Incomms: Hints and Tips: latest posts

Sharing the Corporate Values - Beyond the Quick Fix

Fri, 11 Sep 2009 00:00:00 +0100

How do you get the corporate values off the reception wall and into the thoughts and actions of everyone in the organisation? And how might living the corporate values provide competitive advantage?

Our Five-Minute Memo looks at the issues and provides some hints and tips on how best to communicate and engage. Download the PDF here.

Reconnecting the dispersed workforce

Sun, 19 Jul 2009 00:00:00 +0100

Too often, communication from the centre fails to recognise the needs of the varying types of internal audiences especially within a remote or widely dispersed workforce: the field engineer or sales executive who may work mainly on their own and rarely return to a corporate location. The result, quite simply, is that employees go their own way and it's bad for the brand.

How then do we best communicate with the dispersed workforce? Our Five-Minute Memo looks at the issue and some positive approaches. Download the PDF here.

Effective communication strategy: when redundancy strikes

Mon, 03 Nov 2008 00:00:00 +0000

Redundancy is now a common occurrence in all types of organisations. If, as an internal communications manager, you haven’t been one of the casualties of clearance, you will most certainly have a role in helping to restore the morale of those who remain after HR has served the notices.

The cloud overhead

The workplace looks and feels different when people leave. Those who remain may have mixed feelings of loss for the valued co-workers who have gone and relief that they managed to retain their own jobs. In some cases the loss is instant, people are asked to leave immediately. However, for those who are given time to serve a notice period or look for another post internally, quite naturally, they can feel unwanted, unvalued, depressed, angry or cynical. They may want to talk to those around them and share those emotions. It can lead to a poor working atmosphere, as those who remain may well be sympathetic but need to do their jobs and stay focused. Empty desks and quiet offices may also have an effect on morale. So what can the internal communications manager positively do to influence the situation?

Put a plan in hand

The announcement of redundancies is usually kept confidential until it is made public, so the IC manager may not be included or involved in any planning. However, the strategy for dealing with these situations must be developed in advance as a contingency for if and when redundancy occurs. Develop the strategy with the HR department and ensure that the board and regional and local management are aware of it and understand their roles.

Setting direction

Redundancy leaves a vacuum, which is best filled by direction. Once the announcement is made, there is a need to focus the workforce on where the company needs to be, what will be achieved against the bigger plan by making cuts at this stage. People need reassurance that this is necessary. From the corporate centre, it would be timely for new internal change initiatives to be launched, news about new contracts to be released. Regional and local management must be encouraged to exercise their leadership qualities and talk to employees about why the changes (redundancies) have been necessary and avoid just sending out emails or memos.

The role of the internal communications manager

As the IC manager and the communication expert, you need to be proactive in the contingency planning and then active in promoting the support which people need to repair morale and refocus on the way ahead. When redundancy strikes and all around you are wringing their hands in helplessness, remember active communication is the key to getting over it quickly and the more face-to-face the better.

Do you have a contingency plan? Need some expert help putting one together? Saffron House can help. Contact us to see how we can make a difference.

5 steps to make your messages influential

Sun, 12 Oct 2008 00:00:00 +0100

Tired of having your ideas ignored, compromised, talked down? Here is a way to make sure that your messages capture hearts and minds. In five steps we show you how to win when putting your case.

1 Know your audience

The most powerful way of differentiating yourself is to know your audience – one person or many. If you are trying to influence someone you don’t know, then you’re just guessing.

What do your listeners want, what do they trust? Take a little effort to find out.
Ask what is important to them right now. What is their work/social/educational situation? What makes them proud or loyal? What excites them, gets them interested?
Find out by chatting to people; use the internet, read reports, other messages they have received and information relevant to them. Finally, be prepared to talk directly to them in advance to understand their needs.

2 Understand their agenda

From the knowledge you now have of your listeners, what will most influence them to make a decision in your favour? What is their criteria? Experts have identified three factors which motivate us:

What’s practical and logical? Appeal to the rational side of people. If you don’t do this, you aren’t connecting with their map of reality. Cost, efficiency, delivery, fitness for purpose, are the things that people have on their checklist.
What are the key cultural influencers? Think about the culture in which they operate, peer group pressures or position in the organisation. Who do they answer to and what are they responsible for? List the factors that you think are important from your step one research.
Empathy: how does it feel? Less tangible and predictable is how people respond emotionally to a proposition. Even if you get the first two right, people may still make an emotional decision about you or your message. Understand the inconvenience, discomfort, frustration or disappointment people have which your proposal might address. Empathy helps create rapport and provides comfort.

3 The building blocks

Think more than you write or speak. Most people want to fully understand the point of your message – the proposition, idea, solution – rather than the detailed process behind it.

Be concise. Less is more. At this level you need to gain their interest as the first stage of buy-in. If they come back asking questions, you have rapport. Use few, clearly presented benefits.
Spell out the benefits. What will your proposition offer that your audience don’t have now? What’s in it for them? Make sure that what you offer is relevant and that the benefits are real for them.
Prove it. What is your evidence that what you propose is right, will work, is better etc? Use facts, statistics, examples, demonstration to support your case. Wherever possible use a picture or graphic to make the point – it’s more memorable and has greater impact.

4 Putting it all together

A simple structure for your message provides coherence, comfort and clarity and avoids leaving your audience confused.

Decide precisely your subject. Write a simple one-line objective which best describes the point of your message. Then expand it into a series of stages, adding in the information you need. You then have a basic structure.
Review what you have developed and now, with an editing hat on, make it as concise as you can, cutting out extra detail and making tough decisions on what should stay.
You should have a beginning which sets the scene and shares with the audience the challenge, pain points or opportunity. This should lead the audience through curiosity, expectation or even drama to your proposition. The benefits can follow or even be introduced in advance of the proposition. Use your evidence at all stages. At the end, summarise both the proposition and benefits.

5 Delivery

Engaging your audience. Stories play well and are memorable, but be sure that they don’t over complicate and add time to your presentation. Choose wisely. Always visualise how you want people to feel at the end of your presentation and work to achieve that effect in your choice or words, images, visuals and stories.

Involve your audience at the beginning. If you are presenting to one or many, ask questions to understand what they expect from your presentation – you have a better chance of managing their expectation. Tell them what is important (for them) in what you are presenting and what time you will need.
Move through your structure, preferably with some visual support. Make eye contact with all of your audience and look for their agreement or recognition as you build your case.
When you are finished, clearly restate your key points and recommendations, and take questions. Be prepared to be honest and if you can’t answer a relevant question, turn it into a constructive audience involvement and promise to come back with an answer!

Could our specialist internal communications consultancy help your organisation to be more effective? Click for an initial discussion.

Is internal email killing your productivity?

Thu, 04 Sep 2008 00:00:00 +0100

There seems little that can stop the interminable rise of internal email. Reading email can now be logged as a significant time user but how much of it is really needed? What does it tell us about the organisation and what can you do to reduce it.

Common complaints

Go into any medium to large organisation and ask what most irritates people about internal email and you will end up with a typical hit list such as this:

Requests for information
Social messages – ‘Its birthday time, cake is by the coffee machine’.
FYI – ‘Copied for your information’
Chain mail – Long dialogues between two or more people which are then copied to others.
Automated email reminders – being reminded daily of a due date approaching

What is clear is that it’s not just an irritation. Reading and dealing with non-urgent email can waste huge amounts of time in the working day, whether on the PC or the Blackberry. There is also the impact for the IT department who has to find the storage capacity for the growing email archive burden.

Out of control

Internal email volumes are growing relentlessly. Analysts Gartner Group reckons that email volumes are growing by 50% per year. This is fuelled by new regulatory requirements which demand long-term data archiving such as Sarbanes-Oxley.

It is no surprise that firms are starting to look at how they can put some restrictions on a communication channel which seems out of control. Phones 4U, the mobile phone retailer, hit the headlines when the founder and CEO decided to ban the use of internal email. The company calculated that an email ban could increase productivity and save around £1m per month by eliminating 3 hours a day per employee, previously spent in emailing. Employees now rely on the phone and the company intranet, using email only for ordering purposes. Other organisations, such as Nestlé and Rowntree have also taken steps to reduce email.

Mind your back!

Phones 4U suggested that the email ban would mean that people would have less chance to pass the buck and take more responsibility for their actions. Too often, copying people in on an email is less about genuine communication and more a matter of back-covering. What does that say about your organisation? People avoiding responsibility can signify a lack of empowerment or a fear of making decisions in a blame culture. Banning email alone will not change that. There is also the fear of being excluded from a decision-making process, wanting to be in on everything – but influencing nothing! There is also the concern that managers who are not naturally people-oriented hide behind email.

What happened to the intranet?

Requests for information and announcements to all staff sent by email, may also indicate that the company intranet, which is always a good idea until you come to use it, may not be delivering. Sharing information across the organisation can be managed more effectively on a well designed intranet, offering tools and self service functionality to employees. The alternative is sending an internal email for information which may be important to the sender and the least priority for the receiver. The result means that people waiting for a reply are delayed in completing their task.

If your company intranet is like a morgue, a library for policies and HR forms and little else, then no amount of promoting it or face-lifting it will make a difference. The intranet needs to be an integral part of the working day. Then company announcements (and birthday wishes) will be seen on the desk top by everyone.

Ten 5 tips for reducing or improving internal email

Conduct a company survey. Find out just what frustrates people about internal email usage. Build an evidence base by calculating how much productivity is being wasted.
Improve your intranet. Don’t leave it to the IT support team. Make it a project. Benchmark the success of other companies and integrate it into your business process.
Look at the corporate culture. How clearly are people’s responsibilities defined? When project meetings take place, decide and agree who needs to be in the loop and for what purpose.
Develop a company protocol. When you have a well functioning intranet, let people know what you are trying to achieve – better quality of communication by reducing the email noise present the policy and guideline.
Personal discipline. Keep your emails brief and use meaningful subject lines. Review every message before sending to check for clarity and to make sure they contain nothing that will embarrass the organisation or make it liable. Do not abuse the CC and BCC functions - copy only people who really need to receive the message.

The downturn is real. But so is the amount of business you are missing from your current customer relationships. How do you develop this potential with your existing customers?

Customers who believe they are in "We" relationships with you will give you a larger share of their business. They are willing to pay more, and they are less likely to leave you for a competitor. On the other hand, customers who are in "Us & Them" relationships with you are more likely to spread the business around among your competitors, and will also be more likely to bolt to the competition for a lower price. If you create "We" relationships with your customers, one relationship-building encounter at a time, you will go a long way towards making up for—and maybe even surpassing—the effects of the soft economy.

Internal Comms & Diversity – maximise potential

Sat, 12 Jul 2008 00:00:00 +0100

Not only do we live in an increasingly multicultural society, many employees take up overseas assignments and postings, finding themselves in different cultures and work environments. How can you be sure that your internal communications match the needs of a diverse and inclusive culture?

Perhaps the first question should be – 'what is a diverse and inclusive culture and do we have one?'

Diversity means all the ways in which we differ, obvious differences being gender, age, race and nationality. Less obvious differences are religion, sexual orientation, education, beliefs, ideas and experiences. Inclusion means that, having accepted those differences, we put them to good use.

One way (and perhaps the most important way) to embrace diversity is through your internal communications. Take a look at some examples:

Religion. We’re not saying that everyone must celebrate every religious holiday. But does everyone know when they take place? Posting them on your intranet is a good place to start. Also, when you have gatherings (individuals, departments or company-wide), do you cater for different religious dietary requirements?
Race and Nationality. Can non-English speaking employees read internal communiqués in their own language? It costs nothing to ask one of them to translate and they could even write articles themselves.
Gender. Some industries may be regarded as a ‘man’s world’, but invariably the woman’s touch brings out additional qualities not yet tapped into. Do you ever invite women to present their views? When it comes to internal meetings with men and women, the level of egos in the room can significantly drop!
Education and Experiences. When did you last find that, in leadership or motivation exercises, some people had more effective communication skills than others? Have you thought why? If it’s down to their education or previous experiences, do you draw on these for future events?
Ideas. Employees who are ‘quiet’ may still have ideas to put forward. How open are you to receiving ideas? Do you provide opportunities at gatherings? Do you have a link in your intranet for posting ideas? Or are you trying to avoid conflict?
Disability. Do you have Braille capabilities for employees with impaired vision and sign language facilities for people with impaired hearing? How far do you go to ensure that everyone receives your messages?

So, where's the value in this? Well, it all boils down to that well-known phrase - sharing best practice. If you make a point of drawing on experiences, promoting ideas, making people aware of situations, dates and events - be it through meetings, bulletin boards or intranets - you are motivating people and maximising their potential. That’s good news for your employees, your company and of course your customers.

Could our specialist internal communications consultancy help your organisation to be more effective? Click for an initial discussion.

Knowledge communities: expanding the role of the internal communicator

Mon, 02 Jul 2007 00:00:00 +0100

Increasingly in Europe, knowledge workers are in demand. With the shedding of manufacturing jobs to the Far East and other fast developing markets, we look to knowledge skills to help us survive in the world economy. So how does internal communications fit in?

Many employee communicators see themselves as people who help organisations deliver relevant information to their employees. Whether creating newsletter stories or intranet content or helping put together face-to-face meetings, it's all about delivering communications that support the company's business goals.

New opportunities

With the advent of new media such as blogs, podcasts, wickis and streaming video on demand, there are all kinds of new ‘social tools’ that can be used to disseminate corporate news. But these new media have the potential to do much more. They can create communities.

Look at your organisation from the viewpoint of communities and you can come out with a different internal communications map. What information, ideas and opinions do people want to share? How many times have you come across a scenario where employees who know where to find information get the results, while others, often new to the same organisation, may not even be aware of its existence or struggle to get by? What impact does that have on performance?