Millenials and the social (net)workplace

By Elizabeth Burrell, Melcrum intern.

Social Media. It provides the main means of communication for many and in knowing this, one would think that employees would take advantage of this innovative form of contact. Unfortunately, recent research has shown that employers still see social networking sites such as Facebook, Twitter and Youtube as persistent distractions. Fourty-eight percent of UK businesses are enforcing a ban on such websites, according to the joint survey conducted by PR firm Lewis Communications and IT firm HCL Technologies.

I wonder If such deprivation may cause an office to play residence to some unhappy workers. Furrowed brows, cracking knuckles and tapping brogues will be in full supply as the withdrawal symptoms begin to kick in.

Being a member of Generation Y, I can feel the frustration of my fellow millenials in this state. Such a situation mirrors that of a young child who’s pacifier is taken away. Having been accustomed to the calming sensation that comes with sucking on a dummy, a child will express their feelings of displeasure in the only way they can when such a valuable instrument is taken away.

Although 18 to 24 year-old workers cannot scream at their desks and restlessly pound at keyboards, it's important to note that in a study done by IT services firm Telindus, 39 percent of working millenials “would consider leaving” if social networks were banned in the workplace and a further 21 percent would feel “annoyed” by such a ban. If employees do find it “annoying” when social networking sites are banned then their emotions are sure to affect their productivity which can decrease the quality of service in a company. Surely it's better to have happier workers?

Although I understand that the availability of facebook in the workplace could lead to a lack of productivity among employees, by simply banning the sites employers will only limit potential collaborations within the company. Employers should reach an agreement with employees that although social networking sites may be used, employees are still expected to meet deadlines and targets.

A scheme of trust ought to be built within an organisation so that both the employer and employee are comfortable with their social media guidelines and limitations to fully maximise the potential of the business.

Does social media belong in the workplace? I'd love to know your thoughts.

Has social media signalled the end for email?

by Kate Pledger

The recent decision to begin fazing out email in favour of social media by international software company Atos Origin has initiated strong debate. So much so, that it's prompted senior managers to question the relevance of email-based communications in their companies and contemplate the practicalities of a "zero email" initiative, according to Luke Dodd, Melcrum's features editor in his article “Is email dead?”

Boosting employee engagement and collaboration is increasingly on the agenda for many organizations, according to Melcrum's How to use social media to solve critical internal communication issues report. And with social media delivering on this, it could be said that the demise of email is imminent.

An increased involvement with social networks can improve a senior manager’s interaction with the rest of the workforce and establish a shared sense of identity among workers. In using social networking tools such as Yammer or Microsoft Office Communicator, employees can formulate new initiatives in a quick fire, rapid response environment.

Managers can also gauge the wider attitude and outlook of the staff as well as thoughts regarding new policies or changes in the workplace.The survey reveals a rise in employee feedback and an increase in the accessibility and visibility of business leaders as a result of using social media. A new report from digital research firm Comscore has also noted a significant drop in email usage, most notably in the millennial generation, or young people under thirty.

Significantly, the adaptation of the Atos Origin's communication system was fuelled by a team of under 30s, who determined that the old system of email would hinder the future growth of the company.

But don’t expect email communication to start waving the white flag of surrender just yet. Business consulting and technology services firm Concentra reported that 85 percent of senior managers said email was their communication method of choice. Additionally, some may claim that email usage dates back to the nineties and has remained a significant force in the work place, proving that email is a successful means of communication which most employees feel comfortable using.

These two communication channels also have a notable affect on the message content. What instant messaging is to informality and community, email is to professionalism and authority. 

Eighty percent of people questioned in the Melcrum report endorse social media as more than just a "fad", proving that it shouldn't be ignored by employees intent on using solely email. The face of internal communication is eternally adapting to suit changing generations and demographics. Companies must consider their needs and workplace culture and adjust their internal communications system accordingly.

So it seems email will remain rooted firmly in company infrastructure, standing in the way of total social media invasion...for now at least.

Has social media signalled the end of email? I'd love to know your thoughts.

Melcrum's SCM Summit London - key themes

By Mike Berry, Head of Content, Melcrum

The dust has settled on the 9th annual Strategic Communication Management Summit in London. It was a busy three days for all who attended with workshops, keynote speakers, case studies, panel debates, roundtables and the all important networking.

The theme for the summit was 'Developing communication for a new business era' with several of the speaker case studies focusing on change communications. The presentation from Klavs Valskov from shipping company Maersk was particularly well received by delegates. The video his comms team produced to explain to employees about the huge change process they were undergoing - which he shared with us - was innovative yet simple.

Melcrum was tweeting extensively throughout the summit using the @Melcrum Twitter handle under the #melcrumscm hashtag. Looking back through the stream, it's clear some key themes emerge:

• Credible communications - for example, getting employees experiencing change in their part of the business to film video diaries or blog brings real credibility to the message.
• Harnessing power of external coverage - PwC developed an intranet that brought its internal and external communciations together, and repurposed external press coverage for its internal audience
• Facilitating dialogue - leveraging the power of line managers is the 'Holy Grail' for internal comms, according to HSBC. Also, Nick Howard from Lloyds Banking Group said boosting manager capability would be "the most important work we will do in improving our communications".
• Cascade to Dialogue - a shift is occuring to more engaging communications with employees - Volvo uses CEO lunch to promote active dialogue.
• UGC challenge - employees want to generate their own content, be it blogs, video, podcasts, and want to post it internally. Comms must act as quality control and channel ongoing debates.
• Creating a connection - Action for Children uses channels such as video to build an emotional connection with staff for its campaigns and brand.
• Segmentation - change projects often fail because of improper or poor communications. Segmenting your audience is important for the message.
• Future looking - what skills and competencies will the next generation of communicators require? Hiring profile for internal comms is shifting.
• Social media - top tip: start with something small, get buy-in, measure and use groundswell to build on success.
• Storytelling - the power of storytelling has worked well in several organisations. Helps deliver a consistent, compelling and relevant message.

For a practitioner's perspective, internal comms professional and one-time Melcrum guest blogger Jenni Wheller has posted an excellent summary of the SCM Summit on her Confessions of an internal communicator blog. I'd recommend giving it a read.

The draw to win a much-desired iPad was won by Lotta Gille from Atlas Copco. Congratulations to her - we hope she enjoys her shiny new toy!

Speaker presentations and video will be available online in the next few days. Watch this space.

 

Lack of jobs for communication graduates

by Harriet Thomlinson, Intern

Since the recession, we’re constantly hearing how internal communication is becoming an increasingly recognized function – with practitioners being called upon for everything from layoffs, pay freezes to restructures. Strange then, that for such a valued profession, 14 percent of last year’s communication graduates are still unemployed.

The research, carried out by the Higher Education Statistics Agency, revealed that the chances of students finding work post-graduation depend on their choice of subject, with zero unemployment rate for medicine and education (5%) to be the lowest, while communication has the second highest unemployment level, trailing not far behind computer science (17%).

There clearly aren’t enough comms jobs out there, but perhaps if businesses took the profession more seriously, communication students wouldn’t be in such a predicament and the future of communications would seem a little more optimistic.

Not only is this research particularly negative for the communication industry, but as a prospective university student it makes one wonder, “If highly skilled communication graduates can only manage to find jobs in places that don’t require their trained skills, eg. bartending, waitressing, working in a factory, then what’s the point of studying communications at university?”

So, what’s the cause for such statistics? Is it a case of supply over demand? Is it due to a decrease in the number of communication teams, or the scrapping of them all together as a result of the recession?

And if communication is a temporary casualty of the credit crunch, will these statistics potentially dissuade students choosing communication as a vocation, resulting in a lack of future communicators?

After all, let’s not forget that even the fields with the lowest unemployment figures require the help of both internal and external communications for many different aspects of their function. Take a look at how the World Café concept helped employees re-engage during the recession.

If you’re struggling to find a job in communications, check out Melcrum’s jobsite.

Do you think there aren't enough communication roles out there? I'd love to hear your thoughts.

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.

Time we got back to basics?

By Nishwa Ashraf, Editorial Assistant, Melcrum

Facebook, instant messenger, intranets, mobile alerts, Twitter, MySpace and FaceSpace - these are just some of the channels businesses are using to reach employees. Okay, the last one  doesn’t exist.

With such a wide array of technology at our fingertips, you’d think communicating with employees and delivering key messages couldn’t be easier. But is it any surprise it can actually make things more complicated?

Don’t get me wrong, technology has many fantastic benefits: For disparate colleagues web meetings can bridge the geographical gap, internal microblog applications such as Yammer are useful for announcing low priority messages and keeping colleagues informed on day-to-day work-related issues, training videos and campaigns can reach a global workforce through the intranet, and let’s not forget that for Gen Y entering the workforce technology is second nature. 

But let’s be honest, is it really improving communications in your company or are you just jumping onto the latest bandwagon? 

You may be a social media maestro, but how skilled are you at delivering face-to face messages to frontline employees, without the safety of your computer screen shielding you?  In the same vein, you may be a seasoned face-to-face communicator but are you savvy enough to deal with the technology demands of a new generation of employees?

To be an effective communicator, lies in the title itself. Finding the right way to communicate is the most important thing, whether it’s through social media channels or town hall meetings, because you can roll out a marching band to drum through your message, but if it doesn’t produce results, then it doesn’t mean a thing. 

In some instances, using the best channels to achieve your aim and to suit the message does not always require a song and dance. For example, if your company wants to reduce waste by encouraging employees to switch off power points before they leave the office, then a roadshow is not required. Why not take a leaf out of Aggregate Industries “Green Dot project” and apply a green sticker on light switches as a reminder. Simple, cheap, and more importantly, more effective.

If any of this sounds familiar, then perhaps it’s time to equip yourself with the skills and core competencies needed to produce and deliver exceptional communications. With more than 1,000 graduates in its alumni, the Black Belt Programme builds on extensive research to equip communicators with the key skills and knowledge they need to excel in their roles and impact organizational performance. 

So, are you a technophobe or tech-junkie? And do you need to be a master of one or a jack of all trades to survive and succeed in today's cut throat business world? Let me know your thoughts.

Thanks to the CIPR

By James Bennett, Head of Content, Melcrum

Just a quick note to thank the CIPR for inviting me as Melcrum's head of content, to be the external judge for its internal communication category which took place this morning.

Six very strong shortlisted companies presented their case to myself and two senior internal communication judges and we deliberated for a long time before making a very tough call on which one should be the worthy winner.

Watch this space when I'll be blogging live from the London awards ceremony when the CIPR announces the winning entry on June 16.

It's back! Diary of an Internal Communicator: Jenni Wheller - Week 2

By Jenni Wheller, Internal Communications Manager, SSP UK 

Back by popular demand, over the next four weeks the Melcrum Blog will feature another series of diary entries by an internal communicator. Previously Rachel Allen gave us all a fascinating insight into her new role as head of communication at London Overground Rail Operations.  Read it here if you missed it.

This time our guest blogger is Jenni Wheller (pictured, right) who has recently taken on a new in-house role at SSP UK. Jenni was previously business development manager at internal communications agency theblueballroom, and prior to that, internal communication officer at Thomson Local. We look forward to hearing how she tackles the many challenges she will undoubtedly face in the coming weeks at SSP UK... here's her second week.

What a week! While the volcanic ash has left hundreds of thousands of passengers stranded outside the UK for days (and many are still there) it has also had a significant impact on our business.

The week really started on April 18th as communications went out to our employees who work in units at airports. With the mass closures we had to explain to staff what they were entitled to do in terms of holiday, unpaid leave, and so on. On Monday this was followed by communication to the entire business advising everyone what to do with employees who were stranded outside the UK and unable to attend work.

The cost to our business has been significant and when you’re fighting for budget to make a conference more engaging it couldn’t have come at a worse time – the budget has to stay the same as last year. So, flip cameras at the ready, we’re doing vox pops on the fly. The engaging workshop I had hoped for is still under negotiation and after some great meetings with a few agencies to get ideas, I’m going to do my best to get it on the agenda for the day.

This week also saw my first taste of getting behind the scenes of the operational business. I spent the day with our national retail director who looks after M&S Simply Food and Whistlestop outlets in railway stations, airports and now hospitals. From Farnborough to Birmingham New Street – stopping at Oxford and Reading on the way home I got the chance to see the environment our unit managers are working in and what pressures they face.

So what did they say:

• Some felt isolated from the business.
• Their priority is running the unit, not being on the computer.
• Things are over complicated – three email addresses are not necessary.
• Notice boards are the main communication with team members but not they’re sure how much they’re used.
• There is a split in the business between the divisions.
• They would like to bring the team together, regardless of divisions and meet other unit managers at their station.
• The Employee Forum and recognition in place in the retail division works very well.
• They do use our intranet but only to get HR information or relevant form – they bypass the latest news on the home page.

This was all great feedback and confirmed to me that online communications was not the way forward with our operational employees.

I have also spent some time in our group offices this week, working with the global communication team to understand their audience, communication goals as well as working on a project for a new corporate video for SSP to be used in job fairs, inductions and careers sites.

So what’s next? Doing a shift in a unit. Not just M&S this time, but also Burger King, Upper Crust and Millies Cookies – speaking to the managers has been great but I really want to hear what our team members think about the business.

Having set up a Survey Monkey account I can hopefully get the main survey out to the business next month. This has slipped slightly but in the interim I’m just getting out in the business where I can.

This week has been one of the busiest but it’s been great to see that the communication issues within the units are the same as head office told me they would be – they all know what’s wrong, they just haven’t been able to do anything about it.

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.