down, employees are more likely to open up to a third party – and that’s when the really interesting views begin to emerge.  That’s why it makes absolute sense to bring in a consultancy like Gatehouse to conduct the research for you.

I’ve always been pro-research but my recent experience has renewed by interest and belief in it. I’m now a qualitative research evangelist!

L

This is the culmination of the third phase of the project – preceded by qualitative interviews with the leadership team (phase one) and an all employee survey (phase two).

We used the initial interviews to identify key themes to explore, to investigate perceptions of internal comms by the top team and to understand their needs and expectations of the function. We then used the focus groups to ‘get under the skin’ of the issues identified in the survey, to test the findings and explore some of the themes in more detail. All in all during this process we’ll have canvassed the views of more than 2,500 employees and actually spoken to around 150 in person.

What this project has reminded me of is the enormous power of qualitative research in general – and focus groups in particular – and the importance of doing communication research in a thorough, joined-up way.

Now we get asked to design and run a lot of communication surveys and benchmarking projects on behalf of clients – and they’re always useful and enlightening exercises. But I have to confess that the real value often comes from the qualitative side, where the budget permits this to happen (and unfortunately it doesn’t always).

Useful as the numbers are, the really rich insights often emerge from conversations – whether it’s the one-to-ones with the senior team, or focus groups with a selection of front-line employees. Indeed, this is so important it’s something we try to incorporate into every Gatehouse research project.

We are, of course, lucky to be working with a client right now who really understands the value of research and genuinely wants the insights this sort of approach brings – and who is willing to allocate a meaningful budget to enable it to happen (particularly commendable in this economic climate).

And insights it will bring by the bucket load. It is, for instance, fascinating to contrast the results of the survey with what’s said in the focus groups – to get to the reality behind the numbers and really understand why people answered (or not) in the way they did. It’s also extremely eye-opening to talk to employees in different regions – the US, Europe, the Middle East and Asia on this occasion – and to see how different their views and perceptions on organisational communication are. We often forget the impact of culture on employee attitudes and opinions.

Had we not been able to talk to people to the extent we have been, we just wouldn’t have unearthed half the insights we have.

I can’t go into the results of this research for obvious reasons, but it has once again provided a range of genuinely valuable perspectives on internal comms – from all levels and across a wide geography – which will inevitably have a direct impact on the activities and approaches our client adopts next year and beyond. Put simply, it will change the way they do things and help improve the quality and effectiveness of their employee communication. And that’s the acid test when it comes to investing in research – whether it makes a difference.

Having seen this project through from the start, it’s a process I wouldn’t hesitate to recommend to other clients. In fact, i think every in-house internal comms chief should do comprehensive research along these lines every three or four years – backed up by a more frequent survey to keep tabs on the trends. This exercise has been so valuable it should be mandatory.

No matter how strong and connected you are, the truth is that as a full time communicator sitting in head office you rarely get the opportunity to immerse yourself in the organisation like this. But the value that comes from doing so is immense.

The other challenge in-house practitioners face when trying do do something like this themselves is around honesty – and therefore the overall reliability of the results. From the leadership team down, employees are more likely to open up to a third party – and that’s when the really interesting views begin to emerge. That’s why it makes absolute sense to bring in a consultancy like Gatehouse to conduct the research for you.

I’ve always been pro-research but my recent experience has renewed by interest and belief in it. I’m now a qualitative research evangelist!

L

First off, Wayne defined engagement in simple terms – “doing something because you want to, not because you have to” – a nice definition which captures in plain English the essence of engagement, discretionary effort. He then went on to underline the role of engagement and its value to businesses – showing how companies with high levels of engagement typically outperform the corporate norm.

Sharing new data based on a re-analysis of the Best Companies research from the past decade, Wayne explained how ‘quality dialogue’ could be identified as one of the key drivers of engagement, productivity and, ultimately, profitability.

Using the Best Companies model (purpose/principles/ambition/plan) as a framework, Wayne explored the role that internal communicators can play in enhancing employee engagement in each of the eight areas their research investigates (see below).

Tips included focusing on providing direction – clearly articulating the vision for the organisation; recognising and celebrating progress; helping leaders and managers listen and creating a conversation culture based on genuine openness and honesty.

He went on to discuss the Best Companies methodology – how it explores eight factors: leadership, my company, my manager, personal growth, my team, fair deal, giving something back and wellbeing. Check out the above link for the low down on each of these.

His session included lots of examples and secrets of success – like Amex, which has worked hard to equip managers with the right skills to unlock engagement, and Nando’s, which operates each of its outlets like a small family or cell. Like the Best Companies report itself, Wayne’s session provided an excellent insight into the art of employee engagement.

In summing up, he suggested that the key to building a high engagement workplace is ‘doing small things consistently well all the time’. It is not necessarily about big symbolic gestures – like having a well equipped free gym in the office – but is about having managers and leaders who show they care, who listen and respond to what they’re hearing.

Hear, hear!"

L

PS – for more on Best Companies, check out the articles and downloads on its website.

First off, Wayne defined engagement in simple terms – “doing something because you want to, not because you have to” – a nice definition which captures in plain English the essence of engagement, discretionary effort. He then went on to underline the role of engagement and its value to businesses – showing how companies with high levels of engagement typically outperform the corporate norm.

Sharing new data based on a re-analysis of the Best Companies research from the past decade, Wayne explained how ‘quality dialogue’ could be identified as one of the key drivers of engagement, productivity and, ultimately, profitability.

Using the Best Companies model (purpose/principles/ambition/plan) as a framework, Wayne explored the role that internal communicators can play in enhancing employee engagement in each of the eight areas their research investigates (see below).

Tips included focusing on providing direction – clearly articulating the vision for the organisation; recognising and celebrating progress; helping leaders and managers listen and creating a conversation culture based on genuine openness and honesty.

He went on to discuss the Best Companies methodology – how it explores eight factors: leadership, my company, my manager, personal growth, my team, fair deal, giving something back and wellbeing. Check out the above link for the low down on each of these.

His session included lots of examples and secrets of success – like Amex, which has worked hard to equip managers with the right skills to unlock engagement, and Nando’s, which operates each of its outlets like a small family or cell. Like the Best Companies report itself, Wayne’s session provided an excellent insight into the art of employee engagement.

In summing up, he suggested that the key to building a high engagement workplace is ‘doing small things consistently well all the time’. It is not necessarily about big symbolic gestures – like having a well equipped free gym in the office – but is about having managers and leaders who show they care, who listen and respond to what they’re hearing.

Hear, hear!”

L

More than 200 communicators packed into the conference suite at the Tower Hotel for one of the highlights in the professional calendar – and once again Melcrum didn’t disappoint.

Leanne Carmody, ING Wholesale Banking – on communicating business strategy and managing the cascade

After morning coffee Leanne Carmody of ING Wholesale Banking took to the stage – for a fascinating session focused on the financial services industry and the internal impact of the credit crisis.

Leanne joined the organisation in 2007 – at which point engagement within the Wholesale Banking function was, by her own admission, relatively low. One of her first tasks was to launch a new strategy to employees and build engagement around it.

Working with the ING leadership her team developed and packaged a three-pronged strategy dubbed FFF – Fitter, Focused, Further. Her primary audience was straight-talking wholesale bankers – independent, ambitious, busy and clear thinking professionals – and this was reflected in the simplicity and clarity of the campaign. In line with this, Leanne focused on boosting the visibility of the leadership team and improving the consistency of communications across the division.

A three phased campaign was developed, based around first telling, then facilitating the discussion, and finally living the strategy. There was no rigid timeline for communications – the desire was to be as flexible and adaptable as possible.

The highly visible campaign was launched via a global CEO webcast – followed swiftly by regional town halls. A nicely integrated campaign, all this was supported by an online micro site, posters and branded merchandise. Managers were also trained and equipped with toolkits. A strong visual identity – based around three simple icons – was used to give strategy comms a consistent look and feel and provide the ‘glue’ to bind everything together.

Measurement was at the heart of Leanne’s approach and informed her planning throughout. Key metrics included recall of key messages and understanding and support for the strategy. They also tracked engagement levels.

The results? Campaign awareness was extremely high at 94% recall, but more importantly an impressive 82% of employees said they supported the strategy.

Focus groups were also carried out to test and fine-tune the comms plan. One key finding from this qualitative research was the need to do more to mobilise and motivate the middle managers – to engage them, encourage them to communicate the right messages and effectively ‘translate’ the strategy for their team.

All was going well for Leanne and her team. Then the financial crisis hit. Public sentiment turned against the banks overnight (apparently jogging employees wearing ING t-shirts were heckled in the street) and the media onslaught began. During the turmoil that followed a new CEO was bought in, the group needed Government support and the business began restructuring, fast.

Her next step – a necessity in the face of all that change – was to develop a simple quarterly cascade. This process kicks-off with the top 100 management team joining a briefing conference call and receiving a supporting toolkit containing key messages, Q&As, etc. Managers are asked to cascade the material to their teams within a specific timeframe (which differs according to the content). The IC team provides help and support around this – coaching managers in how to bring the content to life for their teams and manning a special IC ‘hotline’ for managers. As you’d expect, Leanne emphasises the need to capture feedback, monitor, measure and respond to it.

The good news is that this process is working really well – though Leanne admits some managers would benefit from training to improve the quality and consistency of their delivery. Employee feedback has been extremely positive – managers feel more empowered, staff feel more confident, improved trust, enhanced engagement.

One of the other big benefits is that the leadership team now have a more sophisticated understanding of internal comms. As a result, Leanne’s team is now focused much less on sending stuff out and much more on supporting and advising line managers and leaders.

Key lessons learned:

• Need for scenario planning (think the unthinkable – what could possibly go wrong?)
• Don’t under-estimate the time needed to educate and engage the leadership team
• Research, research, research – get the evidence, test as you progress and prove the value add
• Involve a small group of managers in shaping-up the cascade pack – their input is invaluable
• What this session underlined for me, more than anything, is the need to adopt a joined-up approach when it comes to planning, research and evaluation (PRE). PRE is a constant, ongoing process – not something you do only at the beginning and end of a project.

Pete Stevenson, The Edge & Mark Shaoul, Network Rail – on using video to embed a culture of safety

There is no doubting that The Edge make truly great short films for business. I remember seeing some of Pete’s work from a few years back for McDonalds – so i had high expectations of this session, which focused on the role of video in creating a safer environment for track maintenance workers – literally a life or death comms challenge.

As with all good communications, it all started with a good understanding of the audience – in this case working class lads typically in their 30s and 40s. To succeed where previous campaigns had failed, this one would have to get to – and get through to – that rather tough and often cynical audience.

At its heart, this was all about ‘cutting through the noise’ – the title of the pair’s presentation – and developing a communication campaign that the audience would notice and, more importantly, respond to.

The stakes were high. This is a serious issue -every year there are railway workers who either die or get horrifically injured at work. The rules and regulations already exist – and in almost infinite volume – but unfortunately not everyone takes them on board – sometimes with dire consequences.

The resulting campaign, entitled ‘Safety 365′, featured clear branding and well conceived and constructed comms materials.

‘Don’t do your doughnut’ – a set of communications explaining how to lift properly – is a good example of the team’s approach and shows how they talked the language of the audience.

Like so many good campaigns, this was unashamedly consumerist/marketing inspired stuff. There were custom water bottles featuring the words “for once we’re asking you to drink more” on the label. The team even tapped into the competitive spirit with the 365 challenge – which tracked the number of days since a team member last had an accident/incident.

All this was great, but what really drove the message home was the video.

The first film in the safety series was called ‘hit or miss’ and is one of the most impactful corporate videos I’ve ever seen. And definitely the most gory!

Complete with severed hand, this hard-hitting film told the story of a track worker who got hit by a train – and the aftermath of his actions. Emotive it most certainly was – and a great example of the power of video to tell a story far more effectively than mere words.

But how do you get them to watch? These guys are out on the tracks day and night – they rarely if ever sit in front of a computer and there’s no way you’d get them to watch corporate stuff at home. The answer was simple but ingenious – take the cinema to them. This involved a creating a mobile cinema in a truck and literally driving it around.

The team also used PR to gain exposure for the campaign in the tabloids – including a major feature in The Sun – helping reinforce messages using a trusted medium.

Lessons:

• Acknowledge the reality of the situation, however painful
• Speak the right language for the audience
• Use the right channel for the audience
• Lead them to the right conclusion, don’t tell them – let the audience fill in the gaps for themselves

Hard evidence – most importantly the data around accidents is heading in the right direction. Message recall is extremely high. There are fewer accidents and fewer deaths on the tracks.

Talk about communications making a difference!

For more views from the Summit, check out Rachel Allen’s blog.

More to follow….

L

More than 200 communicators packed into the conference suite at the Tower Hotel for one of the highlights in the professional calendar – and once again Melcrum didn’t disappoint.

Leanne Carmody, ING Wholesale Banking – on communicating business strategy and managing the cascade

After morning coffee Leanne Carmody of ING Wholesale Banking took to the stage – for a fascinating session focused on the financial services industry and the internal impact of the credit crisis.

Leanne joined the organisation in 2007 – at which point engagement within the Wholesale Banking function was, by her own admission, relatively low. One of her first tasks was to launch a new strategy to employees and build engagement around it. 

Working with the ING leadership her team developed and packaged a three-pronged strategy dubbed FFF – Fitter, Focused, Further. Her primary audience was straight-talking wholesale bankers – independent, ambitious, busy and clear thinking professionals – and this was reflected in the simplicity and clarity of the campaign. In line with this, Leanne focused on boosting the visibility of the leadership team and improving the consistency of communications across the division.

A three phased campaign was developed, based around first telling, then facilitating the discussion, and finally living the strategy. There was no  rigid timeline for communications – the desire was to be as flexible and adaptable as possible.

The highly visible campaign was launched via a global CEO webcast – followed swiftly by regional town halls. A nicely integrated campaign, all this was supported by an online micro site, posters and branded merchandise. Managers were  also trained and equipped with toolkits.  A strong visual identity – based around three simple icons – was used to give strategy comms a consistent look and feel and provide the ‘glue’ to bind everything together. 

Measurement was at the heart of Leanne’s approach and informed her planning throughout. Key metrics included recall of key messages and understanding and support for the strategy. They also tracked engagement levels.

The results? Campaign awareness was extremely high at 94% recall, but more importantly an impressive 82% of employees said they supported the strategy. 

Focus groups were also carried out to test and fine-tune the comms plan. One key finding from this qualitative research was the need to do more to mobilise and motivate the middle managers – to engage them, encourage them to communicate the right messages and effectively ‘translate’ the strategy for their team.

All was going well for Leanne and her team. Then the financial crisis hit. Public sentiment turned against the banks overnight (apparently jogging employees wearing ING t-shirts were heckled in the street) and the media onslaught began. During the turmoil that followed a new CEO was bought in, the group needed Government support and the business began restructuring, fast.

Her next step – a necessity in the face of all that change – was to develop a simple quarterly cascade. This process kicks-off with the top 100 management team joining a briefing conference call and receiving a supporting toolkit containing key messages, Q&As, etc. Managers are asked to cascade the material to their teams within a specific timeframe (which differs according to the content). The IC team provides help and support around this – coaching managers in how to bring the content to life for their teams and manning a special IC ‘hotline’ for managers.  As you’d expect, Leanne emphasises the need to capture feedback, monitor, measure and respond to it. 

The good news is that this process is working really well – though Leanne admits some managers would benefit from training to improve the quality and consistency of their delivery.  Employee feedback has been extremely positive – managers feel more empowered, staff feel more confident, improved trust, enhanced engagement.

One of the other big benefits is that the leadership team now have a more sophisticated understanding of internal comms.  As a result, Leanne’s team is now focused much less on sending stuff out and much more on supporting and advising line managers and leaders.

Key lessons learned:

• Need for scenario planning (think the unthinkable – what could possibly go wrong?)
• Don’t under-estimate the time needed to educate and engage the leadership team
• Research, research, research – get the evidence, test as you progress and prove the value add 
• Involve a small group of managers in shaping-up the cascade pack – their input is invaluable  

What this session underlined for me, more than anything, is the need to adopt a joined-up approach when it comes to planning, research and evaluation (PRE). PRE is a constant, ongoing process – not something you do only at the beginning and end of a project.  

Pete Stevenson, The Edge & Mark Shaoul, Network Rail – on using video to embed a culture of safety

There is no doubting that The Edge make truly great short films for business. I remember seeing some of Pete’s work from a few years back for McDonalds – so i had high expectations of this session, which focused on the role of video in creating a safer environment for track maintenance workers – literally a life or death comms challenge. 

As with all good communications, it all started with a good understanding of the audience – in this case working class lads typically in their 30s and 40s.  To succeed where previous campaigns had failed, this one would have to get to – and get through to – that rather tough and often cynical audience. 

At its heart, this was all about ‘cutting through the noise’ – the title of the pair’s presentation – and developing a communication campaign that the audience would notice and, more importantly, respond to.

The stakes were high. This is a serious issue –every year there are railway workers who either die or get horrifically injured at work. The rules and regulations already exist – and in almost infinite volume – but unfortunately not everyone takes them on board – sometimes with dire consequences.

The resulting campaign, entitled ‘Safety 365’, featured clear branding and well conceived and constructed comms materials.

‘Don’t do your doughnut’ – a set of communications explaining how to lift properly – is a good example of the team’s approach and shows how they talked the language of the audience.

Like so many good campaigns, this was unashamedly consumerist/marketing inspired stuff.  There were custom water bottles featuring the words “for once we’re asking you to drink more” on the label. The team even tapped into the competitive spirit with the 365 challenge – which tracked the number of days since a team member last had an accident/incident.

All this was great, but what really drove the message home was the video. 

The first film in the safety series was called ‘hit or miss’ and is one of the most impactful corporate videos I’ve ever seen. And definitely the most gory!

Complete with severed hand, this hard-hitting film told the story of a track worker who got hit by a train – and the aftermath of his actions. Emotive it most certainly was – and a great example of the power of video to tell a story far more effectively than mere words.

But how do you get them to watch? These guys are out on the tracks day and night – they rarely if ever sit in front of a computer and there’s no way you’d get them to watch corporate stuff at home. The answer was simple but inge

nious – take the cinema to them. This involved a creating a mobile cinema in a truck and literally driving it around.

The team also used PR to gain exposure for the campaign in the tabloids – including a major feature in The Sun – helping reinforce messages using a trusted medium.

Lessons:

• Acknowledge the reality of the situation, however painful
• Speak the right language for the audience
• Use the right channel for the audience
• Lead them to the right conclusion, don’t tell them  – let the audience fill in the gaps for themselves

Hard evidence – most importantly the data around accidents is heading in the right direction. Message recall is extremely high. There are fewer accidents and fewer deaths on the tracks.

Talk about communications making a difference!

For more views from the Summit, check out Rachel Allen’s blog.

More to follow….

L

“Trust is a fragile plant which may not endure inspection of its roots, even when they were, before the inspection, quite strong”  Baier

What exactly is trust?

Decades ago Douglas McGregor wrote on the importance of trust in The Professional Manager: “Trust means I know that you will not – deliberately or accidentally, consciously or unconsciously – take unfair advantage of me. It means I can put my situation at the moment, my status and self-esteem in the group, our relationship, my job, my career and even my life in your hands with complete confidence.”

Galford & Drapeau, writing in the Harvard Business Review a few years ago, suggest there are three types of trust:

1. Personal trust – the trust employees have in their own managers and close work colleagues
2. Strategic trust – the trust employees have in the people running the show to make the right decisions
3. Organisational trust  – the trust employees have in the organisation itself

The Great Place to Work Institute describes three components of trust – credibility, respect and fairness.

A few years ago the consultancy Mercer conducted some research on the organisational impact of trust. They found that 62% of employees who are kept informed about changes affecting the organisation trust their management team, compared to just 9% of employees who say they are not kept informed about changes.

Edelman’s most recent Trust Barometer found that nearly two in three informed publics—62% of 25-to-64-year-olds surveyed in 20 countries—say they trust corporations less now than they did a year ago. More worrying still was the scale of the decline over 12 months. Trust in US-based business—at 38% down from 58% last year—is the lowest in the Barometer’s tracking history among informed publics ages 35 to 64— even lower than in the wake of Enron and the dot-com bust.

Trust is about predictable behaviour – an expectation that one’s interests will be protected, having confidence in the reliability and integrity of others, and believing that people have a moral compass and will act with fairness, integrity and honesty.

Hosmer (1995) suggests that trust-based relationships are characterised by five dimensions:

1. trust is generally expressed as optimistic expectation
2. trust will generally occur under conditions of vulnerability
3. trust is generally associated with willing cooperation
4. trust will be difficult to enforce should a breakdown occur
5. trust is supplemented by an expectation that the trusted is morally bound to protect rights and behave in a way that is good for society.

In his entitled book Trust, Jack R Gibb highlights a number of situations in which distrust is likely to occur:

• where the organisation’s leaders are feared
• where employees are placed under excessive pressure
• where sales and corporate performance is poor
• when the organisation is faced with an emergency or crisis
• where there are poor labour relations (step up Royal Mail)
• where the vision and direction of the organisation is unclear
• where there is cultural unrest

If you’re heading for the SCM Summit next week, I look forward to seeing you there!

Lee

One of the hot topics I’m looking forward to hearing more and thinking more about at Melcrum’s SCM Summit in London next week (14 & 15 October) is the tricky challenge of (re)building trust with employees, particularly in an industry like financial services. 

There are sessions and workshops from Black Belt trainer Sally Hinder and Leanne Carmody of ING that touch on this topic – both of which will be on my must-attend list. And, if not made overt, it’s a subject that’s bound to be lurking just below the surface during many of the conference sessions.

One thing that is true about trust is that it takes years to create, yet it can be destroyed in a matter of seconds.

There are, of course, numerous ways to build and demolish trust inside organisations, but here’s a basic list I’ve compiled of some of the things, large and small, that are guaranteed to do the latter…

1. Whispers in the powder room

Some situations are so personal, painful or plain embarrassing that it’s easier to turn a blind eye and just pretend they don’t exist. I’ve experienced this sort of collective censorship at board level when a senior employee has been up to no good. Although the top team won’t face the music, be sure that everyone else in the organisation is likely to be whispering and chattering about it behind closed doors. Sensitive issues sometimes need to be aired in the open and ‘dirty washing’ acknowledged or discussed. Concealment is rarely a good option.

2. Ivory tower syndrome

This one is best summed up by a quote from Jeff Bezos, CEO of Amazon – “I don’t think I’ve ever seen an effective manager or leader who doesn’t spend some of their time down in the trenches…If they don’t do that they get out of touch with reality, and their whole thought and management process becomes abstract and disconnected.”  In short, get out of your plush office, get back to the floor and reconnect with your people.

3. Terminal inconsistency

Whether it’s mixed messages or variable standards, being inconsistent is one of the fastest destroyers of trust. Mixed messages can and do occur anywhere in an organisation, from the top team down. The other thing to watch out for is selective messaging – where a senior leader tells one group one thing, and another something contradictory. The other big impact is around inconsistent standards and favouritism. Employees keep score. They notice who gets promoted, who gets away with bending the rules (and who doesn’t) and who get the palatial office suite. People expect a level playing field and the game of trust inevitably suffers when they the pitch has numerous bumps on it.

4. Misplaced benevolence

Most managers knows they’ve got to do something about the employee who cheats, steals or harasses fellow workers. But dodgy behaviour is often more subtle than this. Consider incompetence. I’m sure we can all think of examples of employees who are clearly crap at their jobs, but who seem to be protected and sheltered from criticism.  Trust cannot thrive in such an environment. These people are surrounded by a cloud of negativity and drag down those around them.

5. Failure to trust others

Trust is a two-way street. You cannot expect employees to trust you if you don’t demonstrate that you trust them and others. Empowerment is more than a buzzword.

6. False feedback

We know that honesty drives trust, yet all too often you find managers who give ‘soft’ feedback or downright lies when it comes to performance appraisal. I’ve seen time and again how people have had to be let go due to poor performance only to turn around and accuse the organisation of wrongful dismissal based on apparently “positive” annual feedback. Even if you avoid this, organisations are leaky as sieves and word gets around the grapevine like wildfire.

7. Walk/talk mismatch

Leaders, managers, colleagues and organisations who say one thing and do something else. A guaranteed trust killer.

8. Issue-dodging

Issue dodging is rife. In a number of organisations I’ve worked in we’ve had intranet-based question and answer systems – where employees can ‘ask the boss’ whatever is on their mind by submitting a question online. Every now and again there was an answer on there which somehow managed to find its way through which was so clearly a cop-out – a bunch of weasel words designed to dodge the true issue. As communicators we have a duty for fight for these issues – to make sure they are aired, tackled and dealt with honestly.

9. Inaction (real or perceived)

There’s perhaps nothing worse than the organisation that asks employees for input, ideas, feedback, publishes the findings of the employee survey and then seems to take virtually no action as a result. Not acting on what your employees are telling you destroys trust fast. 

10. Lack of sensitivity

Communicating tough messages without sensitivity is guaranteed to break down trust. Remember David Brent’s bungled announcement about the closure of one of Wernham Hogg’s offices?! 

11. Rumours in a vacuum

Typically during times of change you will see lots of clandestine meetings and diary appointments marked ‘private’. Employees aren’t daft – they will know that something interesting is going on and, if you don’t come clean quickly, they will start guessing at it…

12. Consistent corporate underperformance

Any company that regularly fails to meet expectations – either internally or externally – will see trust eroded. Trust often takes a battering in a recession, but the key is to set realistic expectations and to be honest about performance to all audiences.

What would you add to the list? Do let me know your thoughts….

Lee

“Trust is a fragile plant which may not endure inspection of its roots, even when they were, before the inspection, quite strong” Baier

What exactly is trust?

Decades ago Douglas McGregor wrote on the importance of trust in The Professional Manager: “Trust means I know that you will not – deliberately or accidentally, consciously or unconsciously – take unfair advantage of me. It means I can put my situation at the moment, my status and self-esteem in the group, our relationship, my job, my career and even my life in your hands with complete confidence.”

Galford & Drapeau, writing in the Harvard Business Review a few years ago, suggest there are three types of trust:

• Personal trust – the trust employees have in their own managers and close work colleagues
• Strategic trust – the trust employees have in the people running the show to make the right decisions
• Organisational trust – the trust employees have in the organisation itself

The Great Place to Work Institute describes three components of trust – credibility, respect and fairness.

A few years ago the consultancy Mercer conducted some research on the organisational impact of trust. They found that 62% of employees who are kept informed about changes affecting the organisation trust their management team, compared to just 9% of employees who say they are not kept informed about changes.

Edelman’s most recent Trust Barometer found that nearly two in three informed publics–62% of 25-to-64-year-olds surveyed in 20 countries–say they trust corporations less now than they did a year ago. More worrying still was the scale of the decline over 12 months. Trust in US-based business–at 38% down from 58% last year–is the lowest in the Barometer’s tracking history among informed publics ages 35 to 64– even lower than in the wake of Enron and the dot-com bust.

Trust is about predictable behaviour – an expectation that one’s interests will be protected, having confidence in the reliability and integrity of others, and believing that people have a moral compass and will act with fairness, integrity and honesty.

Hosmer (1995) suggests that trust-based relationships are characterised by five dimensions:

• trust is generally expressed as optimistic expectation
• trust will generally occur under conditions of vulnerability
• trust is generally associated with willing cooperation
• trust will be difficult to enforce should a breakdown occur
• trust is supplemented by an expectation that the trusted is morally bound to protect rights and behave in a way that is good for society.

In his entitled book Trust, Jack R Gibb highlights a number of situations in which distrust is likely to occur:

• where the organisation’s leaders are feared
• where employees are placed under excessive pressure
• where sales and corporate performance is poor
• when the organisation is faced with an emergency or crisis
• where there are poor labour relations (step up Royal Mail)
• where the vision and direction of the organisation is unclear
• where there is cultural unrest

If you’re heading for the SCM Summit next week, I look forward to seeing you there!

Lee

There are sessions and workshops from Black Belt trainer Sally Hinder and Leanne Carmody of ING that touch on this topic – both of which will be on my must-attend list. And, if not made overt, it’s a subject that’s bound to be lurking just below the surface during many of the conference sessions.

One thing that is true about trust is that it takes years to create, yet it can be destroyed in a matter of seconds.

There are, of course, numerous ways to build and demolish trust inside organisations, but here’s a basic list I’ve compiled of some of the things, large and small, that are guaranteed to do the latter…

1. Whispers in the powder room

Some situations are so personal, painful or plain embarrassing that it’s easier to turn a blind eye and just pretend they don’t exist. I’ve experienced this sort of collective censorship at board level when a senior employee has been up to no good. Although the top team won’t face the music, be sure that everyone else in the organisation is likely to be whispering and chattering about it behind closed doors. Sensitive issues sometimes need to be aired in the open and ‘dirty washing’ acknowledged or discussed. Concealment is rarely a good option.

2. Ivory tower syndrome

This one is best summed up by a quote from Jeff Bezos, CEO of Amazon – “I don’t think I’ve ever seen an effective manager or leader who doesn’t spend some of their time down in the trenches…If they don’t do that they get out of touch with reality, and their whole thought and management process becomes abstract and disconnected.” In short, get out of your plush office, get back to the floor and reconnect with your people.

3. Terminal inconsistency

Whether it’s mixed messages or variable standards, being inconsistent is one of the fastest destroyers of trust. Mixed messages can and do occur anywhere in an organisation, from the top team down. The other thing to watch out for is selective messaging – where a senior leader tells one group one thing, and another something contradictory. The other big impact is around inconsistent standards and favouritism. Employees keep score. They notice who gets promoted, who gets away with bending the rules (and who doesn’t) and who get the palatial office suite. People expect a level playing field and the game of trust inevitably suffers when they the pitch has numerous bumps on it.

4. Misplaced benevolence

Most managers knows they’ve got to do something about the employee who cheats, steals or harasses fellow workers. But dodgy behaviour is often more subtle than this. Consider incompetence. I’m sure we can all think of examples of employees who are clearly crap at their jobs, but who seem to be protected and sheltered from criticism. Trust cannot thrive in such an environment. These people are surrounded by a cloud of negativity and drag down those around them.

5. Failure to trust others

Trust is a two-way street. You cannot expect employees to trust you if you don’t demonstrate that you trust them and others. Empowerment is more than a buzzword.

6. False feedback

We know that honesty drives trust, yet all too often you find managers who give ‘soft’ feedback or downright lies when it comes to performance appraisal. I’ve seen time and again how people have had to be let go due to poor performance only to turn around and accuse the organisation of wrongful dismissal based on apparently “positive” annual feedback. Even if you avoid this, organisations are leaky as sieves and word gets around the grapevine like wildfire.

7. Walk/talk mismatch

Leaders, managers, colleagues and organisations who say one thing and do something else. A guaranteed trust killer.

8. Issue-dodging

Issue dodging is rife. In a number of organisations I’ve worked in we’ve had intranet-based question and answer systems – where employees can ‘ask the boss’ whatever is on their mind by submitting a question online. Every now and again there was an answer on there which somehow managed to find its way through which was so clearly a cop-out – a bunch of weasel words designed to dodge the true issue. As communicators we have a duty for fight for these issues – to make sure they are aired, tackled and dealt with honestly.

9. Inaction (real or perceived)

There’s perhaps nothing worse than the organisation that asks employees for input, ideas, feedback, publishes the findings of the employee survey and then seems to take virtually no action as a result. Not acting on what your employees are telling you destroys trust fast.

10. Lack of sensitivity

Communicating tough messages without sensitivity is guaranteed to break down trust. Remember David Brent’s bungled announcement about the closure of one of Wernham Hogg’s offices?!

11. Rumours in a vacuum

Typically during times of change you will see lots of clandestine meetings and diary appointments marked ‘private’. Employees aren’t daft – they will know that something interesting is going on and, if you don’t come clean quickly, they will start guessing at it…

12. Consistent corporate underperformance

Any company that regularly fails to meet expectations – either internally or externally – will see trust eroded. Trust often takes a battering in a recession, but the key is to set realistic expectations and to be honest about performance to all audiences.

What would you add to the list? Do let me know your thoughts….

Lee

The line-up this year is first class and I’m really looking forward to two days of inspiration, good practice and interesting discussions and debates.

There’s CiB chair Dominic Walters on rebuilding trust, Wayne Clarke on the comms traits of Best Companies, Russell Grossman on engagement, Undercover Boss Stephen Martin of Clugston Group, Volvo’s Charlie Nordblom and many more besides.

For those of you who follow me on Twitter, I’ll be tweeting live throughout the event using the conference hashtag #SCMuk. I’ll also be posting a more thorough review of each day in conjunction with fellow comms blogger Rachel Allen.

Let me know if you’re planning to go along next week – would be great to say hello in person!

L

PS – make sure you check out some of the pre-conference iPadio interviews before you go…

The line-up this year is first class and I’m really looking forward to two days of inspiration, good practice and interesting discussions and debates.

There’s CiB chair Dominic Walters on rebuilding trust, Wayne Clarke on the comms traits of Best Companies, Russell Grossman on engagement, Undercover Boss Stephen Martin of Clugston Group, Volvo’s Charlie Nordblom and many more besides. 

For those of you who follow me on Twitter, I’ll be tweeting live throughout the event using the conference hashtag #SCMuk. I’ll also be posting a more thorough review of each day in conjunction with fellow comms blogger Rachel Allen.

Let me know if you’re planning to go along next week – would be great to say hello in person!

L

PS – make sure you check out some of the pre-conference iPadio interviews before you go…

PM Forum is a 5,000 strong regionally-based members' association, formed in 1996, dedicated to raising the standards of professional services marketing and to enhancing the credibility of marketers working within the sector.

Now this isn’t a subject I’ve spoken about at length before, but having spent a long time operating as a senior communicator at one of the Big 4 accountancy firms, it’s something I’d had a fair bit of exposure to over the years. So I thought it would be a fun exercise.

Working with the excellent Halina Kochanowicz, Head of UK Marketing at ‘magic circle’ law firm Linklaters, we developed a session to explore the softer side of cross-selling.  For us this meant exploring four broad areas that echo our own passions and interests:

• Conversation – creating the right internal dialogue
• Collaboration – connecting people, match-making, internal networking
• Culture – tapping into diversity, creating a positive ‘can do’ culture, building a ‘one firm’ identity
• Confidence – building brand, reputation and trust from the inside-out

Cross-selling remains one of the key challenges facing the professional services sector. It’s an area that most firms acknowledge as critically important, but very few ever manage to get right. Indeed, according to one survey (BTI Consulting Group’s ‘Benchmarking Law Firm Marketing & Business Development Strategies’), just 4% of firms rate themselves as highly effective at cross-selling and a worrying 77% rate their firms as ineffective.

Where does cross-selling break down?

So where do firms go wrong? What are the things that typically get in the way of cross-selling?  I’m going to apologise right now for our extreme overuse of the letter ‘C’, but here’s what we came up with:

There are no doubt many more, but this strikes me as a pretty good list of the main challenges and blockers firms face in this area.

Having reviewed this list we went on to explore each of the four areas in a little more detail, before breaking out into a workshop session to capture some thoughts and ideas on what participants could actually do to improve their chances of cross-selling success.

I’ve captured below the main outputs from this exercise – a useful list of practical things you can do to begin creating the right culture and climate for cross-selling to take place….

1. Hold a fun ‘speed-dating’ session after work or as part of your internal conference programme – where employees from different teams are tasked with meeting and learning about people from other teams.

2. Face-to-face forums where you mix up people from different teams, service lines or practice groups.

3. Fact sheets (one sided, plain English) on your services (perhaps written by your graduate or new starters as part of their induction).

4. Tap into your hospitality, sponsorship, sports & social and corporate responsibility activities.

5. Include a slot in team meetings for someone from another area of the firm to come in and talk-through what they do (short and simple elevator pitch with client benefits highlighted and stories and anecdotes used to bring to life).

6. Have a look at the material on your website – is there stuff you are communicating externally that could be repackaged and used internally?

7. Celebrate cross-selling wins – not just new clients.

8. Is compensation getting in the way? Have a closer look at your reward strategy..

9. Weave success stories into all communications – magazine, e-zine, intranet, etc.

10. Focus on your leaders – what else could they be doing to champion cross-selling and, more importantly, demonstrate the right behaviours. Can they become your chief match-makers?

11. Tap into your firm’s competitive spirit by using quick-fire online quizzes (or perhaps a live ‘pub quiz’) to test employee knowledge of your products, teams, etc.

12. Start up a corporate choir (like Ernst & Young) or ballroom dancing (Lovells) ‘club’!

13. Run [optional] breakfast briefings or ‘lunch and learn’ session where people can turn up to learn about products and services in return for a free lunch.

14. Embrace social media as a way of connecting people.

15. Follow the lead of Deloitte and run a ‘film festival’ - equip employees with cheap USB cameras and encourage them to make short films about other teams.

16. Tap into you new starters – get to them while they are fresh and ‘untainted’ – ensure they are given a good understanding of your services during their induction.

17. Feed the grapevine – create the right environment in your office for people to talk to each other inf0ormally.

18. Go and find your cross-selling success stories – proactively go to your ‘star’ partners and fee earners and interview them, capturing the secrets of their success and packaging their story, identifying good practice, tips and lessons learned.

19. Get the partners out there – if you have a regional office network, get them to commit to spending a day a week/month in another/other offices.

Of course, there’s a whole other side to this which we didn’t touch on during our session – including having the right technology and systems in place and getting the reward strategy right. I can’t help feeling, however, that the softer side – the areas we did explore – is fundamental to success in this area.

If you work in a professional services business and you’d like to explore any of these ideas further, don’t hesitate to get in touch with me.

Lee

PM Forum is a 5,000 strong regionally-based members’ association, formed in 1996, dedicated to raising the standards of professional services marketing and to enhancing the credibility of marketers working within the sector.

Now this isn’t a subject I’ve spoken about at length before, but having spent a long time operating as a senior communicator at one of the Big 4 accountancy firms, it’s something I’d had a fair bit of exposure to over the years. So I thought it would be a fun exercise.

Working with the excellent Halina Kochanowicz, Head of UK Marketing at ‘magic circle’ law firm Linklaters, we developed a session to explore the softer side of cross-selling. For us this meant exploring four broad areas that echo our own passions and interests:

• Conversation – creating the right internal dialogue
• Collaboration – connecting people, match-making, internal networking
• Culture – tapping into diversity, creating a positive ‘can do’ culture, building a ‘one firm’ identity
• Confidence – building brand, reputation and trust from the inside-out
• Cross-selling remains one of the key challenges facing the professional services sector.

It’s an area that most firms acknowledge as critically important, but very few ever manage to get right. Indeed, according to one survey (BTI Consulting Group’s ‘Benchmarking Law Firm Marketing & Business Development Strategies’), just 4% of firms rate themselves as highly effective at cross-selling and a worrying 77% rate their firms as ineffective.

Where does cross-selling break down?

So where do firms go wrong? What are the things that typically get in the way of cross-selling? I’m going to apologise right now for our extreme overuse of the letter ‘C’, but here’s what we came up with:

Compensation

a belief by individual fee earners that they will not be fairly rewarded for referrals

Control

a fear of relinquishing ownership of a valuable personal relationship

Contact

not knowing colleagues well enough or spending sufficient time with them

Competence

doubting the knowledge, skills and ability of colleagues (particularly ‘unproven’ new joiners)

Client focus (lack of)

not thinking from the client’s perspective or appreciating what they most value

Cynicism

operating in a low trust, sceptical or suspicious environment (particularly relevant during times of change)

Cooks

too many (or too few) senior client contacts spoil the broth!

Chemistry

Not selecting the right people to lead and develop the client relationship.

There are no doubt many more, but this strikes me as a pretty good list of the main challenges and blockers firms face in this area.

Having reviewed this list we went on to explore each of the four areas in a little more detail, before breaking out into a workshop session to capture some thoughts and ideas on what participants could actually do to improve their chances of cross-selling success.

I’ve captured below the main outputs from this exercise – a useful list of practical things you can do to begin creating the right culture and climate for cross-selling to take place….

1. Hold a fun ‘speed-dating’ session after work or as part of your internal conference programme – where employees from different teams are tasked with meeting and learning about people from other teams.

2. Face-to-face forums where you mix up people from different teams, service lines or practice groups.

3. Fact sheets (one sided, plain English) on your services (perhaps written by your graduate or new starters as part of their induction).

4. Tap into your hospitality, sponsorship, sports & social and corporate responsibility activities.

5. Include a slot in team meetings for someone from another area of the firm to come in and talk-through what they do (short and simple elevator pitch with client benefits highlighted and stories and anecdotes used to bring to life).

6. Have a look at the material on your website – is there stuff you are communicating externally that could be repackaged and used internally?

7. Celebrate cross-selling wins – not just new clients.

8. Is compensation getting in the way? Have a closer look at your reward strategy..

9. Weave success stories into all communications – magazine, e-zine, intranet, etc.

10. Focus on your leaders – what else could they be doing to champion cross-selling and, more importantly, demonstrate the right behaviours. Can they become your chief match-makers?

11. Tap into your firm’s competitive spirit by using quick-fire online quizzes (or perhaps a live ‘pub quiz’) to test employee knowledge of your products, teams, etc.

12. Start up a corporate choir (like Ernst & Young) or ballroom dancing (Lovells) ‘club’!

13. Run [optional] breakfast briefings or ‘lunch and learn’ session where people can turn up to learn about products and services in return for a free lunch.

14. Embrace social media as a way of connecting people.

15. Follow the lead of Deloitte and run a ‘film festival’ – equip employees with cheap USB cameras and encourage them to make short films about other teams.

16. Tap into you new starters – get to them while they are fresh and ‘untainted’ – ensure they are given a good understanding of your services during their induction.

17. Feed the grapevine – create the right environment in your office for people to talk to each other inf0ormally.

18. Go and find your cross-selling success stories – proactively go to your ‘star’ partners and fee earners and interview them, capturing the secrets of their success and packaging their story, identifying good practice, tips and lessons learned.

19. Get the partners out there – if you have a regional office network, get them to commit to spending a day a week/month in another/other offices.

Of course, there’s a whole other side to this which we didn’t touch on during our session – including having the right technology and systems in place and getting the reward strategy right. I can’t help feeling, however, that the softer side – the areas we did explore – is fundamental to success in this area.

If you work in a professional services business and you’d like to explore any of these ideas further, don’t hesitate to get in touch with me.

Lee

One of the topics my group got discussing was the types of measure you can use to assess your effectiveness and evaluate your impact as an internal communicator. As part of this we spent some time talking about the differences between input, output, out-take and outcome measures.

This is often an area where practitioners appreciate some guidance, so I have pulled together a brief summary below:

A wide range of tools and techniques are available to evaluate IC effectiveness at all four levels. Your choice will depend on a number of factors – particularly how much depth and detail you require, your time availability and your budget.

A simple ‘menu’ of research methods is shown below, according to degree of sophistication. Externally sourced research will generally be more reliable, but there is a huge amount of valuable information that is likely to exist already inside the business and that you should be able to access quickly and easily.

Basic Communication team can source, undertake and analyse internally.	Intermediate Managed by communication team but may require specialist external input.	Advanced Relies on specialist external advice, managed by senior member of communication team.
Desk research and information gathering Collecting demographic data Telephone interviews Pre testing of messages External benchmarking Developing a brief	SWOT analysis Focus groups Pulse surveys Content analysis(channels) Audience profiling Creating a communication dashboard Creating a communication scorecard	K ey driver analysis Telephone surveying Major employee surveys

The above is adapted from my CIPR Guide to Measurement & Evaluation for Internal Communicators – which is available exclusively to CIPR Members via the Member Area of the Institute’s website.

Whilst on the subject of demonstrating your value, you might also be interested in a funky new tool which has just been developed by Russell-Oliver Brooklands at the Internal Communication Model. ROB has created a seemingly rather sophisticated toolkit that apparently enables you to quantify the value of your contribution in pounds and pence. I haven’t had time to scrutinise it yet, but if it does what it promises to do then ROB may well have moved us one step closer to the Holy Grail!  It’s free, so why not check it out…

Lee

The event was chaired by my CIPR Inside committee colleague, Hill & Knowlton’s Scott McKenzie, and was attended by around 60 communicators from a wide variety of sectors and organisations.

I ran a brief workshop on measurement and evaluation and a lunchtime clinic on change communication.

Having failed to have blogged about the event within a few days, I’m going to leave it to two of my faster and more agile committee colleagues to give you the low-down on the day…

• See what CIPR Inside chair Scott McKenzie had to say here
• See what CIPR Inside committee member Sean Trainor had to say here

I will be posting separately about some of the themes discussed during the measurement workshop – so watch this space.

The next big event in my diary is the SCM Summit on 14 & 15 October – a must-attend conference which always provides bucket loads of inspiration and good practice. If you haven’t already signed up for that, it’s not too late – check out the conference website now via the Summit logo on the right of this page.  

Lee

One of the topics my group got discussing was the types of measure you can use to assess your effectiveness and evaluate your impact as an internal communicator. As part of this we spent some time talking about the differences between input, output, out-take and outcome measures.

This is often an area where practitioners appreciate some guidance, so I have pulled together a brief summary below:

Input

What’s already out there?

Background information and research to inform your initial planning.

Some of this information could also provide benchmarks against which to measure future progress.

This is the sort of information you make use of during the audit stage of your planning and can often be uncovered using desk research. Good sources include your in house HR or Marketing team, which are usually sitting on a wealth of rich (and often untapped) data.

Sources include the internal comms brief, desk research (demographics, survey data, content analysis of channels, etc) and qualitative research (interviews and focus groups).

Output

Are your messages getting to people?

Used to measure WHAT we did – typically around message exposure and audience reach.

A valuable measure focused on the efficiency and effectiveness of your processes. It can analyse message exposure but it cannot explain to what extent people’s opinions or behaviour has been influenced.

The sorts of measure here include the volume of IC material issued (number of newsletters distributed, publication of related stories on intranet), events (who and how many attended) and the frequency of exposure to key messages (how often did we communicate key messages to each audience?)

Out-take

Are your messages getting through to people?

Used to measure THE IMPACT of what you did – the extent to which the audience is aware, has understood and remembered and their likely reaction and response.

Out-take research is often carried out during a campaign or programme to check whether messages are getting through to people – helping you refine and fine-tune your plans.

This sort of research includes looking at the number and type of questions submitted to an intranet-based Q&A, the pattern of intranet hits, awareness measures (is the message getting though?) and the likely intentions of audience.

Outcome

Are your messages changing attitudes or behaviour?

Used to measure the TANGIBLE RESULT of what you did – the degree to which comms changed awareness, opinions and behaviours.

The most valuable form of measurement, it provides concrete proof that a change in employee behaviour can be traced back to an internal comms programme, activity or message. It is also the basis for calculating ROI.

Outcome-based research includes an assessment of results versus objectives, hard evidence on value added (quantitative – sales, financial, etc) and soft evidence (qualitative – focus group feedback, etc).

A wide range of tools and techniques are available to evaluate IC effectiveness at all four levels. Your choice will depend on a number of factors – particularly how much depth and detail you require, your time availability and your budget.

A simple ‘menu’ of research methods is shown below, according to degree of sophistication. Externally sourced research will generally be more reliable, but there is a huge amount of valuable information that is likely to exist already inside the business and that you should be able to access quickly and easily.

Basic

Communication team can source, undertake and analyse internally.

• Desk research and information gathering
• Collecting demographic data
• Telephone interviews
• Pre testing of messages
• External benchmarking
• Developing a brief

Intermediate

Managed by communication team but may require specialist external input.

• SWOT analysis
• Focus groups
• Pulse surveys
• Content analysis(channels)
• Audience profiling
• Creating a communication dashboard
• Creating a communication scorecard

Advanced

Relies on specialist external advice, managed by senior member of communication team.

• Key driver analysis
• Telephone surveying
• Major employee surveys

The above is adapted from my CIPR Guide to Measurement & Evaluation for Internal Communicators – which is available exclusively to CIPR Members via the Member Area of the Institute’s website.

Whilst on the subject of demonstrating your value, you might also be interested in a funky new tool which has just been developed by Russell-Oliver Brooklands at the Internal Communication Model. ROB has created a seemingly rather sophisticated toolkit that apparently enables you to quantify the value of your contribution in pounds and pence. I haven’t had time to scrutinise it yet, but if it does what it promises to do then ROB may well have moved us one step closer to the Holy Grail! It’s free, so why not check it out…

Lee

The event was chaired by my CIPR Inside committee colleague, Hill & Knowlton’s Scott McKenzie, and was attended by around 60 communicators from a wide variety of sectors and organisations.

I ran a brief workshop on measurement and evaluation and a lunchtime clinic on change communication.

Having failed to have blogged about the event within a few days, I’m going to leave it to two of my faster and more agile committee colleagues to give you the low-down on the day…

• See what CIPR Inside chair Scott McKenzie had to say here
• See what CIPR Inside committee member Sean Trainor had to say here

I will be posting separately about some of the themes discussed during the measurement workshop – so watch this space.

The next big event in my diary is the SCM Summit on 14 & 15 October – a must-attend conference which always provides bucket loads of inspiration and good practice. If you haven’t already signed up for that, it’s not too late – check out the conference website now via the Summit logo on the right of this page.

Lee

According to the study, a whopping 45 per cent of the 1,300 communicators who took part in the study predict a decline in print spend over the next year.

Now given the state of our economy I guess that’s not surprising. But it is disappointing.

Print has a valuable and special role to play in the employee communication mix and it’s sad to see so many organisations ditching it completely and/or moving it online.

First off, print is portable and as such can reach the parts other channels can’t reach – like remote workers and those who don’t have regular access to a PC. It’s a great channel for telling stories, providing background and context and showcasing good practice. Done well print can be a visual treat – making far better use of design and photography than your average intranet or e-zine. Print has a shelf life – publications have permanence – whereas e-channels are usually more fleeting. Print often does a better job around emotional content – where e-channels are often weighted towards the rational. There’s also a demographic angle to this – while some people tell me Generation Y employees simply don’t read print, there’s no doubting that it is a channel favoured by less youthful employees.

Print may no longer be in vogue but the fact remains that, as part of an integrated channel framework, it can be both effective and efficient. I, for one, sincerely hope it doesn’t die out as an employee comms channel.

One of the issues that lies just below the surface here is that, despite banging on about the importance of research and evaluation over the last few years, so few practitioners have actually put their money where their mouth is and invested in decent research to assess the value and quality of their channels. As a result they can’t defend their publications when the finance wolves come knocking at the door looking for easy prey. So there, hopefully, is one useful lesson to come out of this recession – make sure you allocate some of your channel budget for channel research.

Lee

According to the study, a whopping 45 per cent of the 1,300 communicators who took part in the study predict a decline in print spend over the next year.

Now given the state of our economy I guess that’s not surprising. But it is disappointing.

Print has a valuable and special role to play in the employee communication mix and it’s sad to see so many organisations ditching it completely and/or moving it online. 

First off, print is portable and as such can reach the parts other channels can’t reach – like remote workers and those who don’t have regular access to a PC. It’s a great channel for telling stories, providing background and context and showcasing good practice. Done well print can be a visual treat – making far better use of design and photography than your average intranet or e-zine. Print has a shelf life – publications have permanence – whereas e-channels are usually more fleeting. Print often does a better job around emotional content – where e-channels are often weighted towards the rational. There’s also a demographic angle to this – while some people tell me Generation Y employees simply don’t read print, there’s no doubting that it is a channel favoured by less youthful employees. 

Print may no longer be in vogue but the fact remains that, as part of an integrated channel framework, it can be both effective and efficient. I, for one, sincerely hope it doesn’t die out as an employee comms channel.

One of the issues that lies just below the surface here is that, despite banging on about the importance of research and evaluation over the last few years, so few practitioners have actually put their money where their mouth is and invested in decent research to assess the value and quality of their channels.  As a result they can’t defend their publications when the finance wolves come knocking at the door looking for easy prey. So there, hopefully, is one useful lesson to come out of this recession – make sure you allocate some of your channel budget for channel research.

Lee

Undertaken in conjunction the Managing Partners’ Forum, the members’ association for professional services leaders, and award-winning print and digital publishing agency, Summersault, the State of the Sector research set out to investigate how professional services firms are communicating with and engaging their people during these turbulent times.

With responses from more than 50 individual firms in the UK and overseas, the findings provide some useful benchmark data, showing what channels and tactics are currently being deployed, how well employees are thought to understand key strategic topics, how internal communication is resourced and what issues and challenges practitioners are facing.

Key findings at a glance

The survey was structured around four key themes – channels, content, infrastructure and issues. Channels concerns the ‘how’ of internal communication and looks at the print and electronic tools firms use to communicate with their people, as well as exploring their use of face-to-face methods. Content looks at the ‘what’ of communication – the messages firms are trying to convey to their employees and the aims and objectives of their formal communications. Infrastructure reviewed the structuring and resourcing of internal communications, whilst issues sought to highlight the current and future challenges firms are facing.

1. Channels – how firms communicate

State of the Sector 2009 underlined that face-to-face remains the dominant form of communication used within the professional services sector, with most firms deploying a healthy mix of team, departmental and all-employee forums.

This is good news. Face-to-face communication is the single most powerful way to engage employees at all levels – as long as the meetings are focused on the right topics, facilitated in the right way and involve the right people.  Our research did not probe deeply into these issues, but my sense is that although most firms are committing a huge amount of time to face-to-face communication, many of them are not making the most of this critical channel. In part because of their partnership and matrix-based structure, professional services firms suffer more than others from having line managers and leaders who are not always on the same page.

On the digital front, central emails are still being used by the vast majority (92%) to convey messages to employees. How effective these emails are, however, is questionable, with many employees now choosing to cope with email overload by ignoring anything but the most obviously relevant or critically important. More sophisticated use of the intranet as a news channel, together with regular ‘push’ emails can be found inside most of the large firms.

When it comes to new and emerging digital channels, some firms have been faster than others to catch on, with 20% of respondents claiming to be using blogs, and 18% currently podcasting. There was little evidence of other social media channels, such as wikis, being used internally, though this may be down to terminology – not all wikis are labelled or known as wikis!

Although face-to-face and electronic channels dominate the internal landscape in 2009, it appears print is still favoured by many firms. Internal memos and posters are used by the majority of respondent firms, with newsletters and magazines utilised by upwards of a third.

2. Content – what firms communicate

When it comes to employee understanding of key strategic topics, the research found that appreciation of the firm’s mission and vision and corporate strategy were rated positively for over half the firms surveyed. A worrying 50% of respondents felt employee understanding of corporate strategy was at best average or poor, whilst a similar number (41%) rated understanding of the short-term business plan as average or poor. Without a clear sense of direction and purpose and an understanding of immediate business priorities, there is a risk that employees will lack perspective and be unable to make the connection between their day-to-day actions and the success of their team and wider organisation. The good news is that respondents were rather more confident about organisational values, with an impressive 70% of firms rating employee understanding in this area highly.

When it comes to listening to employees, it was the traditional channels that dominated once again – one-to-ones with a manager, team meetings and email were named by the vast majority of firms. The annual employee survey also scored highly. Purpose built feedback channels, like incorporating an ‘ask the boss’ feature on the intranet – were also utilized by around a quarter of firms.

When asked whether firms have specific programs targeting partners, a sizable 42% said they do not. This is a potentially big miss and suggests that many firms are adopting a ‘one size fits all’ approach to internal communication and, as a result, may be failing to equip this vitally important leadership group with the information they need to communicate, manage and lead teams effectively and consistently.

3. Infrastructure – how firms resource internal communications

The story here is mixed, as we find in many sectors. Some firms – particularly the larger international operations – are investing heavily in engaging their people, building sizable teams of communication professionals and allocating significant budgets, while others have few strategic channels in place and rely largely ‘enthusiastic amateurs’ to make things happen.

The research highlighted that just over half (55%) of the firms surveyed have no dedicated internal communication professional in place. Further, a third of respondents say they have not earmarked a dedicated budget for internal communication. These tend to be the smaller practices, but this is not always the case.

More worrying, however, is that fact that nearly 40% of firms surveyed did not have a documented IC strategy in place, suggesting that communication may be unplanned and, potentially, haphazard. This applies to firms of all shapes and sizes.

For those organisations that do have a dedicated function, there is little consensus about where best to house the IC function with marketing (30%), the office of the Managing Partner, CEO or equivalent (26%) and

corporate communication/PR (18%) being the most popular choices. Only 6% of respondents currently locate internal communication within the HR function, which is unusual given firms’ increasing focus on employee engagement.

Budgets also varied widely. A third of those we surveyed have no budget allocated to internal communication, with a similar number (27%) allocating less than £10,000. At the other extreme, a lucky 8% of firms have a budget of between £50,000 and £500,000.

4.Issues & challenges

Finally, when asked where they will be focusing their time and resources over the next 12 months, three areas leapt out of the survey results – leadership communication (70%), improving face-to-face communication (64%) and improving electronic channels (60%). These three challenges are not unique to professional services and are areas many complex organizations will be grappling with as they begin to re-engage their people and prepare for recovery.

If you’re a communicator or leader working in professional services please contact me by email (lee.smith@gatehousegroup.co.uk) for a copy of the full research report.

Undertaken in conjunction the Managing Partners’ Forum, the members’ association for professional services leaders, and award-winning print and digital publishing agency, Summersault, the State of the Sector research set out to investigate how professional services firms are communicating with and engaging their people during these turbulent times.

With responses from more than 50 individual firms in the UK and overseas, the findings provide some useful benchmark data, showing what channels and tactics are currently being deployed, how well employees are thought to understand key strategic topics, how internal communication is resourced and what issues and challenges practitioners are facing.

Key findings at a glance

The survey was structured around four key themes – channels, content, infrastructure and issues. Channels concerns the ‘how’ of internal communication and looks at the print and electronic tools firms use to communicate with their people, as well as exploring their use of face-to-face methods. Content looks at the ‘what’ of communication – the messages firms are trying to convey to their employees and the aims and objectives of their formal communications. Infrastructure reviewed the structuring and resourcing of internal communications, whilst issues sought to highlight the current and future challenges firms are facing.

1. Channels – how firms communicate

State of the Sector 2009 underlined that face-to-face remains the dominant form of communication used within the professional services sector, with most firms deploying a healthy mix of team, departmental and all-employee forums.

This is good news. Face-to-face communication is the single most powerful way to engage employees at all levels – as long as the meetings are focused on the right topics, facilitated in the right way and involve the right people. Our research did not probe deeply into these issues, but my sense is that although most firms are committing a huge amount of time to face-to-face communication, many of them are not making the most of this critical channel. In part because of their partnership and matrix-based structure, professional services firms suffer more than others from having line managers and leaders who are not always on the same page.

On the digital front, central emails are still being used by the vast majority (92%) to convey messages to employees. How effective these emails are, however, is questionable, with many employees now choosing to cope with email overload by ignoring anything but the most obviously relevant or critically important. More sophisticated use of the intranet as a news channel, together with regular ‘push’ emails can be found inside most of the large firms.

When it comes to new and emerging digital channels, some firms have been faster than others to catch on, with 20% of respondents claiming to be using blogs, and 18% currently podcasting. There was little evidence of other social media channels, such as wikis, being used internally, though this may be down to terminology – not all wikis are labelled or known as wikis!

Although face-to-face and electronic channels dominate the internal landscape in 2009, it appears print is still favoured by many firms. Internal memos and posters are used by the majority of respondent firms, with newsletters and magazines utilised by upwards of a third.

2. Content – what firms communicate

When it comes to employee understanding of key strategic topics, the research found that appreciation of the firm’s mission and vision and corporate strategy were rated positively for over half the firms surveyed. A worrying 50% of respondents felt employee understanding of corporate strategy was at best average or poor, whilst a similar number (41%) rated understanding of the short-term business plan as average or poor. Without a clear sense of direction and purpose and an understanding of immediate business priorities, there is a risk that employees will lack perspective and be unable to make the connection between their day-to-day actions and the success of their team and wider organisation. The good news is that respondents were rather more confident about organisational values, with an impressive 70% of firms rating employee understanding in this area highly.

When it comes to listening to employees, it was the traditional channels that dominated once again – one-to-ones with a manager, team meetings and email were named by the vast majority of firms. The annual employee survey also scored highly. Purpose built feedback channels, like incorporating an ‘ask the boss’ feature on the intranet – were also utilized by around a quarter of firms.

When asked whether firms have specific programs targeting partners, a sizable 42% said they do not. This is a potentially big miss and suggests that many firms are adopting a ‘one size fits all’ approach to internal communication and, as a result, may be failing to equip this vitally important leadership group with the information they need to communicate, manage and lead teams effectively and consistently.

3. Infrastructure – how firms resource internal communications

The story here is mixed, as we find in many sectors. Some firms – particularly the larger international operations – are investing heavily in engaging their people, building sizable teams of communication professionals and allocating significant budgets, while others have few strategic channels in place and rely largely ‘enthusiastic amateurs’ to make things happen.

The research highlighted that just over half (55%) of the firms surveyed have no dedicated internal communication professional in place. Further, a third of respondents say they have not earmarked a dedicated budget for internal communication. These tend to be the smaller practices, but this is not always the case.

More worrying, however, is that fact that nearly 40% of firms surveyed did not have a documented IC strategy in place, suggesting that communication may be unplanned and, potentially, haphazard. This applies to firms of all shapes and sizes.

For those organisations that do have a dedicated function, there is little consensus about where best to house the IC function with marketing (30%), the office of the Managing Partner, CEO or equivalent (26%) and corporate communication/PR (18%) being the most popular choices. Only 6% of respondents currently locate internal communication within the HR function, which is unusual given firms’ increasing focus on employee engagement.

Budgets also varied widely. A third of those we surveyed have no budget allocated to internal communication, with a similar number (27%) allocating less than £10,000. At the other extreme, a lucky 8% of firms have a budget of between £50,000 and £500,000.

4.Issues & challenges

Finally, when asked where they will be focusing their time and resources over the next 12 months, three areas leapt out of the survey results – leadership communication (70%), improving face-to-face communication (64%) and improving electronic channels (60%). These three challenges are not unique to professional services and are areas many complex organizations will be grappling with as they begin to re-engage their people and prepare for recovery.

If you’re a communicator or leader working in professional services please contact me by email (lee.smith@gatehousegroup.co.uk) for a copy of the full research report.

Anyone interested in social media and communications will know just how big Wikipedia is these days – a staggering 3 million entries and the seventh most popular website globally. But despite its huge reach and considerable influence it’s clear that the entries on some topics, like Internal Communications, are a little way off the mark.

Enter the CommsFlashMob.

The child of some idle Twitter-based banter between Rachel Allen, Abi Signorelli, David Ferrabee, Liam FitzPatrick, Wedge and myself, the idea is to get a bunch of passionate communicators together, lock them in a dark room with coffee and biscuits and try to “fix it” in one afternoon.

That afternoon is tomorrow (Thursday 20 August) and, work commitments permitting, we’ll all be getting together in London – and online – from 3 pm to 5 pm BST (10 to 12 EST).

But we’re not trying to do it in isolation – we hope others will join us online and contribute from a distance.If you’re around at that time feel free to roll up your sleeves and join in – either way you can follow us live on Twitter at CommsFlashMob.

It may not work, but we’ll give it our best shot!

Anyone interested in social media and communications will know just how big Wikipedia is these days – a staggering 3 million entries and the seventh most popular website globally. But despite its huge reach and considerable influence it’s clear that the entries on some topics, like Internal Communications, are a little way off the mark.

Enter the CommsFlashMob.

The child of some idle Twitter-based banter between Rachel Allen, Abi Signorelli, David Ferrabee, Liam FitzPatrick, Wedge and myself, the idea is to get a bunch of passionate communicators together, lock them in a dark room with coffee and biscuits and try to “fix it” in one afternoon. 

That afternoon is tomorrow (Thursday 20 August) and, work commitments permitting, we’ll all be getting together in London – and online – from 3 pm to 5 pm BST (10 to 12 EST).

But we’re not trying to do it in isolation – we hope others will join us online and contribute from a distance.If you’re around at that time feel free to roll up your sleeves and join in – either way you can follow us live on Twitter at CommsFlashMob.

It may not work, but we’ll give it our best shot!

L

The last set of findings, delivered back in January 2009, were particularly sobering and found that 62% of 25-to-64-year-olds surveyed across 20 countries said they trusted corporations less than a year ago.  The scale of the decline year-on-year was worrying. Trust in US-based business— down from 58% to 38% over the period — was the lowest in the Barometer’s tracking history — even lower than in the wake of Enron and the dot-com bust. Dark days indeed.

So I was particularly interested to read the findings of a new one-off interim study which looks at how trust has fared over the last six months or so, as the world has continued to experience turbulence.

The headlines: 

• 49% think the UK is heading in the wrong direction
• 44% don’t expect economic recovery to happen before 2011 at the earliest; 50% think it will take until 2011 or later for business to be trusted again 
• Trust in business is on the way back, but it’s country-specific – led by the US and France. Not so in the UK, where it is flat at 44%
• Trust in business dropped 14pts among 25-34 year olds since January 2008 – down from 56% to 42%
• Britons believe that a CEO’s business decisions should consider the interests of employees, customers and communities before those of shareholders or government
• Only 11% believe that global business has a good reputation

Not surprisingly, the MPs expenses scandal has taken its toll on the Government:

• 71% don’t trust Gordon Brown and 65% trust him less than six months ago
• 69% trust Government less than six months ago
• There is a strong link between trust/distrust in Government, Gordon Brown and MPs in general
• Three quarters don’t trust financial institutions who have taken bail-out money to use tax-payers’ money responsibly

Check out the full report and accompanying video for the detail.

L

The last set of findings, delivered back in January 2009, were particularly sobering and found that 62% of 25-to-64-year-olds surveyed across 20 countries said they trusted corporations less than a year ago. The scale of the decline year-on-year was worrying. Trust in US-based business– down from 58% to 38% over the period — was the lowest in the Barometer’s tracking history — even lower than in the wake of Enron and the dot-com bust. Dark days indeed.

So I was particularly interested to read the findings of a new one-off interim study which looks at how trust has fared over the last six months or so, as the world has continued to experience turbulence.

The headlines:

• 49% think the UK is heading in the wrong direction
• 44% don’t expect economic recovery to happen before 2011 at the earliest; 50% think it will take until 2011 or later for business to be trusted again
• Trust in business is on the way back, but it’s country-specific – led by the US and France. Not so in the UK, where it is flat at 44%
• Trust in business dropped 14pts among 25-34 year olds since January 2008 – down from 56% to 42%
• Britons believe that a CEO’s business decisions should consider the interests of employees, customers and communities before those of shareholders or government
• Only 11% believe that global business has a good reputation

Not surprisingly, the MPs expenses scandal has taken its toll on the Government:

• 71% don’t trust Gordon Brown and 65% trust him less than six months ago
• 69% trust Government less than six months ago
• There is a strong link between trust/distrust in Government, Gordon Brown and MPs in general
• Three quarters don’t trust financial institutions who have taken bail-out money to use tax-payers’ money responsibly

Check out the full report and accompanying video for the detail.

The CIPR’s annual one day conference on internal comms is coming up next month and it looks set to be one of the best value events you’re likely to find this year. The ticket price – already a steal at just £395 (plus VAT) for CIPR members – has just been discounted by 20% for immediate bookings, meaning you now get access to some of the leading thinkers in internal comms, fresh real world case studies and valuable networking for a touch over three hundred quid! And if you’re not a CIPR member, don’t worry – the event still represents excellent value for money at around £400. But you’ll have to reserve your place by close of play tomorrow to qualify.

The line up for the programme is impressive with sessions from the likes of work psycologist Leona Deakin, Camden Council’s Paul Inglefield, consultant Liam FitzPatrick, Hill & Knowlton’s social media guru Niall Cook and Sharon Saxton of City & Guilds Group. These excellent speakers will cover a wide range of topics, from planning for the post-recession recovery, dealing with survivor syndrome and getting the most from your budget, through to leveraging emerging channels and communicating organisational performance. If that wasn’t enough there will also be time to grill an expert panel, meet members of the CIPR Inside committee and network with the speakers and other delegates throughout the day.

The event takes place on Monday 14 September at the Inmarsat Conference Centre, Old Street, EC1. For full details and to book please visit the CIPR website.

The CIPR’s annual one day conference on internal comms is coming up next month and it looks set to be one of the best value events you’re likely to find this year. The ticket price – already a steal at just £395 (plus VAT) for CIPR members – has just been discounted by 20%  for immediate bookings, meaning you now get access to some of the leading thinkers in internal comms, fresh real world case studies and valuable networking for a touch over three hundred quid!  And if you’re not a CIPR member, don’t worry – the event still represents excellent value for money at around £400. But you’ll have to reserve your place by close of play tomorrow to qualify.

The line up for the programme is impressive with sessions from the likes of work psycologist Leona Deakin, Camden Council’s Paul Inglefield, consultant Liam FitzPatrick, Hill & Knowlton’s social media guru Niall Cook and Sharon Saxton of City & Guilds Group.  These excellent speakers will cover a wide range of topics, from planning for the post-recession recovery, dealing with survivor syndrome and getting the most from your budget, through to  leveraging emerging channels and communicating organisational performance. If that wasn’t enough there will also be time to grill an expert panel, meet members of the CIPR Inside committee and network with the speakers and other delegates throughout the day. 

The event takes place on Monday 14 September at the Inmarsat Conference Centre, Old Street, EC1. For full details and to book please visit the CIPR website.

L

The former is coming up next month – Monday 14 September to be precise – and I’ll blog about that one shortly (for now you can find details under ‘events & conferences’ on the CIPR website).

The SCM Summit meanwhile takes place in London on October 14 & 15 and looks set to be another superb event. I reported from last year’s conference (you can check out my musings here) and this year’s Summit looks set to be even bigger and better.

Once again there’s an excellent line up of speakers, including old favourites like Russell Grossman, Pete Stevenson and Darren Briggs and friends of mine like City & Guild’s’ Henri Forde, Emma Bridger of The Communications Lab and communication trainer Sally Hinder. 

The special guest this year is ‘Undercover Boss’ Stephen Martin, CEO of Clugston Group, who adopted a unique approach to making sure that as a business leader, he not only understood what mattered to his workforce, but also knew how best to harness what he learnt to achieve real business results. Armed with a cover story, he worked alongside his frontline employees pouring concrete and doing freezing night-shifts repairing roads, while searching for the best way to run the business. After two weeks he revealed his true identity – and introduced some major changes. As a result a new business was born. Why? Because in his own words, "Communication is one of the most important factors behind business success."

If all that wasn’t enough, you can even bag yourself a very funky Flip USB video camera for free – if you move quickly and book up in the next three days (the offer closes on August 7). Check out the Melcrum website for full details: http://www.melcrum.com/scmsummit/index.html.

See you there!

Lee

The former is coming up next month – Monday 14 September to be precise – and I’ll blog about that one shortly (for now you can find details under ‘events & conferences’ on the CIPR website).

The SCM Summit meanwhile takes place in London on October 14 & 15 and looks set to be another superb event. I reported from last year’s conference (you can check out my musings here) and this year’s Summit looks set to be even bigger and better.

Once again there’s an excellent line up of speakers, including old favourites like Russell Grossman, Pete Stevenson and Darren Briggs and friends of mine like City & Guild’s’ Henri Forde, Emma Bridger of The Communications Lab and communication trainer Sally Hinder.

The special guest this year is ‘Undercover Boss’ Stephen Martin, CEO of Clugston Group, who adopted a unique approach to making sure that as a business leader, he not only understood what mattered to his workforce, but also knew how best to harness what he learnt to achieve real business results. Armed with a cover story, he worked alongside his frontline employees pouring concrete and doing freezing night-shifts repairing roads, while searching for the best way to run the business. After two weeks he revealed his true identity – and introduced some major changes. As a result a new business was born. Why? Because in his own words, “Communication is one of the most important factors behind business success.”

If all that wasn’t enough, you can even bag yourself a very funky Flip USB video camera for free – if you move quickly and book up in the next three days (the offer closes on August 7). Check out the Melcrum website for full details: http://www.melcrum.com/scmsummit/index.html.

See you there!

Publisher Gower and editor Marc Wright of Simply Communicate have done a sterling job on the publication which will, I’m sure, become a bookshelf favourite for internal communicators over the next few years. 

To celebrate the launch of the handbook we've arranged a special 35% discount for Talking IC readers/subscribers and friends of Gatehouse – so you can now buy this hefty book for £65 rather than the usual £99. It's sixty five quid very well spent in my book!

Here are the full details and order form:

Download Gower – flyer

A comprehensive guide to managing communication within organisations, the Handbook recognises Internal Communication’s continued growth as a management discipline. It is aimed at leaders who want insight into IC techniques for use in both day-to-day operational and change situations, for example, and also at the communication specialist seeking shared wisdom and new ideas.

I'm working my way through its 500 knowledge-packed pages right now and, although it's clearly not a cheap book, it represents superb value-for-money. 

L

I’ve come across similar events in the past – indeed I created one or two during my days in-house – but they were always tagged onto a more traditional all-employee conference. As such, the exhibition element was effectively bonus content – a way of making better use of an expensive venue, giving staff something to do during the breaks and subtly reinforcing the messages and themes conveyed in the main event. So this was my first direct experience of a ‘pure’ employee exhibition.

The concept is simple. Hire a venue, brief key teams to create their own exhibition ‘stands’, invite employees along, deliver the event. I’m making it sound easy and, of course, the reality is the exercise can be as simple or painful to produce as any other activity we get involved in – and I have no doubt the event I attended involved considerable input from the comms team here, who did an excellent job. But, depending on which way you do it, it could be a very different kind of input to the usual employee conference.

Although there was an overarching umbrella theme and identity for this event and a welcome from the CEO in the exhibition guide, there were no tight scripts, very little Powerpoint, branding was minimal and the timetable was fairly fluid, so there wasn’t too much ushering required. Those of you who are involved in staging large internal events will know that these are the meat and veg of the typical conference – and therefore often place considerable demands on the comms team.

Where I think these events are most effective – and this one was – is in the following areas:

• engaging employees around some of the real, live, current activities the business is involved in – enabling them to experience some of the things their colleagues do and hopefully gain an appreciation of what’s happening across the wider organisation
• providing some visibility for the more obscure teams and initiatives – giving them their 15 minutes of fame
• building community by providing an environment in which employees can meet other employees informally, in a largely social setting
• unleashing employee creativity by giving teams the freedom to design and deliver their own exhibition space (working to a consistent brief, of course)
• bringing dull subjects to life and getting employees to sit up and pay attention to subjects that would normally fly below their radar

The event I attended featured a Crystal Maze which employees could enter to win prizes if they collected sufficient ‘time tokens’ from around the exhibition. As for the stands themselves, all sorts of techniques were employed to get team messages across – blackboards, staff in costume, video, stickers, postcards, quizzes, before and after photos, visuals and give-aways – the list goes on and on.

There was a large area in the centre of the hall where employees got to compete against each other in a ‘drilling and tapping’ competition – effectively having a go at what some of their frontline workers do each day. This was a big hit with staff.

A Big Brother-style diary room even enabled visitors to leave comments on video. Throughout the event interactivity was emphasised – there was even a competition where visitors got to nominate their favourite stand (my own personal favourite was the ‘Old Skool Customer Service’ stand).

Ask me a few years ago and I’d have probably disliked this approach, but in today’s context it really works. Budgets are tight and there is growing scepticism amongst employees around some glossy, heavily produced, tightly choreographed set-piece events. As we are seeing in other areas – like social media – a more authentic, raw, real world/user-generated approach is sometimes more effective and credible.

There’s been a lot of talk over the years about experiential employee events and I’ve always been a fan – any live event that gets beyond a simple ‘show and tell’ and actually involves people has to be a good thing. But many of the examples I’ve come across in the past have been glossy, highly theatrical affairs – inevitably costing a huge amount of money. Powerful as these grandiose internal events can be and relevant as they sometimes are, the reality is that we don’t always need a bespoke set, actors, live video and a lighting rig U2 would be proud of. This example shows that sometimes a well thought-through, simple, under-produced, home-grown approach is far more effective.

I’ve come across similar events in the past – indeed I created one or two during my days in-house – but they were always tagged onto a more traditional all-employee conference. As such, the exhibition element was effectively bonus content – a way of making better use of an expensive venue, giving staff something to do during the breaks and subtly reinforcing the messages and themes conveyed in the main event.  So this was my first direct experience of a ‘pure’ employee exhibition. 

The concept is simple. Hire a venue, brief key teams to create their own exhibition ‘stands’, invite employees along, deliver the event. I’m making it sound easy and, of course, the reality is the exercise can be as simple or painful to produce as any other activity we get involved in – and I have no doubt the event I attended involved considerable input from the comms team here, who did an excellent job. But, depending on which way you do it, it could be a very different kind of input to the usual employee conference.

Although there was an overarching umbrella theme and identity for this event and a welcome from the CEO in the exhibition guide, there were no tight scripts, very little Powerpoint, branding was minimal and the timetable was fairly fluid, so there wasn’t too much ushering required. Those of you who are involved in staging large internal events will know that these are the meat and veg of the typical conference – and therefore often place considerable demands on the comms team.    

Where I think these events are most effective – and this one was – is in the following areas:

• engaging employees around some of the real, live, current activities the business is involved in – enabling them to experience some of the things their colleagues do and hopefully gain an appreciation of what’s happening across the wider organisation
• providing some visibility for the more obscure teams and initiatives – giving them their 15 minutes of fame  
• building community by providing an environment in which employees can meet other employees informally, in a largely social setting
• unleashing employee creativity by giving teams the freedom to design and deliver their own exhibition space (working to a consistent brief, of course) 
• bringing dull subjects to life and getting employees to sit up and pay attention to subjects that would normally fly below their radar   

The event I attended featured a Crystal Maze which employees could enter to win prizes if they collected sufficient ‘time tokens’ from around the exhibition.  As for the stands themselves, all sorts of techniques were employed to get team messages across – blackboards, staff in costume, video, stickers, postcards, quizzes, before and after photos, visuals and give-aways – the list goes on and on. 

There was a large area in the centre of the hall where employees got to compete against each other in a ‘drilling and tapping’ competition – effectively having a go at what some of their frontline workers do each day. This was a big hit with staff.

A Big Brother-style diary room even enabled visitors to leave comments on video. Throughout the event interactivity was emphasised – there was even a competition where visitors got to nominate their favourite stand (my own personal favourite was the ‘Old Skool Customer Service’ stand). 

Ask me a few years ago and I’d have probably disliked this approach, but in today’s context it really works. Budgets are tight and there is growing scepticism amongst employees around some glossy, heavily produced, tightly choreographed set-piece events. As we are seeing in other areas – like social media – a more authentic, raw, real world/user-generated approach is sometimes more effective and credible.

There’s been a lot of talk over the years about experiential employee events and I’ve always been a fan – any live event that gets beyond a simple ‘show and tell’ and actually involves people has to be a good thing.  But many of the examples I’ve come across in the past have been glossy, highly theatrical affairs – inevitably costing a huge amount of money. Powerful as these grandiose internal events can be and relevant as they sometimes are, the reality is that we don’t always need a bespoke set, actors, live video and a lighting rig U2 would be proud of. This example shows that sometimes a well thought-through, simple, under-produced, home-grown approach is far more effective.

Lee

Led by David MacLeod and Nita Clarke, the independent review was commissioned by the Department for Business, Innovation & Skills in September 2008 to make recommendations on promoting employee engagement.

The findings, which are published in this 157-page report, make very interesting reading. There’s nothing particularly new or groundbreaking in there, but the document does provide an excellent overview of the topic, the business case for engagement, the barriers and enables and makes some very sensible and welcome recommendations on the way forward. 

Commenting on the report, David MacLeod said: “This is about unleashing the potential of people at work and enabling them to be the best they can be. Whether we are in a downturn or in better economic times, engagement is a key to innovation and competitiveness.

“Engagement is increasingly recognised as vital by senior figures in the public sector, the private sector and trades unions. We are delighted that if our recommendations are accepted, a distinguished sponsor group has already agreed to work with us to raise awareness and understanding.

“Employers in all parts of the economy can make a success of employee engagement through culture change, rather than investing significant financial resources.”

My own view is that this is really useful stuff. First off, it’s a great primer on the subject – essential reading for anyone with an interest in employee engagement. Second, its contents can be used with sceptical leaders and managers to underline the importance of engaging employees and the benefits of doing so.

Importantly, it illustrates some of the links between engagement and performance – swiftly moving the discussion away from the ‘soft and fluffy’.  Amongst the hidden gems are some powerful research stats, e.g. Gallup in 2006-8 examined 23,910 business units and compared top quartile and bottom quartile financial performance with engagement scores. They found that:

• Those with engagement scores in the bottom quartile averaged 31 – 51 per cent more employee turnover, 51 per cent more inventory shrinkage and 62 per cent more accidents.
• Those with engagement scores in the top quartile averaged 12 per cent higher customer advocacy, 18 per cent higher productivity and 12 per cent higher profitability.

A second Gallup study of the same year of earnings per share (EPS) growth of 89 organisations found that the EPS growth rate of organisations with engagement scores in the top quartile was 2.6 times that of organisations with below-average engagement scores. 

These figures will make most CEOs and cynical finance directors sit up and listen. They are expanded upon in an excellent chapter looking at the business case evidence.

As you might expect, the enablers section is where the discussion turns more directly to organisational communication. Here the role of leaders and managers is scrutinised and the concept of ‘employee voice’ is explored. There is a wide ranging discussion about the role of senior leaders in providing a strong strategic narrative – a clear and compelling vision for the organisation. Executive visibility is highlighted too. 

The pivotal role of line managers is then explored – particularly how they create ‘line of sight’ (show the link between the big picture and what an employee does day in,day out) and address those burning ‘me’ questions, what’s my job? how am i doing? does anyone care? (source: Roger D’Aprix).

Note that this is internal communication in its broadest sense – process, not product.    

The report then looks at the role of values and, most importantly, the need for consistency between what managers and leaders say and do, whether they walk the talk. Like others before them, MacLeod and Clarke underline the critical importance of behavioural integrity.

The recommendations themselves centre on increasing awareness of the importance and value of engaging employees and providing additional support to organisations to make it happen. All very welcome.

All in all, this is a very timely report and one which should be applauded by those of us who work in this area. It puts engagement back under the spotlight at a time when many organisations are turning their back on it and eroding the psychological contract with their employees through their often short sighted, short term actions. If you’re struggling to convince leaders of the value of engagement and the need to invest in it (or at least not to cut their investment in it) then this should help. No, it’s not specifically about internal communication, but the topic is woven throughout and good IC underpins much of what is discussed here.

Lee

Entitled ‘Internal Communications – More to Deliver’ the report is the sequel to a similar research exercise undertaken way back in 2002, which was widely acclaimed at the time. A free summary report is available online via the above link (the full report is priced at £275) and, from my perspective, it’s recommended reading for anyone with an interest in IC.

Based on qualitative research with 75 senior in-house ‘movers and shakers’, the research was designed to assess the state of internal communication practice, to identify some broad themes and issues and, specifically, to provide some pointers on the best way forward for the profession and its practitioners. It was written by two seasoned IC commentators, Nick Helsby of Watson Helsby and Michael Croton of Comma Consulting.

Having sat here nodding my way through the report for the last 30 minutes or so, I find myself agreeing with the vast majority of what’s contained within – it’s  an excellent assessment of the state of our emerging profession in 2009.

To summarise, the big messages are:

• We’ve come a long way since 2002 – companies have invested heavily and are demanding more and better IC. However, the results IC has delivered have not always matched expectations.
• There is now broad consensus on the scope and remit of IC with most respondents saying they were accountable for developing and communicating the corporate story, developing channels, leadership comms, campaigns and programmes, internal news management, supporting engagement and employer branding efforts, crisis comms and measurement & evaluation.
• We’ve still got a long way to go to become a genuinely mature profession – there are many challenges ahead and numerous areas where we could and should be doing better to demonstrate our value to organisations.
• The best is yet to come – the future for IC is rosy, if we continue to professionalise the function, raise standards, build understanding and appreciation in the board room and get the talent right.

One of the most useful sections of the report is the discussion on obstacles to progress, where several themes emerge:

• Lack of coherence – an increasing focus on IC has resulted in an increase in noise and clutter. As business unit heads, functional leaders and others battle  to give their messages prominence this is creating a situation where there are simply too many badly coordinated messages bombarding employees. The result is a cacophony.   
• Poor governance – unlike PR/external comms there are few checks, balances, controls and protocols in place to guide internal comms. It is often informal and decentralised and, as a result, leaders cannot be confident that (a) communication is flowing through the organisation effectively (b) they have the ability to communicate quickly and consistently in a crisis situation.
• Employees’ ranking in the audience hierarchy –external stakeholders (shareholders, media, etc) are often viewed as more important than employees and, as a result, these audiences often receive more focus, attention and senior executive time. Put simply, IC still often plays second fiddle to external comms.
• Senior level support – to thrive inside an organisation IC needs to have a senior sponsor who really ‘gets it’ – someone who understands what good IC looks like and can deliver in its broadest sense (i.e. beyond simply pumping out messages). Likewise, it’s vital that there is someone at a senior level – someone with ‘clout’ – who is proactively championing the work of the IC team and helping push through organisation-wide initiatives. 
• Shortage of talent – IC is still not attracting, nurturing and growing sufficient talent.  As a result there is little in the way of a succession pipeline inside organisations, meaning that candidates have to be lured from elsewhere. Even then, there is a relatively small pool of good practitioners to fish from.  

The report also identifies a number of key areas where IC can add – and be seen to add – more value. This provides a useful checklist for any communicator who wants to develop themselves and/or their team.

The report concludes that, in order to realise its full potential, IC needs to focus on getting the right people in the right roles, developing that talent, winning support from senior leaders, beefing up the role, becoming more proactive when it comes to identifying and grabbing opportunities to demonstrate their value, and getting the operating model right.

If you haven’t already done so, read the summary report (at least) and take on board the findings – it’s wise counsel and provides an useful blueprint for doing IC really well.

Lee

Publisher Gower and editor Marc Wright of Simply Communicate have done a sterling job on the publication which will, I’m sure, become a bookshelf favourite for internal communicators over the next few years.

To celebrate the launch of the handbook we’ve arranged a special 35% discount for Talking IC readers/subscribers and friends of Gatehouse – so you can now buy this hefty book for £65 rather than the usual £99. It’s sixty five quid very well spent in my book!

Here are the full details and order form:

Download Gower – flyer

A comprehensive guide to managing communication within organisations, the Handbook recognises Internal Communication’s continued growth as a management discipline. It is aimed at leaders who want insight into IC techniques for use in both day-to-day operational and change situations, for example, and also at the communication specialist seeking shared wisdom and new ideas.

I’m working my way through its 500 knowledge-packed pages right now and, although it’s clearly not a cheap book, it represents superb value-for-money.

If a tree falls down in the forest and no one is there to hear it, does it make a noise? Likewise, if you pump out internal communications that no one actually looks, hears or responds to, have you communicated anything? The answer is no.

From the days of Aristotle onwards, communicators have long recognised that to communicate you need both a sender and a receiver; someone to talk and someone to listen (and, if you’re really lucky, to respond). Without an audience, you simply cannot have communication. It’s a two-way thing.

Granted, the term ‘target audience’ has a slightly old fashioned ring to it these days. According to the critics it implies a rather passive, static group of people – nothing like employees in your average organisation. And that’s why we now use other terms, like ‘stakeholder’.  But an audience will always be an audience to me. 

Whatever term you prefer, it’s important to recognise that employees are not like sponges and do not simply absorb the messages we douse them in every day. Rather they are complex beasts with the freedom to choose what to attend to and what to ignore. That’s why so much communication inside organisations is so damn ineffective – it’s effectively ‘white noise’ that employees simply tune out.  It’s also why ‘what’s in it for me?’ is one of the most critical questions communicators can ask. Self interest is a powerful motivator.

An audience is not, of course, an amorphous mass. Employees, like customers, are not all made of the same stuff. At its most basic an audience is a collection of individuals each with their own likes and dislikes, worries and concerns, attitudes, moods, views and  values. Fortunately there is usually some commonality amongst these groups which enables us to ‘slice and dice’ them, segmenting them like an grapefruit so we can tailor our approach without relying on a one-to-one dialogue.    

Understanding your audience is the starting point for great communication. It’s why listening is such an important skill for managers and leaders (just ask Best Companies how much it matters to employee engagement). And it’s why empathy is such a highly valued trait in people.

For the in-house communicators amongst you my advice is simple – get to know your employees better than anyone else inside your organisation. Know who and where they are. Snuggle up and get close to them. Find out what turns them on, and off.  Understand what they think, feel and do. Get right under their skin.  Make it your business to know which groups are engaged and which are actively disengaged. Identify the influencers and the blockers. Then, and only then, should you start thinking about your message and tactics.

Next up, B for Boss…

Lee

Cheers!

L

Download Universum Quarterly – Lee Smith

If you haven’t come across it before, Universum Quarterly is an excellent read and is well worth a closer look. Check out the website here.

Enjoy.

Led by David MacLeod and Nita Clarke, the independent review was commissioned by the Department for Business, Innovation & Skills in September 2008 to make recommendations on promoting employee engagement.

The findings, which are published in this 157-page report, make very interesting reading. There’s nothing particularly new or groundbreaking in there, but the document does provide an excellent overview of the topic, the business case for engagement, the barriers and enables and makes some very sensible and welcome recommendations on the way forward.

Commenting on the report, David MacLeod said: “This is about unleashing the potential of people at work and enabling them to be the best they can be. Whether we are in a downturn or in better economic times, engagement is a key to innovation and competitiveness.

“Engagement is increasingly recognised as vital by senior figures in the public sector, the private sector and trades unions. We are delighted that if our recommendations are accepted, a distinguished sponsor group has already agreed to work with us to raise awareness and understanding.

“Employers in all parts of the economy can make a success of employee engagement through culture change, rather than investing significant financial resources.”

My own view is that this is really useful stuff. First off, it’s a great primer on the subject – essential reading for anyone with an interest in employee engagement. Second, its contents can be used with sceptical leaders and managers to underline the importance of engaging employees and the benefits of doing so.

Importantly, it illustrates some of the links between engagement and performance – swiftly moving the discussion away from the ‘soft and fluffy’. Amongst the hidden gems are some powerful research stats, e.g. Gallup in 2006-8 examined 23,910 business units and compared top quartile and bottom quartile financial performance with engagement scores. They found that:

• Those with engagement scores in the bottom quartile averaged 31 – 51 per cent more employee turnover, 51 per cent more inventory shrinkage and 62 per cent more accidents.
• Those with engagement scores in the top quartile averaged 12 per cent higher customer advocacy, 18 per cent higher productivity and 12 per cent higher profitability.

A second Gallup study of the same year of earnings per share (EPS) growth of 89 organisations found that the EPS growth rate of organisations with engagement scores in the top quartile was 2.6 times that of organisations with below-average engagement scores.

These figures will make most CEOs and cynical finance directors sit up and listen. They are expanded upon in an excellent chapter looking at the business case evidence.

As you might expect, the enablers section is where the discussion turns more directly to organisational communication. Here the role of leaders and managers is scrutinised and the concept of ‘employee voice’ is explored. There is a wide ranging discussion about the role of senior leaders in providing a strong strategic narrative – a clear and compelling vision for the organisation. Executive visibility is highlighted too.

The pivotal role of line managers is then explored – particularly how they create ‘line of sight’ (show the link between the big picture and what an employee does day in,day out) and address those burning ‘me’ questions, what’s my job? how am i doing? does anyone care? (source: Roger D’Aprix).

Note that this is internal communication in its broadest sense – process, not product.

The report then looks at the role of values and, most importantly, the need for consistency between what managers and leaders say and do, whether they walk the talk. Like others before them, MacLeod and Clarke underline the critical importance of behavioural integrity.

The recommendations themselves centre on increasing awareness of the importance and value of engaging employees and providing additional support to organisations to make it happen. All very welcome.

All in all, this is a very timely report and one which should be applauded by those of us who work in this area. It puts engagement back under the spotlight at a time when many organisations are turning their back on it and eroding the psychological contract with their employees through their often short sighted, short term actions. If you’re struggling to convince leaders of the value of engagement and the need to invest in it (or at least not to cut their investment in it) then this should help. No, it’s not specifically about internal communication, but the topic is woven throughout and good IC underpins much of what is discussed here.

Download Universum Quarterly – Lee Smith

If you haven't come across it before, Universum Quarterly is an excellent read and is well worth a closer look. Check out the website here.

Enjoy.

L

Entitled ‘Internal Communications – More to Deliver’ the report is the sequel to a similar research exercise undertaken way back in 2002, which was widely acclaimed at the time. A free summary report is available online via the above link (the full report is priced at £275) and, from my perspective, it’s recommended reading for anyone with an interest in IC.

Based on qualitative research with 75 senior in-house ‘movers and shakers’, the research was designed to assess the state of internal communication practice, to identify some broad themes and issues and, specifically, to provide some pointers on the best way forward for the profession and its practitioners. It was written by two seasoned IC commentators, Nick Helsby of Watson Helsby and Michael Croton of Comma Consulting.

Having sat here nodding my way through the report for the last 30 minutes or so, I find myself agreeing with the vast majority of what’s contained within – it’s an excellent assessment of the state of our emerging profession in 2009.

To summarise, the big messages are:

• We’ve come a long way since 2002 – companies have invested heavily and are demanding more and better IC. However, the results IC has delivered have not always matched expectations.
• There is now broad consensus on the scope and remit of IC with most respondents saying they were accountable for developing and communicating the corporate story, developing channels, leadership comms, campaigns and programmes, internal news management, supporting engagement and employer branding efforts, crisis comms and measurement & evaluation.
• We’ve still got a long way to go to become a genuinely mature profession – there are many challenges ahead and numerous areas where we could and should be doing better to demonstrate our value to organisations.
• The best is yet to come – the future for IC is rosy, if we continue to professionalise the function, raise standards, build understanding and appreciation in the board room and get the talent right.

One of the most useful sections of the report is the discussion on obstacles to progress, where several themes emerge:

• Lack of coherence – an increasing focus on IC has resulted in an increase in noise and clutter. As business unit heads, functional leaders and others battle to give their messages prominence this is creating a situation where there are simply too many badly coordinated messages bombarding employees. The result is a cacophony.
• Poor governance – unlike PR/external comms there are few checks, balances, controls and protocols in place to guide internal comms. It is often informal and decentralised and, as a result, leaders cannot be confident that (a) communication is flowing through the organisation effectively (b) they have the ability to communicate quickly and consistently in a crisis situation.
• Employees’ ranking in the audience hierarchy -external stakeholders (shareholders, media, etc) are often viewed as more important than employees and, as a result, these audiences often receive more focus, attention and senior executive time. Put simply, IC still often plays second fiddle to external comms.
• Senior level support – to thrive inside an organisation IC needs to have a senior sponsor who really ‘gets it’ – someone who understands what good IC looks like and can deliver in its broadest sense (i.e. beyond simply pumping out messages). Likewise, it’s vital that there is someone at a senior level – someone with ‘clout’ – who is proactively championing the work of the IC team and helping push through organisation-wide initiatives.
• Shortage of talent – IC is still not attracting, nurturing and growing sufficient talent. As a result there is little in the way of a succession pipeline inside organisations, meaning that candidates have to be lured from elsewhere. Even then, there is a relatively small pool of good practitioners to fish from.
• The report also identifies a number of key areas where IC can add – and be seen to add – more value. This provides a useful checklist for any communicator who wants to develop themselves and/or their team.

The report concludes that, in order to realise its full potential, IC needs to focus on getting the right people in the right roles, developing that talent, winning support from senior leaders, beefing up the role, becoming more proactive when it comes to identifying and grabbing opportunities to demonstrate their value, and getting the operating model right.

If you haven’t already done so, read the summary report (at least) and take on board the findings – it’s wise counsel and provides an useful blueprint for doing IC really well.

If a tree falls down in the forest and no one is there to hear it, does it make a noise? Likewise, if you pump out internal communications that no one actually looks, hears or responds to, have you communicated anything? The answer is no.

From the days of Aristotle onwards, communicators have long recognised that to communicate you need both a sender and a receiver; someone to talk and someone to listen (and, if you’re really lucky, to respond). Without an audience, you simply cannot have communication. It’s a two-way thing.

Granted, the term ‘target audience’ has a slightly old fashioned ring to it these days. According to the critics it implies a rather passive, static group of people – nothing like employees in your average organisation. And that’s why we now use other terms, like ‘stakeholder’. But an audience will always be an audience to me.

Whatever term you prefer, it’s important to recognise that employees are not like sponges and do not simply absorb the messages we douse them in every day. Rather they are complex beasts with the freedom to choose what to attend to and what to ignore. That’s why so much communication inside organisations is so damn ineffective – it’s effectively ‘white noise’ that employees simply tune out. It’s also why ‘what’s in it for me?’ is one of the most critical questions communicators can ask. Self interest is a powerful motivator.

An audience is not, of course, an amorphous mass. Employees, like customers, are not all made of the same stuff. At its most basic an audience is a collection of individuals each with their own likes and dislikes, worries and concerns, attitudes, moods, views and values. Fortunately there is usually some commonality amongst these groups which enables us to ‘slice and dice’ them, segmenting them like an grapefruit so we can tailor our approach without relying on a one-to-one dialogue.

Understanding your audience is the starting point for great communication. It’s why listening is such an important skill for managers and leaders (just ask Best Companies how much it matters to employee engagement). And it’s why empathy is such a highly valued trait in people.

For the in-house communicators amongst you my advice is simple – get to know your employees better than anyone else inside your organisation. Know who and where they are. Snuggle up and get close to them. Find out what turns them on, and off. Understand what they think, feel and do. Get right under their skin. Make it your business to know which groups are engaged and which are actively disengaged. Identify the influencers and the blockers. Then, and only then, should you start thinking about your message and tactics.

Next up, B for Boss…

L

The session will take place at GAM (20 King Street, SW1) in London at 1800-2000 on Tuesday 16 June.

During this special one-off session, Leandro will outline the key tenets of VIRAL CHANGE™ and answer your questions. This will be followed by networking drinks where you’ll get to meet, amongst others, Leandro and members of the new-look CIPR Inside Committee.

Even better, this is a FREE event – but you’ll have to move quickly to secure your place as numbers are strictly limited.  Email CIPRInside@googlemail.com today.

Here's the full spec:

Download Leandro Herrero discusses Viral Change – 16 June 2009

See you there!

L

Lee

The session will take place at GAM (20 King Street, SW1) in London at 1800-2000 on Tuesday 16 June.

During this special one-off session, Leandro will outline the key tenets of VIRAL CHANGE™ and answer your questions. This will be followed by networking drinks where you’ll get to meet, amongst others, Leandro and members of the new-look CIPR Inside Committee.

Even better, this is a FREE event – but you’ll have to move quickly to secure your place as numbers are strictly limited. Email CIPRInside@googlemail.com today.

Here’s the full spec:

Download Leandro Herrero discusses Viral Change – 16 June 2009

See you there!