Productivity tool or a procrastinator’s best friend?

By Tanya Batra, Melcrum

In February last year, Thierry Breton, CEO and chairman of Atos Origin, an international IT services company employing staff across 42 countries, announced his mission to ban internal email, with the intention of becoming a "zero email" company by 2014.

Unsurprisingly his declaration caused a media stir and also received some backlash, but Breton defended his decision, saying:

"I didn’t do this for external reasons…I did it to enhance the quality of working conditions for Atos’ 80,000 employees…my first intention was to deal with this data deluge and to work with the tools the young generation are using. We are addressing a real issue of our time…we are no longer using email the way it was intended to be used"

  
His decision was also made in light of the revelation that employees were receiving over 100 emails a day, of which only 15% were useful, and also upon consideration of the fact that for the 10,000 new employees hired every year, internal email tools such as Outlook were completely unfamiliar, with Breton stating, "We have to adapt ourselves to this new generation that will become our business colleagues tomorrow."

As radical as the idea may sound...
...it perhaps isn’t when you fully consider that it’s a positive step towards what we’re all trying to achieve -  i.e. transforming the internal comms model and becoming a social business. And whether you realise it or not, most of us have already taken these steps in our implementation of digital tools.
What we haven’t done however, is fully allowed the potential of these tools to take hold and deliver the collaboration-driven business benefits they’re capable of.

So while we have the tools in place which hold the potential to increase efficiencies, reduce reliance on email and ultimately drive productivity – our failure to educate employees as to how it can be used,  failure to generate the required culture shift that encourages more "fluid" communication and a failure to engage leaders to lead by example and influence – are all pivotal reasons why "business-benefitting collaboration" is simply not happening.

 

IBM – where it all began?
While Breton’s decision was the most highly publicised, IBM’s BlueIQ team* - namely one member of the core team, Luis Suarez, knowledge manager, community builder & social software evangelist - could be considered as leading the charge, having decided back in 2008 to start living in a world without email.

 
"As a remote employee, I wanted to prove to everyone that I could keep working for the company without using email, relying almost exclusively on social software tools to communicate daily with my team members."

And in January 2011, just three years on, Suarez reported an impressive 95% reduction in inbox traffic.

Why live without email?

"Around two and a half years ago in my role of software evangelism, one of the main hurdles we were hearing from people is … they perceive this software as another set of tools on top of what they were already using…they had this feeling that, you’re asking me to spend more time online with Twitter, Facebook and whatever the internal social software applications were."

As well as wanting to demonstrate to coworkers just how dependent they were on email (despite its loss of productivity as a channel), Suarez’ decision was also triggered in 2008 when IBM’s Blue IQ team were faced with the challenge of educating an overwhelmed and reluctant salesforce to use the social tools that were available to them to provide "answers" rather than "problems" (with the potential to benefit them in completing daily tasks and increase efficiencies). The initiative was a success and transformed IBM’s salesforce into fellow social software evangelists. Not only that, the Blue IQ team continues to expand with the ultimate aim of enterprise-wide social collaboration inside and outside of IBM that drives real business results.

Enabling crucial conversations
Suarez will be sharing his story at our first-ever Digital Communication Summit in London on 27-28 March, 2012, where we’ll be addressing the role of technology in enabling crucial conversations to build an engaged and collaborative workforce, and the fundamental role communicators play in leading the transformation across culture and leadership to create a truly social business that reaps the benefits of outcome-driven collaboration.  

Joining him will be thought leaders such as Paul Miller, CEO and founder of the Intranet Benchmarking Forum and Digital Workplace Forum and Laurie Hibbs, HR director at LexisNexis UK as well as business leaders from companies including BT Conferencing, Nokia, Bupa and the adidas Group who will be sharing their powerful case studies. 

Check out the full event programme online: http://bit.ly/yipJEj

*IBM’S BlueIQ Ambassador Programme - A worldwide community of social software evangelists with a mission to energize and enable every IBM employee to use social software, both internally and externally. The BlueIQ ambassadors support the BlueIQ program’s mission to transform IBM into a showcase for the business benefits of social software adoption.

Sources:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-16055310

http://www.wired.com/wiredenterprise/2012/01/luis-suarez/

http://mashable.com/2010/09/03/world-without-email/

http://www.elsua.net/2012/01/13/blueiq-at-ibm-finally-goes-external/

https://www-304.ibm.com/wikis/home/wiki/BlueIQ?lang=en_US

http://www-01.ibm.com/software/lotus/offer/adoptioncouncil/

 

Highlights from Melcrum's SCM Summit Australia

Katrina Andrews, Director, Melcrum Asia-Pacific

This year’s 7th Annual Strategic Communication Management Summit in Sydney, drew together a crowd of over 120 communicators, based throughout Australia and Asia, including Japan and China. Compared to last year, in the midst of the global financial crisis, there was an air of optimism in the room. If I was to sum up in one sentence the general attitude of the audience it would be: "We’re through the worst of it. Let’s reignite, reinvent and most importantly re-engage."

There were case studies of communication triumph against adversity, with Andrew Huckel, group internal communications manager, Bankwest, coaching us through the internal comms challenges faced when a parent company collapses (HBOS) and a subsequent acquisition takes place (by Commonwealth Bank of Australia).

Most interesting was to hear how their senior leadership played an integral part in keeping their employees informed and internal brand consistent. Huckel told the audience that in the midst of the crisis, he was having twice daily meetings with the MD.

Olivia Wirth, head of corporate communications, Qantas, delivered an outstanding presentation on how she and her team harnessed and learned from Qantas' 13 individual unions – a communication prospect that would make most of us shudder.

Communicating within such an iconic Australian brand like Qantas brought up a whole set of challenges, including the mainstream media being named the primary source for organizational information for employees. Quite simply, Qantas “hadn’t invested in internal communication” -  a challenge both Wirth and the executive team set out to change by introducing "we will tell you first" –  a new governing internal communication principle.

Spurred on by the belief that if you haven’t got your top 100 engaged, you're not going to get the rest of the business engaged, the team set out to develop a new senior leadership communication project. Plus, executed a brand review process targeting individual staff across the organization with a set of questions focused on:

• What do you think our values are?
• How do you think that relates to your behavior?
• And reflecting the nature of the Qantas brand: What is the "Australian way"?

At the completion of Olivia’s presentation, I really was left convinced that this was a company  on its way to delivering world-class communications.

Some of the other key takeaways from the Summit included

• Melcrum’s Rebecca Richmond’s presentation on moving from a cascade to a dialogue approach to communication. When thinking about manager communication, help them to set the scene i.e. create the infrastructure. Bill Quirke’s model for structuring a meeting is a great tool to help manager’s foster dialogue within your organization
  
  
• Athena Wiliams-Atwood, AMP New Zealand, encouraged all communicators to adapt a sales approach to convince senior leaders of the importance of engagement, perhaps by reading Spin Selling – a book on how to pitch your ideas, or – even more radical – attending a sales training course!
  
  
• Insights and learnings from one of the year's biggest stories: the multiple outages that hit Telecom's XT mobile network. Also, a great example of how to harness a charismatic CEO can be seen through their use of video.
  

Plus, great further presentations from Ericsson, IBM & ABT, Luxottica, Raytheon, AMP Australia and Integral Energy. All up, great speakers with great networking – I’m already looking forward to 2011!

Quad aims for slice of collaboration software market

By James Bennett, Head of Content, Melcrum

Bringing social networking into the enterprise, as technology suppliers so often like to call it, has long been the Holy Grail of companies such as Microsoft, particularly with its widely used SharePoint collaboration platform.

In the last five years SharePoint has become the de facto software platform of choice. In the case of internal communications, however, this hasn’t always been a question of choice. As many of you will know, and some of you may have experienced first hand, SharePoint has often been foisted upon the function by those pesky geeks in IT . The geeks have either come to some sort of partnership agreement with Microsoft or simply gone behind everyone's backs, signed on the dotted line and gone with the only brand they know. Funnily enough, the general feedback I get from the large majority communicators is how difficult SharePoint is to deploy, use and customise.

Help or rather choice, however, appears to be on the horizon with Google’s collaboration and communications tool, Wave, now being slowly taken up by a small number of companies. But another player has recently joined the game. The latest vendor to attempt to capitalise on the desire of many organizations for secure, internal, corporate social networking, or “enterprise collaboration”, is Cisco with its new platform Quad.

One analyst called Cisco’s approach to bringing social networking into the enterprise “interesting and different” and "more than just having an internal Facebook-like mechanism”.

Cisco’s aim is to integrate enterprise applications into the internal communications mix, effectively melding various tools into one platform to give social networking more business functionality. There are already plenty of platforms that do this but it has some interesting features, while commentators online suggest it is very simple to use.

For example, Quad is designed to let users microblog within the platform, with posts going out to colleagues who follow them, while in-house microblogs can also be posted on Twitter effectively crossing the dreaded internal/external divide – something that may scare some communicators off. But there's no need to panic. For those of you who have recurring nightmares of employees posting updates about certain topics outside the firewall, Quad also enables you to set rules that limit users’ ability to post externally on certain topics or even on certain days.

Quad also includes a calendar application, along with voicemail integration, a “Facebook-like” feed of updates from colleagues that users have "befriended", work group communities, and a place where documents can be stored and made available for collaborative purposes. The platform also includes live video, recorded video storage, instant messaging and e-mail.

The home screen for Quad is the first thing employees see when they start work in the morning, the place they go to find out what’s happening in their company as well as their business tasks for the day, month or year. The top of the screen might show a companywide video message from the CEO, for example, while the side columns might highlight the status of the employee's key contacts and links to their communities within the organization, and a lower part of the screen might be taken up by an interface to the major applications they use.

With many companies being forced to do more with less and, at the same time, increase productivity and profits, implementing an enterprise social networking platform is becoming increasingly popular and has already proven a success in several organisations. Employees now not only demand rich (social media) communication in their own personal lives but equally in their everyday working lives and careers. Harnessing this demand to improve organizational productivity is a logical step.

For some great examples, advice, information, research and best practice case studies, register your interest for Melcrum’s social media report 2010 available soon.

No social media, no job says “generation standby”

By Nishwa Ashraf, Editorial Assistant, Melcrum

You’re young, bright-eyed and bushy-tailed. Fresh out of college you’re about to embark into the world of work. Following a successful interview, you’ve been offered a position with a company you could see yourself part of for some time to come.

Fair wage? Tick. Personable staff? Tick. A challenging work load? Tick. Access to Facebook? Denied.

Is this enough to make you reconsider taking the job?

For 20 percent of Millennials, or Generation Y-ers (those born from 1980 onwards) a ban on social media in the workplace is often a deal breaker.

My initial thought was that this is preposterous. But when you consider that 48 percent of office workers and 71 percent of managers undertake work-related tasks from home, with 57 percent using a home laptop and 37 percent using smart phones to keep them constantly updated on what’s happening in the office, suddenly a little social networking during office hours sounds like a fair compromise.

Hillary Blackwell, global HR director at Clearswift, the security software provider that carried out the research, said: “Call it multi-tasking or life-splicing but increasingly fuelled by advances in technology, employees are blurring the boundaries between home and work.”

And as social media is ubiquitous in society today, for a company to ban these tools does so at the risk of appearing draconian.

But social media doesn’t have to mean teens gossiping about whose Twilight team they’re on – Jake or Edward? When removing the hype, these tools can actually be useful to an organization. From internal microblogging tools such as Yammer and CEO blogs, to work-related discussions and communities on Linked In, social networking doesn’t always have to mean social not-working.

It’s is a great way to look inwardly into your company and find out how employees really feel, what they’re thinking and what they’re saying. As part of a communications mix, it can assist in achieving strategic communication objectives such as creating transparency in the workplace, including employees in future decisions, finding out who’s working on what, linking remote and disparate global employees, creating engagement, spreading corporate news. The list is endless.

Whether you’re wondering how social media can benefit you’re business, convincing senior executives of a buy-in or wondering how other organizations have used the tools, you might want to check out Melcrum’s new Social Media report which will be on sale soon.

How is your organization using social media? We’re always keen to hear so let us know.Email me at nishwa.ashraf@melcrum.com

Happy 40th IABC! 40 things I learned at World Congress 2010

By James Bennett, Head of Content, Melcrum

1. The breakdown of trust in leaders is at its lowest ever point and will deteriorate further. But now’s the time to swap dancing partners. Research has shown that middle and line managers are the most trusted people within organizations and it up to us to get on their side and work with them as effectively as possible to leverage that trust.
2. Social media was discussed in almost every conversation and session I had and attended. But talking simply isn’t enough. The feeling from the profession is that communicators are using the tools, but they don’t seem to be using them to reach a constructive end goal and with the overall company strategy in mind.
3. Employee volunteering works. Fact. It improves communication, morale and motivation, personal fulfillment and those companies that actively engage in volunteering are more profitable, experience reduced absenteeism and are winning the war for talent. Two-thirds of Gen Y employees at Deloitte, for example, said they would rather work for a company that encourages volunteering.
4. In the post-recession age we live and work in, always plan for the unthinkable.
5. Communication is a company’s most powerful ally in a crisis… just ask BP.
6. Empower your employees by allowing them to become product ambassadors. Let them get their hands dirty.
7. Accept the risks of allowing employees to express themselves freely and instead focus on the end goal and the rewards.
8. Have courage part one – don’t be afraid to get fired.
9. Have courage part two – don’t be afraid to tell the CEO he’s a terrible presenter and he “lip smacks” when on video.
10. Leaders are like tofu: clearly part of the meal, perhaps even the main source of nutrition, but the spice is provided by everyone around them.
11. Make it a habit – make engagement part of employees' everyday routines for it to pay dividends.
12. Follow the example of the Me to We philosophy and movement and create a culture of empathy, community, meaning and legacy.
13. Memorise and use this quote: “We can do no great things; only small things with great love.”
    Mother Theresa
14. Content in context is king and data is his queen.
15. Successful leaders should always lead with their ace and play the communication card.
16. Every leader has his blind spot – and it’s up to you to spot them.
17. All communicators are sales people.
18. Information is useless – your audience wants knowledge.
19. Get stuck in traffic – find opportunities to do nothing and when you do, do nothing but think.
20. Read your writing aloud – strive to thrill yourself with what you write.
21. Writing is like a window – it should allow your readers to see what would otherwise be invisible.
22. Make your writing transparent – help your readers see your ideas, not your words.
23. Outsource the gaps in your skill set.
24. Communication can release the best potent asset, the human asset.
25. Communication is the path to survival, recovery and growth and a company’s constant companion.
26. Communication is a leader’s lifeline to results.
27. Communicate the future – write a fake news article showing your employees what the future looks like and how you can all work together to achieve greatness.
28. Only 19% of global employees are looking to leave their current roles, but the engagement gap is widening – Towers Watson 2010 Workforce Study.
29. Employees don’t know where to turn in 2010. In a global study when Towers Watson asked people whether they would like a job for life with one company, follow their opportunities as they come along or only work for two or three employers during their careers, the data was split exactly three ways.
30. Employees are reliant on their managers and leaders but not confident in what they are doing for them.
31. Embrace uncertainty.
32. The recession has ended the “deal” between employer and employee.
33. The “new deal” is about knowing and enabling your workforce, customising their experience and planning for the future.
34. The “new deal” will take courage, innovation and discipline – leaders will play a vital role.
35. The Art of Innovation – Polarize people over issues they care about.
36. Never stop learning and continuously seek knowledge.
37. Act like an agency – make your "clients", a.k.a your employees, the stars.
38. Always seek to add value.
39. As a conference organizer always provide a reliable Wi-Fi connection… although IABC never fear, even Steve Jobs had issues at the launch of the iPhone 4.
40. Canadians say “eh”. Rather a lot.

Catch Melcrum at IABC World Congress June 5th to 9th

By James Bennett, Head of Content, Melcrum

Following two brutal recession-packed years crammed full of pessimistic chatter along the lines of distrust in brands and leaders, slashed budgets and axed headcounts and rock bottom engagement scores, conferences and events are attempting to re-focus on a leaner but potentially more exciting future. And the International Association of Business Communicators (IABC) is no different.

This year’s World Congress in Toronto, on between June 5th and 9th, returns to normal proceedings and can once again focus on promoting fresh ideas, showcase award winning case studies and best practices in communication.

Recession or not however, the Melcrum team and I will be there in force to cover the sessions, idea jams, unconferences (this always sends a shiver down my spine) and the inevitable news and gossip that will take place in the five days this gigantic gathering of more than 1,400 communicators will generate.

Myself and the team will be staying at the conference venue, the Sheraton Centre Toronto so please feel free to email me and get in touch to arrange a meeting.

I just hope I don’t bump into too many of you at the yoga sessions in the morning. You wouldn’t want to see me in Lycra. I just wonder how many communicators can communicate that early in the morning? I guess I’ll have to get up at the crack of dawn to find out.

Key communicators including Russell Grossman, Les Potter, Guy Kawasaki, Angela Sinickas, Adrian Cropley and Melissa Dark will all (don’t worry I intend to grab five minutes with as many delegates and speakers as I can) be speaking to Melcrum during the event.

So, loyal Melcrum blog readers, continue to follow us as you always have done, while those that haven’t graced these sacred pages please make sure to tune in at the beginning of next month for some exclusive insight into one of the biggest events in the communication calendar.

P.S: Message to fellow delegates: If I forget my Lycra all-in-one bodysuit or my yoga mat please bring a spare.

Employee engagement 2010: Day one highlights

By Nishwa Ashraf, Editorial Assistant, Melcrum

After six months in a new job, engagement levels rapidly drop for the majority of audiences, according to Wayne Clarke, managing partner at Best Companies Partnership and keynote speaker said on day one of Melcrum’s sixth annual employee engagement conference in London today.

Keeping that brand new, shiny, happy feeling that new employees have and the energy they bring with them, is a major challenge that almost every employer repeatedly faces.

But one business that’s well and truly bucked the trend is high street retailer Mothercare. Employee engagement has played a huge part in transforming the company’s fortunes and performance in the past six years, particularly in its profitability, international reach and through the successful acquisition of the Early Learning Centre. As a result it was rewarded as being one of the best big companies to work for in 2009 in the Sunday Times newspaper.

Rob Jones, head of learning and development at Mothercare and one of this morning’s conference presenters, gave delegates a great insight into how, through the use of collaboration, quality dialogue, and storytelling, the group saw its international revenue rise by 28.4 percent to £188.8 million compared to 2007 results of £87.1m, with a budget of precisely zero.

Yes, you heard right, rather like that clever Volkswagen Polo car advert on the London Underground that continually repeats the “low” price of its latest model, Jones and his team contributed to this rise in profits with zero budget. Not only that, the group has also managed to engage its employees and improve customer service.

It’s not possible I can hear you cry. Well, the figures speak for themselves and as Jones states, the groups’ engagement strategy “wasn’t exactly rocket science”. Forget social media, it did it simply through the power of collaboration, quality dialogue, and the intelligent use of storytelling. When the team hears a really positive story it’s passed on in the right way and by simply listening to its employees it’s kept that line of communication open.

Recognising employee efforts is also a big factor, proving financial gain isn’t the only way to thank employees. Mothercare has monthly awards for outstanding staff contributions, with staff receiving gifts, flowers, dinner or hotel vouchers, for example, for a job well done. In addition Ben Gordon, the company’s chief executive, and other senior leaders recognise exceptional effort at company meetings, road shows and in personal telephone calls.

The group’s elements – caring for parents, pulling together, getting it done and making the business stronger – define the culture or “company DNA” as Jones refers to it, which are set as annual objectives for all staff, with messages providing a clear line of sight and constantly being reinforced.

Jones’s best practice presentation was a real reminder that listening to your employees can make a huge difference to the way they feel about “their” organization, their belief in company values and how they align their work ethic to achieving company objectives.

So how are you engaging your employees? Have things changed in the last two years due the perilous state of the global economy? Is engagement still relevant? Let us know your stories at nishwa.ashraf@melcrum.com.

James Bennett, Melcrum’s head of content, will be covering day two tomorrow (Thursday 13th May) so please follow us on Twitter and come back to the blog for more highlights from Melcrum’s sixth annual employee engagement conference.

Going under the change communication covers

By James Bennett, Head of Content, Melcrum

First we had the Undercover Boss. Sorry, I mean Melcrum was the first publisher to secure and showcase Stephen Martin, chief executive of Clugston Group and star of Channel 4’s 2009 ‘Undercover Boss’ series, as a keynote speaker for our Strategic Management Communication summit. Now, however, the programme has gone mainstream with a preview from the new American series given a prime time airing directly after last night’s Superbowl, a huge-audience slot normally reserved by a network to launch a new sitcom or drama.

Yes, the Americans have got hold of the format and, like the fast food culture they have so kindly exported to the rest of earth, they've gone large.

But while it might seem that we 'borrowed' an idea from Channel 4 the last time around, on this occasion  it's arguably borrowed one of ours. Tonight at 8pm sees the regular Dispatches documentary team go undercover dressed as agency postmen to find out if the Royal Mail has delivered on claims that it is modernising and improving its service. In 2004 and in 2005, the team also investigated the company and, in Channel 4’s own words, “exposed serious systemic and individual failures within the organisation”, resulting in an inquiry by the postal regulator, followed by a fine of almost £10 million.

But we’ve gone one better. Rather than go undercover we’ve invited Alana Renner, head of engagement & internal communications at the Post Office, to talk about how she has engaged her employees and helped to transform the organisation from a loss to a profit making business at Melcrum's third annual change communication conference. What should be made clear is that the Post Office is a subsidiary of Royal Mail Group and operates under the Post Office brand managing a nationwide network of around 12,000 branches, the largest retail branch network in the UK handling more cash than any other business.

Alongside the Royal Mail, the Post Office has undergone huge upheaval with countrywide branch closures, redundancies and, as the frontline organisation for the Royal Mail, has had to deal with angry customers and equally frustrated employees. Alana will be on hand to answer all your questions so make sure you watch tonight’s show and come armed with any issues you would like to raise.

And if you haven’t yet booked on to the conference and workshops do it now! It's on between 9th and 10th March and is fast approaching. We've got an extremely strong line up this year, including behind-the-scenes case studies from British Airways, Aviva and of course The Post Office.

Research reveals widespread adoption of social media inside the firewall

By James Bennett, Head of Content, Melcrum

Melcrum has embarked on a global study on large organizations’ use of social media to engage employees, deliver strategy and drive business results.

Preliminary findings from the Use of Social Media in Internal Communications 2010 survey sent to 50,000 global communicators, has revealed widespread adoption, a clear business case and visible return on investment for communicators.

Highlights of the survey findings will be presented at Melcrum’s Social Media for Internal Communication  conference in London on February 9th to 10th, 2010, while the full results of the survey will be published in a comprehensive Melcrum report on sale in March this year.

Internal communicators are increasingly turning to Web 2.0 tools, such as employee and executive blogs, online video, and internal Twitter-style forums, to deliver key strategic messages, stimulate collaboration and knowledge sharing and boost productivity.

A recent Melcrum member survey at the end of last year found that 40% of respondents said the business case for social media within internal communication was clear and that there is visible return on investment, while 53% of the 2,212 senior communicators who responded said they were planning to increase investment in their organization’s intranet in 2010.

When asked about channels used for internal communication, online video and webcasts were cited as of increasing importance, with the intranet ranked as the most effective channel by 73% of senior communicators worldwide.

The business benefits of investment in social media highlighted included improved levels of employee engagement (21%), better communication with remote workers (16%), knowledge management and collaboration (25%), improving employee feedback (20%) and making business leaders more visible and accessible (14%).

Melcrum’s forthcoming report will concentrate on the role communicators perform in getting the most from social media, how they monitor and measure results, how they make the business case for additional investment, how they protect their organizations against misuse by employees, and social media’s impact on other channels such as email.

If you are interested in contributing to or finding out more information about the forthcoming Social Media Report 2010 please contact me, James Bennett, Head of Content at Melcrum at james.bennett@melcrum.com or Alex Manchester, senior consultant, Step Two Designs at alex@steptwo.com.au.

For the full press release click here.

Melcrum is also carrying out a series of interviews ahead of next month's social media in internal communications conference in conjunction with ipadio. Check out Abi Signorelli, social media consultant's great blog post and ipadio intrerviews now!

Leadership 2.0: 10 ways a CEO should communicate to employees

By James Bennett, Managing Online Editor, Melcrum

Stephen Martin, CEO of Clugston Group and star of hit Channel four television program 'Undercover Boss', delivered an inspirational speech at last week's Melcrum Strategic Communication Management Summit in London, Europe’s largest annual gathering of senior communication professionals.

"The tough times are far from over and we must react now by communicating far more effectively with our employees,” said Martin. Now is the time for leadership 2.0!

Here are his 10 tips on how CEO’s should communicate to employees during and after a recession:

1. Communicate, communicate, communicate: Communicate more regularly then ever before.
2. Always be seen by employees – leave your ivory tower and listen to what frontline employees have to say.
3. Inform widely and get large-scale opinion form employees.
4. Eliminate the culture of executives in suits and workers in overalls/uniform – this puts employees off and communication is immediately lost.
5. Brown bag lunches – my door is always open and I regularly have lunch with my employees but only when it suits them.
6. Refresh your communications as often as possible.
7. Ask and consult your employees at all times – go around the office/construction site/shop floor and ask all of them what they think.
8. Demonstrate you have listened and stick to your promises.
9. Talk to them at a time that suits them.
10. Invest in training of frontline supervisors and managers – if you don’t nothing will change.