The Melcrum Blog

Productivity tool or a procrastinator’s best friend?

2012-02-07T11:05:49+00:00

By Tanya Batra, Melcrum

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Why live without email?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Seven tips to keep your employee magazine fresh and relevant

2012-02-03T14:54:16+00:00

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?

2012-01-25T14:56:14+00:00

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

What language are you speaking?

2012-01-24T12:00:00+00:00

By Tanya Batra, Melcrum

Consider the following questions:

How well do you know your internal audience?
How long have they been employed at the organisation?
Who do they trust?
What are their frustrations and concerns?
Do they use social media outside work?
What’s their motivation for coming to work?

If you don’t know the answers, it’s unlikely that you’re speaking the same language as your audience.

Far too often, and for many and varied reasons, the importance of really knowing our audience is overlooked, and a one-size-fits-all approach is wheeled out yet again.

And while the increase in comms channels now available to us can create the illusion that we’re successfully reaching out to and communicating with all of our employees, the reality is that it’s just more likely that our messages will be lost in the fierce competition to gain an audience’s attention.

The simple fact is that our communications should be tailored, targeted and relevant in order to resonate with our audience. And yes, while it does require an investment to establish an understanding of the different segments and preferences within your audience, the alternative has a far greater cost.

Psychoanalysis(!)
One possible approach to segmentation is to focus on attitude and motivation, and leverage them to create an understanding of what drives employees in your organisation, how they feel about the company and in turn, how best to communicate with them to achieve your desired outcome(s).

Brainwaves Consultancy takes just such a psychological approach through Personal Construct Psychology, working on two key assumptions: 1) that we are a product of our experiences, and 2) that our perception of the world is revealed in what we say.

The research methodology involves asking employees a series of questions around a specific topic. Based on their responses, employees are categorised into segments, each of which has a distinct preferred method of communication that can then be utilised.

Sound interesting?
In our Mastering Audience Segmentation report, we published a case study with Sainsbury’s and Royal & Sun Alliance around the use of this methodology. If you’d like to read more you can download a copy of the full case study here: http://bit.ly/wko0RX

The concept of audience segmentation is also covered in The Internal Communication Black Belt 1 Programme.

Under the guidance of our expert trainers, attendees discuss a range of influential theories of segmentation, learn how to effectively build an audience profile and identify the most appropriate method of segmentation for their organisation.

Black Belt 1 covers a host of other core IC areas too - visit the website to view the full course overview and learn more about the programme.

Some closing thoughts on internal communication

2012-01-20T09:00:00+00:00

Mike Berry, Head of Content, Melcrum

After 16 months as Head of Content at Melcrum, I’m leaving for pastures new. As such, I thought I’d offer up some closing thoughts on the hot topics as I see them for internal communicators. This is not an exhaustive list by any means, or ranked in any particular order, but just some of the areas that I think practitioners need to keep front of mind.

EVP
The latest three-letter acronym on the block is EVP – employee value proposition. But it is much more than just the latest buzzword. In simple terms, it’s “the deal” between the organization and its employees; what each party expects from one another. Unquestionably this relationship has changed in recent times as companies struggle to navigate the choppy economic waters, so if you’re not defining and articulating your EVP, there’s a fair chance your employees are putting their own spin on it. Towers Watson’s latest research shows a strong correlation between those companies with high communication effectiveness and a clearly articulated EVP.

Managers
Line managers remain the most critical channel for communicating with employees. They’re frequently cited by staff as their most trusted source of information, they know how people have reacted to issues in the past and how they’ll probably respond in future. But this responsibility is not easy and is something the majority struggle with. Training and coaching managers to become better communicators and ensuring they’re equipped with the right tools and support to do that is absolutely key to effective communication; it’s where practitioners can add the greatest value to the business.

Digital workplace
As obvious as it might sound, this encompasses so much more than just communicating and engaging with remote or flexible workers (although that is part of it). The digital workplace has big implications in terms of organizational culture, employee behavior, what role technology plays, the notion of collaboration and physical locations. Organizations that get ahead of the curve on this will have a major competitive advantage, as it offers a more productive, innovative way of doing business.

Integrated communication
Over the previous decade, there’s been a fight to establish internal comms as a professional discipline in its own right. But now, with social media blurring and crashing through organizational boundaries, IC has to embrace greater integration. In an article for SCM journal last year, (sub) Bill Quirke says communication functions are integrating on a range of fronts: across disciplines, geographies, corporate centers and business units. “Playing as part of an integrated team means internal communicators have to raise their game,” he says. “They have to be at least as good as their colleagues in other communication disciplines.”

Mobile enterprise
Mobile is changing everything, including what employees expect from internal communications. By 2013, it’s predicted that mobile will replace PCs as the most common device to access the web. As employees increasingly see rapid improvements in their mobile user experiences outside of work, they’ll demand it from their organizations as well. Companies realize that by allowing a mobile way of working they help employees not only become more efficient but also allow them to perform more of their tasks closer to the customer. However, being truly mobile is not just about being reachable by phone: it’s also about being able to access messages and corporate data when needed and not being tied to one particular device.

Gamification
Gartner suggests that by the end of this year, the majority of the top Fortune 500 organizations will be using gamification – or serious gaming – in training, and by 2015 more than half of organizations will gamify their innovation processes. Games offer instant feedback about progress, can engage and motivate people, encourage collaboration and facilitate problem solving. We’ve already seen several creative examples – from ethics training to rewarding employee ideas; it will be interesting to see how gamification is integrated into the communication mix.

Professional development
Getting to the status of “trusted advisor” is akin to the Holy Grail for the majority of the profession. Melcrum’s Key Benchmarking Data for Communicators 2011 research (sub) shows there is a greater focus on developing the strategic and consultative skills that will help achieve that goal, rather than the tactical and core skills of the traditional communicator. Working with and supporting leaders, measuring the effectiveness and impact of communication activities, strengthening the internal brand, strategic planning – these are the skills that will enhance the function’s credibility and position internal communication as a key strategic player.

More with less
Achieving more with less (or at least no additional) resource is the new business reality. As Western economies struggle to return to sustainable growth and leaders continue to scrutinize every aspect of their operations, there will be more focus on what value, specifically, internal communicators provide. This means more reviews of the function with the aim of increasing effectiveness and reducing costs. Making sure you’re fit for purpose and measuring the effectiveness of what you do becomes essential.

What do you think of the list? Are there any that should be added? As I depart, all that remains is for me to wish you all good luck with the challenges that lie ahead.