The Melcrum Blog

Leadership 2.0: 10 ways a CEO should communicate to employees

2009-10-22T12:36:47+01:00

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:

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

SCM summit London 2009: The 10 communication commandments

2009-10-20T14:31:23+01:00

By James Bennett, Managing Online Editor, Melcrum

Vivienne Huybrecht, general manager group communication at KBC Group gave a fascinating insight into her tumultuous year at one of Belgium’s largest financial institutions at this morning's 8th annual Melcrum Strategic Communication Management Summit at London’s Tower Hotel.

Vivienne wasn’t just in charge of internal communications, when the financial crisis hit KBC faster and harder than anyone could ever have predicted she was also charged with looking after every aspect of external communications and media relations – a huge task for anyone but somehow she managed it and survived. Mainly, she told me, because of her sporty nature and her motto of never giving up. Look out for a quick video interview in the next few days.

At the height of the storm she was receiving more than 100 phone calls from journalists day and night, saw KBC’s share price plummet and to top it all off her chief executive had a heart attack in May and had to stand down. It was sobering stuff and one of the best internal communication stories I have ever heard.

One of the best elements of the presentation was her 10 communication commandments during a crisis. Here they are:

Visible leadership – staff should be able to see the whites of their eyes
Be honest and open at all times
Tell it like it is
Be confident!
New CEO mantra – overperform and under promise
Be clear and keep it simple
Move fast and decisively
Make no promises about the future unless you can achieve them with absolute certainty
Use face-to-face communications as much as possible
Never give up

Living in the clouds: Is this the future of comms?

2009-10-12T17:42:17+01:00

By James Bennett, Managing Online Editor, Melcrum

As business and the world around us continues to evolve and speed up we constantly need to adapt to our surroundings, more so now of course as companies across the globe cut back, trim budgets and get used to life in a long-term recession.

So what should they do? I’m sure if everyone knew the answer they’d have done it by now. But it only takes one and the rest will follow. The one in this case being global services firm Rentokill that is switching all its 35,000 employees in 50 countries from 180 different email domains and 40 mail systems to ‘cloud based email’ (email that sits within a virtual online server and that is managed by a cloud service provider such as Google or Yahoo) provider Google Apps by 2010 savings them millions in costs and at the same time encouraging all of its employees to use a far simpler, more integrated and collaborative set of tools with which I’m sure the majority are already familiar. We all know how to use Google effectively; we don’t all know how to use Lotus Notes or Microsoft Outlook.

Google Apps is a service from our friends at Google that allows you to use custom domain names with several Google products featuring various Web applications with similar functionality to traditional office suites, including Gmail, Google Calendar, Talk, and Docs. The standard edition is free and offers the same amount of storage as regular Gmail accounts. The Premier Edition, which offers 25 GB of email storage, is around US$50 or $33 per year, per account.

This could well turn out to be an internal communication masterstroke both in terms of cost but also by bringing every employee closer together onto one system allowing them to share calendar information, chat live to one another, and have access to email translation and video.

Not only that the system will also provide email access to 20,000 regular PC users, as well as 15,000 on-the-road staff. The remote workers, who did not originally have a company email account, will now be able to access Google mail from any internet-connected device such as a PDA, iPhone or home computer.

Are any of the businesses you work for/with considering this or have they already switched over? Let me know either on email: james.bennett@melcrum.com, on Melcrum Communicators' network on Linked In that has 2,500 active users or tweet us on Twitter. We’d love to hear from you!

US firms favour internal comms as no.1 retention tool

2009-10-12T15:44:56+01:00

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.

Six days away from largest gathering of internal communicators in Europe!

2009-10-07T17:47:31+01:00

By James Bennett, Managing Online Editor, Melcrum

We’re now less than a week away from the largest gathering of internal communicators in Europe. A huge turn out of 187 of your peers, colleagues and competitors will be attending the Melcrum SCM Summit in London between 13th and 15th October 2009 listening to and debating with some of the brightest minds in the profession including Best Companies Partnership’s Wayne Clarke, Channel 4’s Undercover Boss Stephen Martin and a host of senior practitioners from some of Britain’s largest and most important companies, organisations and bodies such as HSBC, Vodafone and the Department for Business Innovation and Skills.

If you're not convinced listen to our exclusive pre-summit interviews with some of the events biggest names.

Despite the workshops on 13th October selling out faster than ever before, we have managed to persuade The Tower Hotel to increase its capacity to more than the 150 cap, so if you or one of the team still want to come along, all you need to call us now. You won’t be sorry.

Discussing how to rebuild trust, re-engage employees and increase performance has never been more important than today – an era where both budgets and resources have been slashed in greater quantity and numbers than ever before. And it is you, the internal communications profession, that has the responsibility to change that downwards spiral and bring the UK and the rest of the business world back ito prosperity once again. Never has your role been greater.

As our keynote speaker Wayne Clarke says: “Fifteen of the top 100 companies doubled their turnover and tripled their profit in five years.” And what seems to be consistent among these high-performing organisations? “They all make effective use of line managers to translate and communicate core company objectives, achieve high levels of employee engagement, and ultimately, impact the bottom line,” adds Clarke.

We look forward to seeing you next week. Don’t miss out, be there!