The Inside Story. What Internal Communicators in every organization need to know: tools, resources, how-to's, issues, strategies, and plans. Find me on Twitter @kzinke
Getting employees excited about a new corporate blog for which there’s no traffic is not easy. Get it going and keep it going by creating internal gamification, challenges and peer pressure to participate.
Create a really long list of those challenges and have everyone aim to achieve as many as possible. The next step is to make this ongoing competition very visible to the entire company.
Read the full article to discover a list of 100 challenges to entice participation. It’s a long list, but it’s purposely that long so there will always be another small achievement for colleagues to complete. If your employees tackle this list they will become expert bloggers and social sharers.
"Sometimes, an organization is very clear on its communications objectives: to educate, heighten awareness, modify behaviours, reduce confusion and put out a call to action. But it takes a keen sensitivity to one’s employees to know how to reach them in order to achieve those objectives.
“Know your audience” is a primary rule of organizational communications, but sometimes—even when you think you know your audience—you find yourself having to dig a little deeper to come up with just the right mechanism to really reach them and effect a change."
Sleep Country implemented a wellness related program that didn't get any buy-in from employees. Read the full article to find out how they turned this around using these communication steps to engage their employees:
"The internet is a game changer inside the company as much as it is in the outside world.
Both management and employees are challenged in ways never before experienced, stimulating questions about process, content, organization, engagement and security."
The article summarizes items from the 2013 report, “Best in Class Practices in Employee Communications,” that demonstrates the need for professionally managing the information challenges that are confronting the largest global companies and the risks of falling behind. Many of these principles can be adapted by smaller organizations as well.
This is my favourite point from the article: Create a roadmap for change, but expect detours on the road ahead. As fast as I initiate one communication method, I'm already looking for a new creative way to do it even better. I want to be prepared for when things change.
With less than 30 percent of workers today committed to and satisfied with their work, leaders need to find ways to change their employees’ attitudes and habits. Gamification can help.
Read the full article to find out how gamification worked for Deloitte to get senior executives to start & complete leadership training and Salesforce to increase usage and engagement with their CRM system.
So what steps do you need to get identify the type of games? These tips from the article will help:
For each employee, figure out what behaviors have the most impact.Make sure those employees know what is expected and have the tools, resources and support required to do what they need to do.Recognize and reward behavioral steps along the way as well as end results.
I love gamification as a concept. It may not work woth all personalities, but as a motivator to drive the speed of moving through a leadership learning programme - great!
Gamification is super smart! When you realize how unhappy most people are with their jobs, you also realize the oustanding potential for improvement that you have as a manager! Looking forward to trying some of these techniques!
Corporate videos have a tendency to be really boring. Before you make your next corporate video, consult this list of ideas. If you set up the right premise, it’s easy to make them surprising and tell a good story.
Read the full article for more details on these creative video ideas:
These are brilliant ideas! So many of them could be used solely for internal communication purposes. Some of my favourite's were asking a number of employees to tell the company story in their own words and the two ideas around having a conference (or any learning session) attendee discuss what they have just learned and might do with that learning.
"It’s not uncommon for internal social media networks like Yammer to go untapped in organizations. Common excuses include lack of time, uncertainty of what to post or lack of responses to their posts. Our advice: Get over it and get on it. Participation in these tools often builds when leaders jump on board and consistently use them."
Read the full article to find 14 tips on how to use internal social media tools.
What a great list. These tips would work for any internal communication. To get leaders involved, assign them just one of these tips, and ask them to try it out for a month.
"In communicating with employees the onus is increasingly on PR reps to clearly state the goals and objectives of the company. Indeed, another mantra would serve PR reps well when they communicate within the four walls: What’s in it for me? Let’s face it, that’s what most employees think when they get an email from corporate.
Having a “Call to Action” can help to assuage any questions and/or concerns that employees might have when they get wind of the latest correspondence from in-house:
Call to Action checklist for internal communications:
1. What is the call to action? What do you want employees to do?
2. What will enable the success of the call to action? What information do they need?
3. What could prevent a successful call to action? What objections or questions might employees have and what information is needed to overcome the challenge?
4. What is the most appropriate channel for this call to action?
"The “Engaging Employees with Video” 2013 free report, coauthored by Ragan Communications and Ignite Technologies, found that 72 percent of communicators plan to increase the use of video to communicate with employees.
Communicators listed the following three factors as keys to successful employee video communicationcampaigns:
1. Gaining positive employee feedback
2. Having a good video experience without technical difficulties
3. Making sure all employees can view the video"
Access the article to obtain the link to the report.
"A best practice guide to building effective internal communications to facilitate change - some useful guidelines for HR managers and senior leaders."
Can you explain complex employment information using common words? If not, you might want to try harder. For better or worse, your employees don’t understand what you want and need them to do."
Well, in this example, they've explained a rocket ship pretty simply. And unfortunately it's true - most employee documents are often very hard to understand.
Try this exercise to find out how clear your best document is. Access the Up-Goer Five website and upload your document. It'll let you know if you haven't used one of the 1000 most used words. It's not as easy at it looks.
There are a variety of ways to help employees understand the company’s mission and how their work contributes to the company’s success. No matter your industry or profession, there are a few ways to ensure you are communicating effectively with employees.
Read the full article to find out more on how to:
- Give them information they want in the way they want it
- Tailor the content for your employees
- Work with other departments
- Don’t forget face-to-face communication
- Finally, always remember to share news with your employees first so there are no surprises
"Simply communicate is a community for internal communications professionals. We started publishing in June 2005 and have since gradually grown to 20,000 registered members. Since September 2009, the service is completely free to use.
We have thousands of articles, case-studies and reports on various issues revolving around internal communications, social media, employee engagement and the internal stories of multinational companies across the globe."
There are a number of toolkits/articles in this section. You'll find information on intranets, digital media, and social media strategies, to name a few. To access most, you do need to join (free).
Be sure to check out other sections like case studies and follow them on social media sites such as LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter.
Digital natives vs digital immigrants? How does that impact the old way of communicating vs the new?
The old way uses intranets or websites as static sites. Staff can search and find, but have limited ability to contribute. The new way is interactive and collaborative and uses social media such as Social networks (e.g. Facebook), Blogs, Discussion Forums and Wikis. Social media tools definitely add value to employee communications. They can help build relationships, increase collaboration, improve productivity, reduce silos, and build engagement. They also offer an excellent means to share ideas and gather qualitative feedback. So why is social media sometimes so hard to implement as an internal communications tool? Communicators understand the power of social media but their senior managers, who are often digital immigrants, remain wary and unconvinced. Are these the arguments that you are hearing?
Read the full article to find out how to respond and other tips for these arguments:
- it's not a priority
- we don't have the time, money or resources - these tools aren't a fit with our culture. It's not the way we do business - it will open a can of worms
"How well do we, as communicators, listen to our leaders’ voices and show them how social media enables their jobs? Which brings up the corollary: does social media enable our leaders to perform better?
What we forget, perhaps, is that the companies—and leaders—we see using social media most often are those in high visibility fields such as marketing, PR, durable goods and consumables; I’d even add government agencies to the list. The reality remains that for every one company in the aforementioned areas there are hundreds in other fields whose leadership don’t - and may never need - to implement any social media channels.
And it’s not that they don’t understand the technology; it’s that the medium doesn’t necessarily help them do the job they’ve been hired to do – make the company more profitable and successful."
A communicator’s guide to successful social media adoption by executives.
As communicators, it’s our job to steer CEOs and senior management in the right direction when it comes to how and when to communicate via social media. Read the full article to find out more on these tips for getting leaders on board:
1. Know your business and the language of the C-suite
2. Know our technology
3. Challenge your own expectations of social media and leadership
4. Enable your leader to connect better with peers across the industry
"The area of internal communications has grown in recent years but still largely pales in significance to other “hotter” PR areas such as media relations, social media and crisis management. Yet in the current economic climate internal communications should be at the heart of an SME’s (Small & Medium sized Enterprises) communication strategy."
Knowing where to start to build a solid internal communications strategy can be a daunting and overwhelming prospect. Read the full article to find out more about these five key strategic tips that form the foundation stones of a successful and sustainable internal communications strategy in a global economic downturn environment:
1. Communicate bad news as well as good news
2. Drill business objectives down to the individual level reinforcing this
3. Be conscious of body language when communicating with employees
4. Don’t fall into the trap of email communication with employees becoming the norm
5. Integrate the use of technology into internal communications
"A few years ago I conducted research at a large company (2,000 employees) to find out if an internal blog authored by the CEO would have any bearing on employee performance. The outcome was shocking and revealed a resounding yes. The study showed employees who are consistently communicated to by their top leadership have a deeper sense of organizational connectedness which motivates employees to take more pride in their work and perform at a higher level.
The ability for leaders to encourage, empower, promote organizational values and drive vision is directly proportionate to the value they place on employee communications."
Read the full article to find out, regardless of organizational size, more about these four ways leaders can improve their communication to positively influence employee motivation:
"Is the role of chief communications officer—a role that has many companies formalized only relatively recently—becoming obsolete? At a time when the ability of an organization to engage, relate and communicate with key stakeholders is becoming more critically important than ever, the question seems absurd. But there is a case to be made that increasing importance of stakeholder engagement is a serious threat to the role of the senior corporate communicator."
What do corporate communicators need to do in order to put themselves in a position to take a leadership role in this new organizational structure? Read the full article to find out more about several essential challenges that the profession as a whole must address:
While this article isn't necessarily specific to internal communications, the challenges listed are items that will make an internal communicator successful.
"A group called People Driven Performance conducted research on the costs of poor internal communications in 2009 that still has applicability today. They report that good internal communications has a positive impact and poor internal communications has a negative impact on five elements of a company’s ROI."
Read the full article to find out more about these 5 elements and view an accompanying SlideShare:
This article questions whether the same results occur in academia. I would suggest that this happens wherever you have employees, regardless of the type of business.
See how this costs an organization with 100 employees $528,443 over a year in this infographic.
"Our biggest internal communications success was empowering managers to share formal organizational news with their teams.
Our goal was to get employees to start looking at their managers as a source of information and ensure that managers were “in the know” so they could deliver those messages and answer the tough questions."
Read the full article to discover more about these best practices for building internal communications infrastructures and helping direct managers and supervisors become better, more consistent communicators:
The success of internal communications lies with how well your managers can and do communicate. I would take the very last tip provided in this article, teach your managers communications, and make that the first priority. Then do everything in your power to support them, such as using the tips about infrastructure and tools.
"It’s hard to imagine a better tool than the internet for sharing information in an office setting. Now with easy access to video cameras, cell phones, editing software, and hosting websites like YouTube, anyone can create an online video to suit their needs. Not only are videos excellent tools to create and reinforce branding, they can also be invaluable resources for internal messaging."
Read the full article to find out more, and see video examples, about these types of video communications:
Another item to add to this list is a video postcard email (if nothing else - I like the name). You can see some stats and the link to some examples from this article:
"This video was developed by Matt Koschmann, a professor in the Department of Communication at the University of Colorado Boulder. The purpose is to introduce and explain the field of organizational communication for students and those outside the communication discipline."
Communicators responsible for human resources initiatives including open enrollment, onboarding, career development and benefits communications are engaging employees on a whole new level.
Read the full article to find out about these principles to consider when developing your new HR communications and internal brand strategy:
"To engage employees in an organization’s values, vision, strategy and beliefs, you need to create a coherent strategic narrative for the workforce. This is especially important for companies that have undergone major change and need to establish clarity around global vision. Here we take look at the experiences of senior communicators from global companies to gain a deeper understanding of the topic.
The strategic narrative is the ability of the organization to create a vision of the future. That might include outlining goals and structure for the business, the market the organization exists in, the competitive landscape – but it must be both realistic and compelling for stakeholders, especially for our employees.
For internal communication, this is about the identification of opportunities to bring to life and clearly articulate the corporate strategy – for example, what exactly is meant by “improving productivity and performance” if this is part of the organization’s overall goal? And how can we talk about these strategic imperatives in a way that will resonate with an audience that may be feeling somewhat jaded – or is simply becoming increasingly diverse?
Internal communication must play a role in developing and/or supporting the delivery of a strategic narrative that feels actionable and achievable, paints a compelling but realistic picture of the future and the role of employees in that future, and builds confidence in the organization and its leadership. Our story needs to be real for people so they can grasp it, deliver against it and share it with others.
While we might not be the actual “storytellers” (nor can IC be everywhere at once), we can play a crucial role in defining the story and in helping it be told in the right way by the leaders and managers who need to understand it for themselves and share it across the company."
Read the full article to find out more about companies who have engaged their employees in the strategic narrative and about:
- core messages: brand, vision, values
- allowing for "share of voice" in global strategy and values
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Even if you only have an internal blog, there's enough ideas in this article to give you a good selection of challenges.