Seven tips to keep your employee magazine fresh and relevant

by Luke Dodd, Features Editor, Melcrum

Hi everyone,

In the February edition of SCM, we took a look at how to ensure your employee magazine remained an effective channel for sharing strategy throughout your organization – especially when surrounded by newer social technologies.

Integration emerged as a key solution, for example; consider cross-referencing between the magazine and your intranet/internal social network. Communicating your company's strategy and important messages this way can maximize engagement for employees.

Alongside integration, there are other factors to consider when looking at how to keep your magazine fresh and relevant. Here are our top tips:

1. Hold regular focus groups at all stages of magazine production
Use employee focus groups to decide initially that a magazine is right for your organization, to ensure that content is continually hitting the mark and for any other big decision you need input on. They are, after all, the people who will be reading it.

2. Keep the human element alive
Employees want to read about their counterparts across the organization, not solely about executive level activity or new processes.

3. Include employee case studies
People like to read content they can relate to and hear stories about what people are doing across the world.

4. Don't include corporate blah blah
Try and make it feel as far away from corporate as you possibly can. If content doesn't fit this ideology, don't include it.

5. Align content with strategy and business need
Although, in doing so, make sure the content doesn't become stagnant. Be creative in the ways you tie content back to business objectives.

6. Reference the external market
If there are key changes happening in your organization's sector, make sure to mention it in your magazine. Employees want to be kept informed by the company they work for.

7. Develop a good internal network and keep close to leadership
Find out what other people in the company are doing. If possible include leadership comments on future plans.

 

For further information on employee magazines, visit the links below:

How to use staff magazines to connect with your employees

Ten reasons to keep printing your in-house magazine

British Airways gets "Up To Speed" with a new employee magazine

 

Until next time,

Luke

What do the findings of the 2012 Edelman Trust Barometer mean for internal comms?

by Luke Dodd, Features Editor, Melcrum

Arriving at Edelman's head offices on Victoria Street, central London this Tuesday morning at 8am, I was greeted by a waiter offering me a freshly brewed coffee and a bacon roll – not a bad start to the day, I'm sure you'll agree.

I had been invited to the launch of the 2012 Edelman Trust Barometer, an annual global study that questioned 30,000 people in 25 different countries, the results of which reveal the state of trust in business and institutions.

Before the launch itself took place, I met up with Nick Howard, director of employee engagement at Edelman and quickly asked him a bit more about the Trust Barometer and the importance of trust in the current business climate:

Following the morning's refreshments and networking, we took our seats ready for the unveiling of the results. These were delivered jointly by Richard Edelman, president and CEO, Edelman and Ed Williams, Edelman's UK chief executive. There was also a stellar panel on hand to discuss the findings including Anne McElvoy, The Economist; Camila Batmanghelidijh, Kids Company; Caroline Daniel, FT Weekend; Amanda Platell, Daily Mail and the Rt Hon Tessa Jowell.

Globally, blame for the financial and political chaos of 2011 landed at the doorstep of government, as trust in that institution fell nine points to 43 percent. In seventeen of the 25 countries surveyed, government is now trusted by less than half to do what is right. In twelve, it trails business, media and non-governmental organizations as the least trusted institution.

"Business is now better placed than government to lead the way out of the trust crisis," said Edelman. "But the balance must change so that business is seen both as a force for good and an engine for profit."

Although globally business experienced fewer and generally less severe declines in trust, it has its own hurdles to clear. Overall, trust in business fell from 56 percent to 53 percent, with countries like France and Germany, in the heart of the Eurozone economic crisis, experiencing double-digit decreases.

Meanwhile, CEO credibility declined from 50 percent to 38 percent, its biggest drop in nine years. In South Korea and Japan, it dropped by 34 and 43 percent, respectively:

In Japan, the site of last March’s earthquake and subsequent nuclear disaster, trust fell severely in three of the four institutions including government (down 26 percent), media (12 percent) and NGOs (21 percent).

Areas for internal communication to address

It was reported during proceedings that the most trusted resource within an organization is the average employee (60 percent). This undoubtedly underlines the importance of peer-to-peer communication as well as employee "champions".

We also heard how the average person needs to hear a story three to five times from different sources before they believe it. An indication that using a variety of channels to deliver a comms message across your company is a smart move!

Trust in social media and the internet has increased. Maybe consider this fact when looking at company transparency – employees can discover news about your organization from external web-based sources, and will believe it.

It was discussed that working in a low-trust environment may be something we need to permanently adjust to. Look at your organization – in a distrustful society, how can you create a comms strategy that recognizes and adjusts to this state?

To view the various tweets from the day, type in #edeltrust2012 on Twitter.

 

Until next time,

Luke

 

PS. For further information on issues of trust in internal communication, click the links below:

How to help leaders rebuild credibility and trust

OPINION: Communicating and rebuilding trust in the finance industry

Promoting trust and change to a hard-to-reach, unionized workforce

 

Shared global issues of internal communication

by Rebecca Richmond, Group Director of Research & Content, Melcrum                                 

I’ve spent this past week in our Washington DC office; partly to spend time with our team there and individual Melcrum members but also to facilitate a meeting of the Strategic Communication Research Forum in Philadelphia, USA, this past Thursday.

The major focus of that meeting was to share the key findings from our recently completed study into global-local commsunication – understanding global drivers of engagement, how to develop a global IC strategy that can be rolled out across multiple regions, countries and culture, and the implications of that "balancing act" on the structure and roles of the IC function.

Like our recent meeting on the same topic in London, the room in Philadelphia was a fantastic mix of attendees – IC leaders from across industries including financial services, manufacturing, consumer-packaged goods, oil and gas. But all of them shared the common concern about how to take key imperatives and messages from the center and make them connect with front line employees, wherever they might be.

As always, it’s striking how common the major challenges for IC are across the globe. In a funny way, I actually find that really encouraging! Firstly, we’re not alone in the challenges we struggle with within our own organization. In addition, it means that our member network across the globe can unquestionably learn from one another. And, for Melcrum, it allows us to be the glue to bring that learning together – as well as sharing some of our own research and insights to help move everyone – and the IC function and strategy development process – forward.

Perhaps the biggest theme was around the challenge of helping "local" employees see their place in the bigger strategy and vision of the business. We shared some great case study examples from companies like Volvo and Unilever, two companies respectively working on vision workshops for future leaders as well as redefining the engagement survey process and subsequent action steps based on feedback from that channel. The economic downturn that I hear about every day on the UK news is obviously hurting the US economy and business environment right now so I think the relatively low cost/low resource approaches that we were able to share from these two companies were very well-received. It’s fair to say that the group was both impressed and inspired by what those organizations were doing and I’m hopeful that a number of attendees left the session thinking about how they could implement some similar steps within their own strategy.

We were also fortunate enough to be joined by Towers Watson – who both contributed some data to the global engagement section of our study, but also shared brand new data from their 2011 Comms ROI Survey. It was fantastic to be able to add some really powerful quantitative insights to our own survey data and case studies, and give the meeting attendees some hard data to help understand where they can "place their bets" with limited resources to maximize employee engagement across multiple regions, as well as make the overall business case for engagement as a key driver of business performance and bottom line impact – something I think we’re all constantly challenged with!

Another topic that came up for discussion was the perennial challenge of line manager comms. In the context of our study topic, these managers are so crucial – in regions and countries where we don’t have sufficient resources for dedicated IC representatives, in ‘non-wired’ employee environments – there are so many different ways that line managers can make or break engagement or undermine our work to help employees see their place in the broader strategic landscape of the company. We talked about ideas for helping those managers feel closer to the comms process, as well as helping them understand their accountability as communicators, and also shared some of the toolkits and guidance from our newly-updated report Developing a Communication Toolkit for Managers. 

Our final discussion point for the day was where we should be focusing our research efforts for 2012. We have several themes that we’ve landed on based on our constant ‘sweeping’ of the landscape of IC and asked our members to "vote" on the topics that resonated most with them. We’d love to get your feedback too,which you can share at http://www.melcrum.com/forum/2012topics/ as well as get a sense for more detail on each of the possible topics. We’ll look forward to gathering your perspective.

Until next time,

Rebecca

Facing the future of internal communication at SCM's UK Summit 2011

by Luke Dodd, Features Editor, and
Nishwa Ashraf, Assistant Editor, Melcrum

"The Future for Internal Communication" was the theme of the SCM UK Summit 2011, held this week on 12-13 October at the Jumeirah Carlton Tower, London, and featured some truly forward-thinking best practice presentations, lively discussion and encouraged knowledge-sharing.

Rebecca Richmond, group director of research & content, Melcrum, chaired the two-day event that also saw delegates enjoy strong case studies and high quality networking opportunities with other senior-level communicators.

DAY 1

On the first day of the Summit, David MacLeod, chair of the Government sponsored employer-led taskforce on employee engagement, and Nita Clarke, director, Involvement and Participation Association (IPA) and vice chair of the MacLeod Review, highlighted the importance of making employee engagement a priority in the workplace while also making sure the commercial needs of businesses are met. They also encouraged communicators to engage their employees in company strategy through innovative methods as, when presented with company strategy, people don't always associate it, or relate it, to what they actually do in their every-day work routine.

A strong theme over the two days was around the use of emotive video, which was a major focus of Siemens' joint presentation with The Edge Picture Company. Claire Jarvis, director of communications, Siemens and Pete Stevenson, owner & executive producer, The Edge Picture Company, spoke about how, by collaborating together, they wanted to ensure employees were at the forefront of innovation through the use of video. They cemented the point that video was the distillation of the company brand and that film can close the gap between brand promise and employee actions. They both agreed that visual storytelling was the chance to grab your audience and an opportunity to make your message stick. When questioned on the issue of a multi-language audience and how to combat this issue when producing a video, the duo believed that less is more and advised to make the visual as simple as possible - sometimes no spoken word is needed.

Closing the first day, the panel discussion was centered around whether internal communication can transform an organization and was moderated by Richard Veal, head of communication & change management, EMEA, Towers Watson. The panel consisted of Rebecca Hilliard, manager, group internal communications, Shell; Niall Ryan, head of internal communication & employer brand, Harrods; Simon Garcia, head of global communications, Gazprom; Will Foy, head of internal communication, NHS Blood and Transplant; and Victoria Mellor, founder and CEO, Melcrum. One question discussed was: "Is there a risk of IC being drawn in and being the 'voice of the people'?"

Mellor said that she believed this was, actually, a great advantage and that the function of internal communication was to ensure the employee voice was heard. Hilliard agreed that, ultimately, communicators were the representatives of the people and Ryan stated that this action was hugely important in shaping company culture at Harrods. Meanwhile, Foy revealed that his organization was currently reviewing its Employee Value Proposition. Another question posed was: "Does internal communication need a rebrand?" Foy believed that internal communication did not need a rebrand but needed to go back to basics, while Hilliard believed that change communication needed to be defined and seen as part of internal communication, not as a separate entity.

DAY 2

The second day maintained the high energy and momentum of day one. The morning heard speakers Nalin Miglani, chief HR and communication officer, and Phillippa Brown, employee communication manager, Tata Global Beverages, describe how they used a period of change at the organization as a catalyst to create a corporate culture that is now owned and evolved by employees at every level. Launched in 2010 in a bid to engage employees and increase innovation and collaboration, the Think BIG initiative was a "Dragon's Den" style competition, which encouraged employees to put forward new ideas and products to ensure the future success of the business. The campaign proved successful; making a significant contribution to the team's strategic innovation agenda and goals; generating more than 1,300 new ideas; as well as helping people feel part of one global organization and engaged in their company's future.

SSP UK's Paolo Peretti, national operations director - rail, and Jenni Wheller, internal communications manager, continued on the theme of employee engagement, connectivity and collaboration. Having over 60 brands and 10,000 people, of which 80 percent are non-wired, the challenge for IC was trying to reach a workforce they had no direct access to. The solution, revealed Wheller, was a news intranet platform that generates communication for offline employees. "The Hub" allows end users to tag content that is relevant to their brand or a division, for example; a unit manager for Upper Crust is able to tick boxes of content they want to see on the home page, such as news about their own brand and global news. This creates a weekly e-zine, which is generated into a PDF that is then distributed to frontline employees, giving employees from all levels an understanding into what's happening in the business.

Finally, Fiona MacAllan, head of internal & change communication, Nationwide Building Society, and winner of Melcrum's Leader of the Year 2011 award, delivered an engaging session on how the internal communication team at Nationwide increased their KPI scores for leadership communication effectiveness, project communication effectiveness, client satisfaction and employee satisfaction, by creating line of sight from the business strategy to the IC strategy and building a measurement framework.

Why bother with measurement? MacAllan stresses three reasons:

• It builds great credibility for you and your team;
• It justifies your team, your budget;

And most importantly…

• ...No one can argue with hard facts.

 

Hope to see you all next year!

Luke and Nishwa

A glimpse into the "mysterious unknown"

By Tanya Batra, Melcrum

In last week’s poll, we asked:

"When you consider the future for the internal communication function in your organisation, what needs to be your highest priority over the next 3 years, to make this a reality?"

Results revealed:

1. 44% The Drive for Productivity
   Creating an agile organisation that can drive for productivity and increase efficiencies.
2. 29% Corporate Structure, Management and Sustainability
   Building a sustainable corporate culture and ensuring leaders are equipped with the ability to navigate through any economic climate.
3. 14% The Diversifying Workforce
   Meeting the challenges of a diversifying workforce: global/local balance and cross-generational differences.
4. 13% The Post-Recessional Environment
   Addressing the "people-related" implications in a post-recessional environment.

These four trends represent the key findings from a recent research report, "The Future for Internal Communication", which we produced exclusively for members of our Strategic Communication Research Forum, and began based on the premise of the following quote from UK think-tank, The Work Foundation:

 

"Trying to predict the future is an unenviable task. The mysterious unknown becomes the blindingly obvious through the course of time, yet it is usually hindsight not foresight that provides us with that clarity of vision… Even if predictions do not come to pass, anticipating the future helps us to plan for the changing expectations of employers and employees and the implications of change on the working world and wider society".

After extensive research and interviews with business analysts, futurologists, sociologists, behavioural psychologists, senior business leaders and comms experts, we were able to establish these as the four key trends set to shape the business landscape over the next three to five years. From these, we’ve been able to predict the likely implications for internal comms in terms of business demands, and propose solutions and recommendations accordingly.

 

The programme for this year’s 10th Annual Strategic Communication Management Summit was inspired by this report and is interwoven with each of the above trends, providing delegates with foresight and practical examples of approaches from leading companies who are successfully meeting these challenges.

 

"The Drive for Productivity" was indicated as the highest priority for the majority of our poll respondents, and this trend of  “doing more with less” is very much set to continue across organisations over the next few years. Therefore, achieving maximum productivity will be the defining factor for differentiation and growth - especially in the developed world as the markets for people and innovation slow down.

 

The challenge here for IC is in creating an agile organisation that can strive for this productivity and tap into internal intelligence by building a better-connected workforce and maximising collaboration.

At Unilever, the team have already begun increasing workforce efficiencies with their "Agile Working" approach. Through changing work practices, new technologies and creating new working environments, they’ve created a culture which allows maximum flexibility and minimal constraints while importantly increasing productivity and employee engagement. Michelle Pattison, global agile working programme director at Unilever will be sharing her experiences first-hand at this year’s SCM Summit.


Also sharing their stories around the drive for productivity will be senior leaders from:

• Ericsson on developing their corporate intranet into a collaborative, informative space where employees across the globe are exchanging knowledge and ideas;
• NHS Blood and Transplant on using inexpensive tools to maximum effect in the face of drastically reduced budgets;
• Yammer, MS SharePoint and the Intranet Benchmarking Forum, leading a panel discussion on "The Digital Workplace" - covering key areas such as the evolution of the digital workplace, the impact on productivity and day-to-day behaviours, and what works, what doesn’t and what’s yet to come in terms of collaborative platforms. 

 

The other three identified trends will also feature heavily throughout the Summit, with case studies and workshops from leading organisations including TUI UK & Ireland, Harrods, SSP UK, AkzoNobel, MacLeod and Clarke (authors of the 2009 report to government, "Engaging for Success"), Nationwide Building Society, Towers Watson, eBay Europe, first direct, and Great Place to Work Institute.

Rebecca Richmond, group director of content and research at Melcrum will be kick-starting things at the first of two interactive pre-summit workshops with a "future forward" exercise which will see delegates conducting an audit of the current state of IC in their organisation, considering the desired future state, and then identifying ways of "closing the gaps".

And tying things up on day two of the Summit will be Sophie Sheppard, european research and training delivery manager at Melcrum, who’ll discuss the findings from our "Future for Internal Comms" report in-depth, and address key questions around the identified trends. 

If you’d like to read more from our report, "The future for internal comms" you can download a free extract along with the 2011 Summit programme here.

 

Social Media @ Work – the film in full

by Luke Dodd, Features Editor, Melcrum

Able & How’s offices on New Cavendish Street, central London, played host to the premiere of the RedSkyVision-produced short film “Social Media @ Work” on 15 June.

The film featured a host of big names from both the worlds of social media and internal communication. These included Richard Dennison, BT; Madeleine Kavanagh, Deutsche Bank; David Ferrabee, Able and How; Stefan Stern, Edelman London; and Melcrum's very own Rebecca Richmond.

Robin Block, director of RedSkyVision, and the film itself, said: "My aim was to create some thought leadership that would aid the business case when considering utilizing social media channels internally within a business. I'd like internal communicators to use this film as an educational tool to help inform their teams and leadership."

Social Media @ Work provided an overview of social media's place within internal communications and raised some interesting points regarding its future. How will the function develop? What are the challenges? Where will it lead?

For expert opinions on these questions and more, watch the film in full below and tell us what you think....Enjoy!

Luke

Social Media @ Work from Red Sky Vision on Vimeo.

 

Melcrum Podcast Shownotes: May 2011

This month on the Melcrum Podcast - National Grid, Looking Eastwards and the all new SCM Awards!

Melcrum's head of content, Mike Berry, shares key points from his SCM interview with National Grid's global head of employee communication and brand, Sarah Larvor. She talks about the future of communication, and encouraging dialogue within the organization. (00:35)

Why are industry awards so important today? Mike Berry tells listeners how they can enter the SCM awards, what the categories are and and why the time is now. (03:37)

Finally Melcrum's Online Editor, Sona Hathi, and Key Account Manager, Laura Hassan, discuss communication challenges in the East. They've each had a real life glimpse into companies in India and the UAE respectively and share their understanding of what's happening in these emerging markets from an engagement and communication perspective. (6:17)

Listen to the podcast now! (To save it, right click on the link and choose Save Link As).

Intranets remain top of the agenda for IC practitioners

By Tanya Batra, Melcrum

We recently asked our audience of internal comms practitioners what their biggest investment or achievement has been over the last 12 months, and while results varied, a clear front-runner was corporate intranet development, with one in four communicators having invested substantially in building and redesigning their corporate intranet.  

For me this comes as no surprise - working at Melcrum means I often hear inspiring stories from a wide cross-section of IC practitioners on a range of topics. This includes the way intranets are being used to transform IC; from the way leaders are communicating with their staff, and how employees across the globe are connecting with one another, to the way teams are tapping into internal intelligence where they would previously have turned to external suppliers.

It’s important that such great work continues to be recognised, and for this reason we’re hosting the Strategic Communication Management Awards 2011.

If you’ve been busy building an intranet that’s bringing about real organisational benefits, launched new employee collaboration tools, implemented a new social media strategy or have any other examples of delivering tangible results through use of technology - enter our excellence in technology award category and find out how you stack up against the best in the industry.

And in an effort to inspire you and get you thinking about where you’ve made the biggest impact, we’d like to share a powerful case study with you from Mark Morrell, intranet manager at BT Group, who heads up a team in Group Communications, on how they’ve successfully transformed their intranet into an “online environment” for staff instead of just a website surrounded by other applications.

There are seven categories to choose from so if you think you’re more of a rising star or leader of the year – there’s a category to suit everyone. But with a fast approaching deadline of 24 May, we’d suggest you get started soon.

And to set you off in the right direction, we’ve compiled a list of ten top tips to writing a winning entry!

Best of luck! Also, look out for next week’s give away on revisiting strategies and making an impact.

A new dawn for Strategic Communication Management journal

Mike Berry, Head of Content, Melcrum

Some exciting news for Melcrum members this week - we've revamped and re-launched our flagship print journal Strategic Communication Management (SCM).

SCM is the world’s number one subscription title for communicators, read by more than 6,000 senior communicators in large, multi-national organizations.

So what's changing? From April 2011, the re-launched journal will be published in full colour 10 times a year (up from six issues) and boasts a fresh new design supporting articles on the latest hot topics influencing the global communications agenda, interviews with leading practitioners and expert opinion.

Each issue will feature an exclusive interview with a leading IC practitioner. In the re-launch issue we talk to HSBC’s global head of internal communications, Jo Alexander, on the challenges of leading a global function.

Also featured in this issue are case studies written by leading practitioners, as well as thought leadership content from Melcrum’s in-house writers. Opinion articles come from SCM’s bank of expert contributors, including new columnist, former Financial Times management columnist Stefan Stern.

Here at Melcrum we're excited about what the re-launch means for the IC community. Our aim with SCM has always been to balance what communicators need help with now, with a vision of what’s coming next

Moving to a monthly format recognises the almost constant change businesses and communicators face and our aim to help readers focus both on what’s on their desks today and the challenges ahead in the future. You've told us that SCM is an invaluable resource in achieving that.

So I hope your enjoy the new-look SCM. If you'd like to give any feedback or contribute to a future issue then please email me at mike.berry@melcrum.com

And if you're interested in subscribing to SCM journal then please click on the link to Melcrum's membership page.

 

Switching off the communication autopilot in preparation for the challenges of 2011

By Tanya Batra, Melcrum

Economic uncertainty is far from over - not least for the public sector who are entering a period of significant change as a result of budget cuts in 2011.

A report from the CIPD and KPMG* last week warned of the rise in redundancies set to take place over the coming months. Nearly eight in ten local government employers plan to slash staff numbers this year, and one in three companies intend to employ fewer people thanks to the comprehensive spending review.

Private organisations are also fighting their own battles; with squeezed communication teams facing the aftermath of lay-offs, morale of employees left behind and generally having to “do more with less”.

But whether public or private sector - in the face of financial challenges - the internal comms function is often one of the first to be dealt a blow through a lack of resources, when in fact, relaying difficult messages to staff, keeping them informed and maintaining engagement is more important than ever.  

Creating a “line of sight”

When faced with such difficult times, employees need their line managers to turn to for reassurance, answers and vision. It’s easy to forget the importance of face-to-face communication and the powerful line of sight managers can establish for their team members to connect them to the overall business strategy, especially during tough times.

But with line managers being hired for their own specialism’s rather than their explicit communication abilities - what remains a worry and issue is that the second you step away from owning the communication space - the risk of managers not conveying messages correctly and not performing the role as well as you becomes all the more real.

This fear was brought to life for internal communicators at BBVA Compass, a top 15 U.S. bank, when managerial communication was highlighted by employees as being inadequate. However, rather than simply attributing the low ratings as a result of the communication shortcomings of managers, they instead considered the position of managers at a time of large-scale organisational restructuring.

In their response to dealing with line manager communication issues, BBVA acknowledged that the task of making their managers highly effective communicators needed to go beyond team briefings, emails, slick PowerPoint presentations, "selling the company-line" and putting a "positive-spin" on things. They revisited the concept of the cascade, reinvigorated it through technology and pushed managers to embrace it.

Switching off the autopilot

Managers need to be guided by communicators to switch off the communication autopilot and remove the corporate mask when it comes to communicating with and engaging their team members, as well as be given access to tools, techniques and resources that allow them to find and embrace an authentic communication style that works to their individual strengths - allowing them to communicate effectively, whatever the message may be. 

To get your free copy of the compelling BBVA Compass case study, and read about how they tackled issues surrounding line manager communication delivery, visit the website for our upcoming event, Bridging the gap: Making managers better communicators, which takes place on 29 March. 

*Labour Market Outlook, http://www.cipd.co.uk/research/_labour-market-outlook/current-report.htm