Internal communications - it's not rocket science

Picky customers are great news

Listening to communications moaning about their role in organisations makes me sad.  My heart sinks when I hear people at conferences use the stupidity of senior managers as an excuse for poor communications my heart sinks.

The reason?  I believe we get the internal clients we deserve.  If senior managers are used to a diet of crap communications support, that is all they’ll ever understand.

I had a very interesting conversation with a very senior public servant the other week.  I asked her what she wanted from her communications team and her response came back without missing a beat – intelligence.

She is stuck in her office at headquarters in an endless meeting – people drift in and out of her room and sit at her conference table and the discussions seem to merge into each other.  Even though her department has some 30-odd operational sites she hasn’t had the chance to visit them more than once in her 18 months in the job because the challenges or running an operational organisation get in the way.

The thing she knows that she needs the most is reliable information about what people on the front-line are thinking.  Her managers will tell her what they think she wants to hear, but she knows that a communication manager can give her a much more useful insight into morale or reaction.

Why does she believe that she can get better service? 

Because she’s had it in a past role.

Before coming into her current role she worked in another organisation and had the benefit of working with a great communication manager.  In our meeting she told me what her previous head of internal communications did for her – not just in advising on messaging and channels but also on helping her understand how the message would land.

This was a fantastic moment for me. A double result – someone confirming two of my prejudices in one go!

I have long believed that the standard of communications professionals is directly linked to the expectations of our internal clients.  If senior leaders don’t know what ‘good’ looks like they’ll be happy with poor service and weak advice.  But if they have a mature understanding of what good practice can do for them, they’ll become more demanding.

I think the day is coming when senior managers generally move away from paying lip service to the need for communications to becoming sophisticated consumers of the advice and support that they receive.  And it's an exciting prospect.

Liam

What does trust mean?

I was running some focus groups this week and the 'T' word came up quite a bit. 

So I went home and dug out some of my old notebooks and looked up how often people talk about 'Trust' in the workplace.  

Is there some massive issue with trust between managers and workers?  Has the world got to the stage when all our workplace relationships are tinged with suspicion?

My take, looking back over about 30 focus groups from about 9 organisations is that the sky isn't about to fall in.

From what I can tell, when people talk about a breakdown of trust at work they are talking about two things.

One is predictability of management - do we understand the bosses well enough that we can rely on them to act in certain ways?

And the other is whether we think there is fairness in their decisions?

As both have highly subjective elements I wonder if the answer is always going to be in large part about getting managers out and having genuine conversations with their staff.  After all It's hard to say nasty things about someone you have empathy for and you are more likely to be understanding of someone you know rather than someone who is remote.

Liam

CSR - building employee engagement

I've blathered on before about my theory that there are four generic sources of employee pride:

• Their jobs are intrinsicly worthwhile (think nurses, fire-fighters, social workers)
• Their employer is successful and doing well 
• Their employer is trying the change the world (which also seems to be generic brand strategy 101 these days as well)
• Their employer is trying to do the right thing (e.g they have a clear sustainability or CSR policy)

There may be more but I find that having nice wide categories in a hypothesis allows you to claim that you've anticipated any additions and so look very clever.

Well, I was chatting to Andrew Wilson, a colleague in our sister business Corporate Citizenship and he told me about a research project they have completed for The Corporation of London which looked at the benefits of encouraging staff volunteering.

One of the findings is that people who have had the opportunity to get involved in their community report higher levels of engagement at work.

I recommend the report - it's a good read with some interesting food for thought in there.

I have also stumbled over this report about the importance to CEO's of sustainability.  Equally good reading.

Liam

Is it about being rational all the time?

There's nothing closet about my pseudo intellectualism.  I've been posing as a bloke who has read a book for ages...and today is no different.

I have a lecture to give soon and so I was rooting around looking for some data to confirm one of my many prejudices when I rediscovered the Elaboration-likelihood model of persuasion. 

Put crudely, this model suggests that the most potent modes of persuasion rely on the receiver processing information on an intellectual level.  Emotional messages can change attitudes but the effect is shorter lasting and potentially easily reversed.

However the model also allows that the recipient has to be motivated to receive the message and be able to understand it.  It's no use sending someone a 30 page monograph or asking them to sit through a 3 hour powerpoint presentation if they just don't care to begin with.

And if you fill your presentation with tons of jargon and endless complications then you're equally wasting your time.  Which just abut covers one of my typical presentations.

Most importantly the model stresses the need to understand your audience in some detail before rushing to communicate.  Something to think about there...

Liam

Keeping on top of your skills

Last week I was in Leeds as an external examiner on the PR Degree at Leeds Met University – I’ve done it for a few years and it is a bit of an annual treat.  I get to review a selection of undergraduate work and I’m always rather intimidated by the quality of the personal portfolios that the students present.

One of the particular aspects of the Leeds course is a module throughout the three years which requires students to take stock of their developing skills.  In the first year they encourage them to assess things like their learning styles and by the end of the third year, after the students have done work placements and spend time working in teams and analysing communications problems they have quite a rounded picture of themselves.

And as I went through some of the modules the other day, I began to wonder when I last really took stock of my skills and knowledge and I realised that I may have let things slip a little over the last year or so.

And given that I've written about this rather a lot in recent years I really ought to stay on top of it! And I'm even still on the Melcrum website talking about it!

I was a member of the CIPR’s CPD scheme, but it went into a limbo last year while they remodelled it and I haven’t got around to updating my training logs.

I did find it really useful to have the discipline of thinking about my skills from time to time and I’m rather kicking myself that I’ve let it drift.  So, this week, when I’m applying to renew my CIPR accredited trainer status, I think I’ll take the opportunity to get my act together.

 

Liam

Involvement - the key

Recently I've been banging on about the role that employees can play as advocates, about the importance of social worth in the workplace and my dislike of social media as the panacea for all internal communication ills.

Behind it all is my growing belief that the happiest and best functioning workplaces are all about providing people with an opportunity to participate.

My colleagues at VCCP the advertising agency like to talk about 'fandom' - the idea is that successful brands don't have customers; they have fans.  Just look at the brand philosophy behind O2 to see the wisdom of this approach.

Why shouldn't that be an equally compelling approach to employee communications?

You invest a lot of your life at work - and it doesn't make sense that you should grow to hate your employer.  Surely the idea outcome is that you spring lightly through the factory gates every day excited that you're going to be part of something amazing.

And does that mean you have to have a material share in the organisation?  Probably not - after all, Manchester United fans don't own the assets of their club but they still spend small fortunes following the team.

People often suggest that the secret behind the success of John Lewis in the UK is its ownership structure.  But I suspect it has more to do with the founder's vision of responsibility and participation.

The mission for internal communicators has to include creating greater participation in the workplace and in the mission behind the brand.  That might include CSR campaigns, debates about customer feedback or celebrating colleagues' contributions.  I'm not talking about some form of syndicalist commune, just a philosophy towards shaping communications.

Give people a practical task that they can do and you've started to draw them in.  It was a lesson that wasn't lost on the team behind Obama's election victory or a million religious cults the world over.

Why can't internal communicators work like that more often?

Liam 

Why should marketeers worry about internal communications?

When I first started out in internal communications I remember being surprised at the obsession of some people with brands.  I was working in the public sector and I kept wondering why Heinz Beans or Mars Bars had anything to teach me.

But now I'm surrounded by people who bang on about brand endlessly I'm puzzled why I was ever confused.  And more importantly, I'm amazed that not all brand managers are obsessed by internal communications.

A while back I saw some data from MORI which looked at what shaped our favourability towards organisations.  At the bottom of the list came advertising - it reaches lots of people but doesn't have that strong an impact on corporate image.  Having read about an organisation in the media has slightly stronger impact - about 3 or 4 % - on our attitudes, in fact about the same as having seen the organisation's name plastered on buildings or lorries. 

Unsurprisingly, having used the product or service has a far greater impact on how we feel about an organisation, but knowing someone who works there is as much as 25% stronger a factor in shaping how we perceive an organisation.

In short employee aren't just your strongest asset- they're you're strongest advocates. 

But most of the time marketing's interest in internal communication is limited to point of sale material, writing scripts for contact centre agents or posting the latest advert on the intranet the day before it goes live on the TV.  And at worst it's only stimulated when rogue employees post video on YouTube of themselves tampering with the products or say on Face book what they really think of customers.

There's a real opportunity here for some lateral thinking from marketeers about how they get employees really engaged with a brand beyond knowing the service standards or the key product details that they are meant to sell.

And I think it's something about involvement

Liam

Goodbye to print?

This story about BA's newspaper caught my eye for two reasons.

Firstly, years ago I did an industrial relations project with the airline and remember the Chief Pilot referring to BA News as 'the Friday firelighter' because the newspaper's independent and robust editorial stance gave him endless headaches.

And secondly I've been involved in several projects lately where the the fate of the internal newspaper or magazine was central to the core of the assignment.

In one, a successful staff magazine had been canned because everything was supposed to go on line - leaving the head of IC frustrated with the short-comings of digital news channels.  In another a series of focus groups unveiled that none of the target audience read the magazine even though it is incredibly well-written and produced.

On one hand the traditional role of print publications seem to be in part over-taken by the flexibility of on-line.  On the other hand, there is still the challenge of producing news in a jolly and interesting way that people will actively look out for.

Not everyone wants to take part in social media at work - still it's only a tiny proportion of the population ever contribute to discussion and debate on-line.  But we still have the challenge of catching people's attention with corporate messages.  And I do believe that there's something about a shiny piece of paper that you can read over a cup of coffee...

Recently I was listening to someone from the BBC talking about how we take our news in the course of the day.  Typically we wake to the radio, read a newspaper on the train, check the web during the course of the day (especially at lunchtime), listen to the radio after work and check in with TV news at 6 and 10pm.

Why should IC be any different?

I suspect that people who obsess about social media as the panacea for internal communications may be missing the point that we need a repertoire of different tools.  The only problem is that most of us can only afford one!

Liam

Database madness

Once upon a time every problem needed a survey to solve it.   People used automatically to reach for a questionnaire when confronted with a challenge at work.  I'm all for sensible workplace consultation and I'm the first to suggest research, but everyone has the experience of despairing when confronted with an email in-box full of invitations to answer 'just five quick questions on the types of speciality teas available in the fifth floor kitchen...'

Now a new menace has emerged.  It's the obsession with the office database.

It seems that few workplace problems can not be solved by the creation of a new database.

In the last year I think I've heard databases proposed as the solution to poor collaboration between academics, wasteful procurement processes and staff absenteeism.  

All great ideas, but they just don't work.

People never supply the data that they are meant to for a wide variety of reasons - pressure of real work, misunderstanding or sheer bloodymindedness.  The database itself remains a secret so someone else creates another identical one, or they are designed to solve a problem that doesn't really exist.

The common feature to all the issues which demand a database - or indeed a special survey - is that better human communications could go a long-way towards solving so many of them.  If we could build better networks between real people, get colleagues chatting more in real situations away from Facebook or its intranet equivalents how better life would be.

Liam

Doing the right thing to get through bad news?

I have a pet theory (well I have several if I'm honest) about what makes people feel good about their job.  My theory goes that there are four broad categories of workplace esteem:

• The job itself is worthy or worthwhile (e.g. Nursing or teaching - the intrinsic value of the job will be the main cause of vocational pride)
• The organisation is successful - everyone knows what a blast it is to work for an organisation that is doing well and if you can tell your friends about it so much the better
• The employer is trying to change the world - and you don't have to be fighting world hunger or homelessness to benefit from this sort of esteem.  I can think of organisations where putting affordable air-travel with reach of the masses or saving the world from mediocre coffee count as changing the world.  Everyone loves to feel that they are on the right side of a campaign
• Your employer is trying to do the right thing - with regard to sustainability or CSR.

I mention this because I think it's one of the neglected areas of internal communications messaging and I suspect it's particularly important at the moment when the economy is still a bit wobbly and the prospect of massive change in the shape of the public sector is making everyone feel a bit nervous.

When things get a bit tough I think it's worth reminding our colleagues why they come to work and highlighting that it may never have been about the salary or the perks.  For many people it's about the chance to feel that they are making some kind of difference that keeps them coming back every Monday morning or sticking around after 5 pm.

I'm not saying that you can distract people when their jobs are at risk or their friends are being sacked.  But if you let all communications focus on the negative there's every chance that people will lose sight of the factors that made them feel proud to work for you in the first place.

In short, don't lose sight of the social value of the work that your colleagues do if you want to maintain performance and esteem during tough time.

Liam

Liam FitzPatrick internal communications job losses redundancy motivation CSR social responsibility