The Employee Engagement Conference 2008, Sydney

By Alex Manchester, Editor, The Internal Comms Hub (Australia), Melcrum

There's been barely a few moments to breathe since the end of our first Employee Engagement conference in Sydney last week. Instead of sitting back we've been immersed in planning and finalising details for this year's Strategic Comms Summit in September (read about last year's event here).

However, it would be completely remiss of me not to reflect on aspects of what was a very enjoyable event and, judging from the feedback, also quite a successful one. We had around 80 communications professionals but not just from internal comms. Members of HR, external comms, corporate affairs and learning and culture teams all figured on the delegate list and speaker lineup, so it was indeed a diverse group.

Storytelling
There were some strong themes from the event, in particular storytelling and narrative. Sean Fernando, general manager of HR at Infosys Australia, gave a polished and thought-provoking presentation on engaging across cultures, using stories and anecdotes to explain the cultural differences between Australian and Indian societies and how this determines different behaviors in the workplace.

Sean highlighted differences in these two cultures that really came down to tolerance and historical perspectives of individual independence and equality. Using recounts of meetings and frank discussions between various project groups it was easy to see areas where, fundamentally, the attitudes and methods of working were just different, but it was only through such experiences that the differences were learned.

Matthew Pritchard of AMP also discussed storytelling but emphasised that, through their own experiences, he and his colleagues have learnt to focus on the application of the tool (storytelling) as opposed to focusing on the tool itself. Matthew delivered a great presentation about AMP's engagement journey which goes all the way back to 2000 and has seen the company's engagement results rise from around 40% to over 80% in that time. In fact, quite a few of the stories presented went a fair way back into each respective organisation's history, clearly demonstrating that having engaged employees is not easy and takes a long time to achieve in any sustainable shape or form.

Such was the emergence and discussion around storytelling that it prompted me to get in touch this week with Mark Schenk at Anecodote and have an audio interview which will be posted on the Hub soon.

360° communication
The other most recountable theme was that of dialogue, employee consultation and "360° communication". I mentioned this last phrase in my own talk on social media, but it was really prevalent in lots of the presentations. In the interview with Mark Schenk yesterday he said storytelling is really about "changing from transmission to communication" and I can think of no better way to explain the gradual changing of the large organisation mindset (or the simple waking up of the large organisation).

Thought leaders of internal comms - the Jim Shaffers and Bill Quirkes of the world (and subsequently lots of practitioners) – have known and said this for a long time, and have been campaigning and working hard to make it a reality. Now it seems it's really happening. It's 360° communication and not just "two way" because "two way" implies nice and structured up/down comms. In reality, conversations, and organisations, will simply never be as structured and "controlled" as we'd like to think they are or may be in the future. I also believe, contrary to some, that bit by bit the uptake of social media is also helping this to become a reality, although I steer away from the "revolution" tag which lots of people use.

More to come
A more detailed event review will be up on the Internal Comms Hub later today, together with further audio interviews from some event speakers and our chair, Mercer Principal consultant Todd Montgomery. Suffice to say, the standard of presentations was very high and we're very much looking forward to our next Australian event in September.

Comments

[KM]

I question your comment about AMP's turnaround as a result of employee engagement. Having worked at AMP in the IT area over a few years, "engagement" meant bullying by managers, HR refusal to listen to employees, and politics so thick that I have seen both employees and managers have health issues as a direct result. AMP is a toxic workplace. I am curious as to what the "turnaround" and "engagement" measurement methods used at AMP. I sense dishonesty from your resource and would like to see you show the evidence not just from a manager's viewpoint but from a third-party cultural survey.