MacLeod and Clarke on employee engagement - the next chapter

By Tanya Batra, Melcrum

I’ve no doubt you’re all familiar with the names David MacLeod and Nita Clarke, which have fast become synonymous with the term "employee engagement" following their hugely influential report to government, "Engaging for Success", in 2009.

 

When findings from this report revealed the forcibly strong correlation between engagement and business outcomes, the resulting recommendations gained political and national attention, and support for the implementation of initiatives to address the state of employee engagement in UK organisations.

 

In a keynote session at our 10th Annual Strategic Communication Management Summit this year, MacLeod and Clarke will be discussing next steps following this report, including the recently launched and government backed "Employee Engagement Taskforce". And in light of their upcoming presentation, in last week’s poll we asked you:

"Does your organisation fully understand the direct connection between employee engagement and business performance?"

8% Yes, employee engagement is all our CEO talks about.
31% We’re definitely getting there and IC is heavily involved in developing a strategy to link the two.
29% Somewhat, but senior leadership is working with HR on this rather than with internal comms.
32% No, there’s a long way to go before anyone truly understands this link.

The results are hardly surprising and mirror the views and concerns expressed by MacLeod and Clarke in a recent interview published in our SCM Journal. The duo believe they still need to keep making the case for employee engagement and maintaining dialogue:

"The numbers are still disappointing for those who are engaged and the number of organisations who are really maintaining employee engagement… without engagement, you will not be able to meet challenges. Internal communication plays a large part in employee engagement - good communicators make sure the lines of communication are completely open".
  

MacLeod also expresses concern for those organisations still attempting to manipulate productivity and potential in employees through financial reward, especially given the financial constraints most organisations are experiencing post-recession. While people want to earn, bonuses act as little more than short-term motivation. Organisations must instead take a more holistic view towards engagement in order to generate emotional commitment with a transformational impact on business results - one that sees employees offering more of their capability and potential “willingly”.

Get this right says MacLeod, and when times are tough, employees will see themselves as part of the solution, as "saviours" rather than "victims" bearing the brunt of the problem when their bonus doesn’t come through. 


This was the exact approach taken by the IC team at eBay Europe when they faced a downturn in business results and therefore required higher levels of productivity and innovation, but had no money to throw at the problem. They reversed the cause and effect relationship and instead boosted employee engagement levels at a critical time to drive business results, a decision which saw the company return to double-digit growth in just two years.

Continuing this theme, a key focus of MacLeod and Clarke’s presentation will be -

"To what extent does it fall under the remit of IC to ensure employee engagement is a priority when delivering against the demands of the business?"


And with 29 percent of our poll respondents stating that senior leaders are partnering with HR on employee engagement initiatives rather than with IC - given the fundamental role played by IC in maintaining employee engagement – it’s clearly an area that needs addressing. 

 
They’ll also be sharing results from their research on what’s happening in other organisations, and the perspective of CEOs and other business leaders on employee engagement in the broader context of success in their organisations. Joining them at the Summit on day one will be Tobias Huebscher, senior manager internal communications and Richard Davies, employee communications consultant Europe at eBay Europe, who will discuss their employee engagement success story and it’s major contributor, the creation of a "European Team Brief", which has impacted over 500 staff across 11 countries.

  
To view the full programme for this year’s SCM Summit, taking place on 12-13 October 2011, visit the website and download the brochure.

 

BBC internal comms team delivers bad news well

By James Bennett, Head of Content, Melcrum

UK newspaper, The Guardian, has managed to get hold of an email sent out by the BBC's internal communication team to its staff notifying them of it plans to close its final-salary pension scheme to new joiners, and restrict its benefits, in order to stem a £2 billion ($3bn) deficit.

There's never an easy way to announce to your staff that there's a whopping great hole in your company pension fund and that from April 1st 2011 future salary increases for calculating pension benefits will be limited to 1% per year.

They even go on to explain: "In other words, after this date pensionable salary will grow at a maximum of 1% per year, no matter what actual salary increases an employee receives." Brutal but honest and equally inevitable considering many assets within many other pension schemes around the world have also performed poorly due to the global economic downturn. If any of these grand schemes of old are to be successfully phased out and new "sustainable" versions take their place, as appears the case within most large organizations, then this is potentially the only way to go.

Give the BBC internal comms team some credit though, they deliver the news (that many expected) in a very clear and precise way allowing employees to give their feedback via a hotline, email address, and a series of staff seminars hosted by its pensions team from 5th July who will explain the proposed changes in greater detail and give staff the chance to ask questions face-to-face. All existing scheme members will also receive an email from Jeremy Peat, chairman of the BBC Pension Scheme Trustees, with further details of the 2009 interim valuation of the scheme.

So who's next and are you having to deal with a similar change? Let us know.

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.

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.

IABC 2010: Meet the Anti Social Media Guy

By James Bennett, Head of Content, Melcrum

It’s Sunday afternoon in Toronto and the unseasonal rain has given way to bright sunshine. The brightest spot of my day at the IABC’s World Congress so far, however has been meeting a beaming David Grossman of the Grossman Group, friend of Melcrum, leading consultant, and speaker and author and one of America’s foremost authorities on communication inside organizations. Not only is he celebrating the birth of his first child (David – many congrats from everyone at Melcrum) but he’s also here to deliver one of the main presentations at the annual Congress and sign copies of his book, You Can’t Not Communicate, now, according to his website, in its second printing due to popular demand.

David, and his dozen strong team, consult and coach some of the world’s largest organizations and their leaders including Heinz, Lockheed Martin and McDonald’s so his session is arguably one of the highlights of an action-packed program. He gave me an exclusive insight into tomorrow’s session entitled “The communication leader as a coach”.

“I’ll be sharing with delegates what we need to be thinking about as leaders because many of us forget we’re in fact leaders ourselves. Many of us are not trained in leadership or even as communicators [because of our varied backgrounds and training] so this is crucial. I’ll also be sharing best practice on strategy and influence,” he said.

“There is an increase in the number of cross functional teams so having influence and great influencing skills is possible the most important skill a communicator can have today,” he added.

David will also explore how we as communicators can be more purposeful in how we communicate and therefore be more effective as well as the issue of self-awareness and that to be more influential we need to know ourselves more.

Rather interestingly, however, when I mention the fact we’ve both been tweeting in the last 24 hours using the hashtag #IABC, he tells me he likes to call himself the “Anti social media guy”.

“I believe face-to-face communication is on life support and that so many companies are simply attracted to social media because it’s new and shiny,” he said as I lowered my iPhone, put my Flip camera back into my bag and shut down my MacBook. “Too many companies are using social media as an ‘it’ and not as an ‘and’. It’s not the be-all and end-all shiny solution we all think it is, it’s an added extra that companies can use.”

He believes the majority of the world’s largest businesses are using social media with little thought as to how it can contribute to the organization’s overall strategy and that its use is destroying the integrity of face-to-face conversations and replacing it with “hidden conversations”. This is arguably true to some extent with many companies confused as to the role it should play inside the corporate framework. There are, however some successes. He cites IBM and Cisco Systems as two obvious examples. If you’re struggling with social media why not read Melcrum’s new 150-page report that will be on sale next week. Email me your details and I’ll be sure to send you more information.

In the meantime I think I’ll tweet this blog.

Has email passed its sell-by date?

By Nishwa Ashraf, Editorial Assistant, Melcrum

It’s personal and can reach a wide audience, both geographically and numerically.

For the best part of 40 years since its invention, email has provided a productive solution for communication.

But if you’re often finding yourself wasting time foraying through the junk and spam clogging up your inbox, rather then dealing with business that matters, you’re one of many employees seemingly shying away from using social media as a means of communication.

Employees are spending an average of six hours or more a week reading and sending internal emails, according to research from business consulting and technology services firm Concentra.

It’s the equivalent of 41 working days, or just over eight weeks, every year.

The study, which was completed by British employees in a range of industries including healthcare and the financial services, revealed that 33 percent of employees questioned admitted they spent six hours or more drafting and reading emails, every week. A further 28 percent said they take between three and five hours a week to keep on top of internal mail.

And for 85 percent of senior managers and 88 percent of HR teams, email is still the communication channel of choice, despite the growing number of social media channels available for business use over recent years.

Conversely, 50 percent of respondents believed that less than half of the internal emails they receive are useful.

And with the abundance of communication channels available today such as social media tools linked to intranets and portals, it begs the question: Why aren’t more communicators embracing social media tools when email has so many inherent flaws?

Plenty of business communication and workflow is centered around email, but for the time-conscious, the results are hard to ignore. It’s ridiculous to think that so much time (and money) is spent tunneling through a mountain of email, that’s mostly filled with junk.

Whether it’s web- or server-based, email for communicating and managing workflow has its limitations:

• Junk/Spam: Our mailboxes are brimming with junk mail that’s ever growing. Even the most intelligent email filters can’t prevent all spam sneaking through.

• Security: Business documents sent over email are not confidential.

• Viruses: There is no certification mechanism for email senders, which is why computer viruses are most commonly delivered through email.

• Delivery: There is no guarantee your email may reach the intended person; your filter may mark important documents as spam.

• Real-time: Delays in replying prevent immediacy in conversation.

• Ubiquitous access: For businesses that use server-based emails, it can be problematic for remote users to access their emails, hence the popularity of web-based email.

• File sharing: Both parties may not see identical file and directory structures, depending on the users email platform.

• Application framework: Email is primarily a message-orientated service.

Of course, I’m not dismissing email entirely – it has its place within a business environment. Many internal communicators maintain that email is the most effective channel for companywide corporate messages, but on a micro scale where messages are orientated toward smaller teams of employees, using internal email for communicating is akin to snail mail. Line managers, for example, would be better off using an instant messenger application or internal microblogging platform like Yammer to communicate with his or her team of employees. By simply embracing and encouraging the use of social media tools, communicators can quickly prevent delays and reduce the amount of junk email sent and received throughout the organization, saving both time and money.

Could social media channels be the long-term solution for communication and workflow processes?

What are your thoughts?

To hear more about how communicators are using social media in a way that makes a real difference to their business, look out for Melcrum's forthcoming Social Media for Internal Communications conference, in Belgium. See Melcrum.com for more details.

When will internal comms finally make a TV appearance?

By James Bennett, Head of Content, Melcrum

Just like the viewing patterns of the majority of people who watched BBC 2's 'Inside John Lewis' documentary last night I'll keep it brief.

Now that internal communicators and the value of the function is finally being recognised by global executive boards, surely now is the time for us all to step up and step out of our shells and into the public eye? Rather than the head of PR or a shaky-handed cameraman (it may work for Oscar-winning The Hurt Locker but not when you're touring the homeware section discussing how many bathmats have been sold in the last hour) and his documentary team guiding us round Lewis's British stores, it should have been the retailer's head of internal comms. They could have highlighted how well the comms team coaches the CEO, explain the work they've done to engage employees during the toughest year in the company's history or perhaps guided viewers through the ins and outs of the its change comms strategy?

The BBC described it as a "television first" going behind the scenes of "one Britain's biggest and best known department stores - as it tackles changing tastes, tougher competition and the worst recession for 80 years". And that's exactly why I watched it. But no. Opportunity missed. Instead it was simply an exercise in self-promotion.

John Spedan Lewis, the Partnership's founder, pioneered the commercial co-operative making every staff member a partner and handing out a share of the profits - a unique selling point to any employee current or prospective. We saw none of that in yesterday's episode. Sure, the majority of employees seemed happy to be there. No wonder, each one received a 13% bonus last year. Even the robotic wedding list sellers, who walk innocent newly-engaged couples through which brand of bread bin they should allocate to their guests (on average £60 per head and £1,000 per wedding) seemed engaged enough but it always felt as if the real story lay elsewhere.

A preview for next week's instalment showed a group of disengaged employees complaining that being part of John Lewis wasn't what it once was. Good enough TV fodder perhaps, but again, why didn't the internal comms team step up to the plate and explain what they're doing to turn this situation around?

Judging from Penny Lawson's comments, head of internal communications at British Airways, at this week's Melcrum third annual Change Communication conference - who took time away from an incredibly stressful situation dealing with a severely disrupted workforce - (search #changecomms on Twitter for some of the highlights) I'd much rather be a fly on the wall inside BA. Now there's a story.

Amidst ambiguity one thing is certain: Your workforce is not satisfied

 

Was it just a week ago we were cheering the year-end highs of the Dow Jones and the healthy drop in the unemployment claims?

The headlines today have a gloomier cast.

US growth prospects are bleak for the next decade, says Reuters, reporting from the annual American Economic Association meeting this Sunday.

House sales – which were making a comeback – are likely to fall again, says the National Association of Realtors.

One thing is for sure: there’s no shortage of opinions about when, how and if the economy will make a turnaround.

“If the Great Recession has indeed relaxed its grip on American life, it has been replaced by something that might be called the Great Ambiguity,” where lack of consensus and uncertainty reign supreme, says Peter Goodman of the New York Times.

Reading the tea leaves of the market aside, there is one headline that cannot be ignored and speaks loud and clear:

“US Job Satisfaction at Lowest Level in Two Decades”

This came from The Conference Board, which released its annual report on job satisfaction levels today:

• in 1987 job satisfaction was 61% and it has steadily declined since then; today it’s at 45%
• 22% of respondents did not expect to be in their current job in a year
• all age groups and income brackets showed levels of dissatisfaction

Perhaps most surprising is that these falling dissatisfaction scores do not appear to be tied to market cycles – through good times and bad, workers have grown increasingly unhappy, says the Conference Board.

This means companies cannot assume an economic upswing will result in more engaged, more satisfied workers. Re-engaging and reinvigorating your workforce is not optional – and it needs investment today.

We’re here to help. Next month is our annual Employee Engagement Conference, February 23-25, 2010, and we have best-in-class companies detailing how they’ve made engagement a priority and reaped the rewards. Here's a look:

• NetApp, IKEA, Exterran and others show how social media can make an impact on engagement.  
• ConAgra Foods outlines the bottom line impact of the company’s engagement efforts.
• Juniper Networks uncovers the power of storytelling to drive meaningful connections between employees and bring about engagement.

These companies and others like them are not waiting for a new economic outlook to invest in their people – they are taking action. What are you waiting for? Find out more here.

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.

US firms favour internal comms as no.1 retention tool

By James Bennett, Managing Online Editor, Melcrum

Retaining key staff is the Holy Grail of maintaining productivity and profitability during an economic downturn, however retention often involves boosting salaries to keep- employees sweet – something that very much against the culture of almost every business that has suffered at the hands of the worst recession in 60 years.

That said a recent survey out today by workforce productivity improvement group i4cp found that 18% of high-performing organizations have already taken the step of increasing compensation levels to reduce turnover, compared to 7% of lower performers, while the same ratio of high performers (18%) and 24% of lower performers plan to implement pay raises in the next six to 12 months.

The highlight, however is that this doesn’t necessarily have an effect on staff retention, internal communications does, with the majority of US respondents (81%) naming the function as their favored method. Among higher market performers, a massive 91% pointed to communication as their top method of staunching turnover, compared to 71% of lower performers. An increased focus on talent management (77%) was the second-highest choice, with succession planning (59%) third.

Looking to the future and the eventual recovery that is slowly materializing, 70% of higher-performing companies said they were planning to stem the number of staff departures by increasing their focus on succession planning and talent management with leadership training being planned by 66% of higher-performing firms. Lower performers said they planned to focus first on talent management issues (71%), followed by 62% who plan to increase internal communication.

The study showed that higher performers are more likely to involve employees in the process, however an incredible 21% admitted they had never surveyed their employees about engagement issues, compared to a more credible 36% of lower performers. Both higher and lower-performing companies that conduct surveys are  most likely to survey their workers annually. More reassuringly, and based on the results of their most recent surveys, 49% of higher performers reported an increase in engagement, compared to a quarter (26%) of lower market performing organizations.