I recently had roundtable meetings with senior Marketing and HR executives to discuss what is happening with employee communications in their respective organizations. Though I came away with some interesting tidbits and best practices (shared below), the one thing that stood out the most for me was a general lack of strategic direction. The Marketing group in particular discussed at the end of the meeting how the energy level around this topic stood in marked contrast to the meetings we had in prior months on “marketing ROI and lead generation,” topics which sparked lively debate. Our conclusion: perhaps the continued down economy, having to make do with fewer resources and lower headcounts, makes us focus elsewhere? Regardless, weak leadership in this arena certainly runs counter to much of the research that has been done on the importance of fousing on employee communications and internal branding as an important strategy to give your company a “competitive edge.”
I did leave these meetings with some interesting takeaways and reflections:
1) Start with strategy. Figure out what you are trying to accomplish, who your target audience is and then decide on platforms. Make sure you select the VITAL FEW messages you want to disseminate and that messaging in your company has a clear drumbeat and cadence.
2. While it is not clear where functional responsibility for employee communications should reside – opinons varied from marketing, to HR to totally distributive models – everybody seemed to pretty much agree that in order for employee communications to be effective, the executive team has to take ownership for CONTENT. As one marketing executive said, leadership is the CONDUCTOR, and marketing or HR or perhaps a partnership is the orchestra responsible for disseminating key messages.
3. Communicate, communicate, communicate! We need to continue to drive fronline managers to understand the importance of taking the VITAL few messages selected by executive leadership and then REPEATING using many different platforms.
4. Don’t forget old and proven techniques: face-to-face conversations and two-way dialogue continue to be one of the most effective ways to communicate. Tell your managers to go have lunch in the employee lunchroom. Emphasize the importance of doing one-on-ones. Engage in roundtable discussions.
5. Employees yearn for interaction in whatever way it can be offered. Leverage technology and social media such as interactive blogs, collaborative software…anything that invites dialogue is what employees want the most.Some of the fear around social media is unfounded. Companies that have introduced interactive blogs, discussion forums and more are finding that employees tend to self-police pretty effectively. If you want to start doing a company blog, make sure you pick the right person. Someone that is really boring won’t do the trick. Neither will a CEO that is using the blog to share all his vacations to exotic places, dinners at gourmet restaurants, and golf tournaments…..true example shared by one of the executives in attendance. Some of the companies, on hte other hand are using Twitter or Yammer effectively to share across their company what different executives are up to – employees already sufffering from information overload like the “small size” of messages.
6. Be appropriate for you company and industry when you use new technology. What works for a high tech company where everybody has access to a computer is not likely to succeed in a factory setting.
7. Make sure you use your managers in the dissemination of the messages you want to drive. That may mean that you have to give them a tool set, discussion points etc before you ask them to share important news.
8. Have your leadership team establish a standing agenda item at the end of meetings to answer the following question: What are the key messages we are taking out of this meeting that we want to communicate across the organization?
9. Make sure that communications are authentic and not too polished. For example, some of the companies have effectively been using flip videos to share what employees are up to in different locations. Very popular with employees.
What else would you want to add? What are some of the best practices you know of that have not been mentioned?
For more information on Executive Coaching please visit http://www.hrnow.net/coach.htm. Suzanne has two blogs: http://executiveyak.com and http://hrundercover.com/ (we want your workplace stories).
