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PM Forum - Nottingham
Delivering great employee communication during turbulent times
As one more famous than I once said: “Internal communication is the sleeping giant of reputation management” (Sir Martin Sorrell, WPP). And how right he was, says Lee Smith, of Gatehouse. With some impressive statistics from some of the world’s most respected companies, Lee demonstrated to us a compelling business case for investment in effective internal comms. For example, companies with the most effective internal comms returned 57 per cent more to their shareholders than those with the least effective comms (Watson Wyatt). The top 200 companies on Fortune’s ‘Most Admired’ list spend roughly three times as much in IC as the bottom 200 (Thomas Harris/Impulse Research). Impressive stuff eh? But what’s really happening out there in our professional services firms?
Key findings from Gatehouse’s research show that face-to-face channels featured highly, with group meetings used by more than three quarters of respondents. The least used were “brown bag lunches” and “drop in surgeries”. As might be expected, electronic channels featured highly, with emails and intranet being key media for internal comms. Slightly surprising was the fact that Social Media channels have not taken off as much as one might have expected. Traditional print still remains an important channel within many organisations, with internal memos/letters and posters topping the league, with flyers and newsletters not far behind.
Whilst many firms get their senior partners together up to 10 times a year, evidence was given that some firms may be adopting a one size fits all approach to IC, which ultimately may alienate important segments of the internal audience. When it came to understanding of key firm-wide messages, most respondents felt that there was room for improvement. Lee later went on to share with us the five secrets of successful IC:
- Listening to, involving and engaging employees - creating a conversation culture.
- Advising leaders on words and actions, promoting access, raising visibility and helping them set the right tone.
- Supporting, developing and equipping line managers.
- Developing an effective integrated channel framework - print, electronic and face-to-face working hand in hand.
- Ensuring strategic alignment, setting meaningful objectives and demonstrating performance against them.
So there we have it, five magic bullets? I think not. Five great strategies with which to build an effective internal comms environment, with two-way engagement at its heart. Engagement is characterised by employees being committed to the organisation, believing in what it stands for and being prepared to go above and beyond what is expected of them to deliver outstanding service. At the end of the day, communication should help set the context and create the climate within which engagement takes place.
Alan Boyden
BCS PR
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