Corporate comms experts gather in Barcelona (but alas no Barack Obama)

By Kelly Dyer, Editor of Strategic Communication Management, Melcrum

The night before the start of Melcrum’s Corporate Communication Summit last week in Barcelona, Spain, I didn’t sleep well. I dreamt that Barack Obama turned up out of the blue to give a speech on leadership. Secret service agents were everywhere and I was worried about providing an intro worthy of the President Elect of the world’s most powerful country.

Everything turned out fine though. Not surprisingly, President Obama didn’t arrive and expect to address the Melcrum delegates (maybe I'll put him on my "wish list" of future presenters) and those speakers we were lucky enough to welcome seemed perfectly satisfied with the way in which I introduced them.

Following on from comments made by Melcrum CEO Victoria Mellor at the SCM Summit in London last month about employee engagement not being a luxury item that can be dismissed when times get tough, it seems the sentiment is similar across Europe; especially now that the continent’s largest economy, Germany, has gone into recession.

Engaging employees in challenging times was the theme of the first two presentations and was a recurring topic throughout the two days. Along with the need to keep communications simple (this was explicitly discussed in the presentation from Eva Jarlsdotter of AstraZeneca on day two when she endorsed the benefits of the lean communication process – particularly useful, she said, if large numbers of communicators have been made redundant, as is the case within her organization.)

Derrick Fennell, head of internal communication at Société Générale corporate and investment delivered the keynote speech on day one. He talked about how he’d walked into the office one day to be met with the news that the company had been defrauded to the tune of 4.9 billion Euros. Days don’t get much worse than that. As a result, he was tasked with changing the company’s culture to get a higher level of employee buy-in and engagement.

The second presentation came from Andreas Parchmann, global head of internal communication at Royal Philips Electronics. He explained the need for communication to be clear and easy to understand, which led to the Sense and Simplicity campaign and a simplicity day. Engagement levels were also boosted by a huge online event that kick-started internal debate.

The Edge Picture Company’s Phil Blundell spoke together with Andrew Coker of Syngenta to explain how film had been used to inspire Syngenta employees regardless of their location around the globe or the language they speak.

The global theme once again came to the fore in Michael Redford’s presentation. Talking about his communication strategy during a global merger at SAP, the organization’s head of employee communication said that it takes more than just efficient internal communication to bring about employee engagement; it requires buy-in from senior management and a strong partnership with HR and other departments.

Supporting leaders to become better communicators was the subject of Barbara Massury’s presentation. The former head of group internal communication at Credit Suisse reinforced the fact that anything a leader does is a message – not just want he or she says. She also urged communicators to use their leaders more, believing them to be the most influential but underused communication resource.

The final presentation of day one came from Karen Cooperman, head of internal communication at Allianz Global Investors. Karen spoke about the challenges she faces in getting messages out to a decentralized global organization.

On day two (after a much better night’s sleep with no interruptions from any Heads of State), the Fifth Business’ Luisa Sorrentino and Enda Logan demonstrated how communication techniques have altered over the generations and how they now use some very hi-tech programs to keep their dispersed workforce in touch.

One of the conference highlights was Bill Quirke who spoke about turning strategy into action using communication. One of his key points was how communicators are obsessed with the journey, whereas leaders prefer to focus solely on the destination. This sparked many interesting discussions over the remaining course of the conference.

Helena Norrman, VP internal communication at Ericsson, looked at strategy in more detail offering many examples of how she’s worked with her team to become an integral driving force behind strategy implementation.

Delegates then heard from Camilla Herrmann, Aviva Plc., and Ann-Leena Mikiver, TeliaSonera, both on the subject of transforming their company’s intranet and improving employee interaction.

The final presentation came from Christine Vanormelingen and Valérie Perruchot Garcia, both from AXA. Their focus was on repositioning and strengthening the brand message. With Christine approaching it from a local perspective and Valérie from the group level, delegates gained much valuable insight and conversations continued as delegates left to enjoy the sights and sounds of Barcelona.