Live and direct from the SCM Summit UK... part 2

By Sona Hathi, Assistant Editor, Melcrum

Back and full from lunch…

The session just before lunch was with Greg Sage – head of internal comms at Tesco. Following on from Roger’s points about social media, Greg also strongly defended print channels forming part of their very simple, but effective, internal comms strategy.

For many “non-wired” employees, i.e. those based in stores or depots without access to a computer, the newly launched tabloid-style internal newspaper “The One” is the ideal way to receive business messages. Greg says social media is cheaper, easier and shows you’re keeping up with the times but he urged communicators to learn from other companies’ examples and mistakes, and not to become a maverick. But Greg has found that some new media does work well. For example, on announcing that the company was going to start sending text messages to store managers, within 24 hours, 70 percent of managers had signed up to receive this service, which clearly demonstrated how isolated a lot of them felt. Just don’t forget about the print.

On the topic of aligning internal and external communications, Tesco aims to empower employees to talk confidently to customers about issues that appear in the general press.

Moving on to the sessions after lunch, Mark Watkins (GE Life Sciences) spoke on communication during mergers and acquisitions, which are a frequent occurrence for a company like GE whose growth depends on being successful at integrating other businesses. He had a very similar message to Greg Sage: Don’t forget print and “old” media. For example, when communicating safety messages to newly acquired employees, don’t feel pressured into using the latest technology. “After all,” says Mark, “safety posters are called that for a reason, they’re not called safety emails!”

The “graveyard shift”, as people often like to call it, belonged to Mary Lynn Carver from Astra Zeneca. But there were very few afternoon yawns in the audience. Mary-Lynn gave an inspiring presentation about aligning external and internal communication. Using the Live Interactive technology, we discovered that 39 percent of delegates believe these two are aligned in their own organisations. She then asked for definitions of “aligned”. Responses included “messages coordinated and sent out at the same time” and “having shared business goals”.

She offered a hard hitting fact: “There’s only going to be ONE communicator at the executive table, so internal and external need to work together.”

She also went on to demonstrate how business strategy is communicated. Astra Zeneca’s internal comms team created a scorecard and the CEO has used it as a lever to get his leadership team aligned, build better awareness of business strategy, and ultimately, to change the corporate culture. He said “if this time next year we have to lay people off, I don’t want anyone to ask why!” Wouldn’t that just be the absolute ideal state of internal communication and engagement?

That makes me wonder, what would your dream internal communication function look like?

Tomorrow, I’m looking forward to hearing from Janet Croissant from TfL, Bill Quirke, Rob Briggs from RBC Wealth Management and Peter Jones from Bupa, amongst others.

Well that’s a wrap for day one. It’s now time to enjoy the caricaturist, illusionist, live band and of course the refreshing glass of wine that’s waiting for us upstairs at the after party…

Comments

[Annie Waite]

You can check out more about Tesco's "The One" publication here:

http://www.internalcommshub.com/open/news/tesco.shtml