Thinkbites Special Aurora edition 2016

special edition

PROVOKING THOUGHT GENERATING DISCUSSION ENGAGING EMPLOYEES DELIVERING RESULTS

... at the Communications Directors’ forum on the Aurora

Getting your tentacles around communications in times of change

You have to call a pig a pig.

There’s no point applying lipstick and dressing it up as something pleasant.

Forum delegate

02

thinkBites

special edition

T Ian Barrow, Client Services Director

he Communication Directors’ Forum saw over two hundred leading professionals in our industry gather on the Aurora for three days of thought leadership, professional development and networking. Knowledge and experience were shared, relationships built and deepened, and leading practice in internal communications given much thought and discussion.

This journal captures the conversation on change communications that took place across several discussion groups – and adds the omnipresent lens of cost constraint and the budgetary squeeze that forms the landscape within which we all work today.

Paul Jones, Senior Engagement Consultant

Today, for many of us, change is business as usual. Sometimes change is driven internally by changes in leadership and/or organisational direction and strategy, and it is in our power to shape the conversation.

But all too often, change is driven by unpredictable external factors – a volatile, complex, transforming market, unexpected falls in the share price, reputational crises forcing urgent cultural changes – and we are fighting to keep up with events and control the conversations happening inside and outside our organisation.

For many employees, change – or its corporate buzzword equivalent, ‘transformation’ – is seen as a uniquely threatening phenomenon. So, how do we engage employees through the process of change? What does experience teach us are the best, triedand-tested approaches to getting your tentacles around communications in times of change? Read on to explore the principles for success and a case study on change communications shared by workshop participants on the Aurora.

One the biggest challenges we face as internal communications professionals is dealing with these demanding and volatile times of change on a tight and increasingly squeezed budget. Being able to maximise the impact of your spending and prove the return on investment to senior stakeholders is vital. Explore more in this magazine on how to use insight to focus your activity, as well as top tips on saving budget shared by participants.

We look forward to hearing your thoughts so you can help in keeping the conversation going the next time we meet, at the Communication Directors’ Forum or elsewhere.

David Clark, Project Manager

The Communications Directors’ Forum was hosted

by Richmond Events aboard the Aurora, 5th – 7th October 2016.

Karian and Box in association with Richmond Events

thinkBites

03

Avoiding a shipwreck: top tips on change comms Conversations at The Communication Directors’ Forum saw leading professionals share their hard-won experience of implementing change programmes successfully in the real world. These top tips are the success factors that make a real difference in engaging employees on change – especially now change is business-as-usual for so many of us.

Involve people meaningfully in the process

Have a Y-fronts comms policy: put the ‘Why’ up front he ‘why’ is so much more important T than the ‘what’ and is key to winning over employees – both through underlining the business benefit and painting a picture of what a better future will look like for the business. ake sure all comms focus on this M rationale first – and pre-empt the sceptical arguments that might undermine your argument in the business by considering carefully where people are right now.

04

thinkBites

Get involvement right and you can deliver so much more. Use network analysis insight and anecdotal feedback to identify influencers and key opinion leaders in your business – and involve this unofficial leadership hierarchy as champions of the change programme.

Pilot your materials and genuinely listen to the feedback – that means being open to changing direction if people don’t buy in to your engagement programme. Make sure you give people enough time to have their say if they want to – especially among your line management populations.

Use the power of positive reinforcement to showcase involvement, telling stories to the business about individuals who have influenced change from the bottom up. Use peer-to-peer recognition in team meetings to involve employees in telling the success story of the organisation.

Make sure your leadership is on board

Say it like it is It can be tempting to hide bad news, but it is completely the wrong thing to do; in the inside-out leaky world we live in, news is on the grapevine before you’ve announced it.

Instead, treat people with respect and call bad news what it is – don’t dress it up to conceal negativity, because people will find it.

It is more of a temptation to try to hide bad news in the private sector than the public; public sector organisations have higher expectations of external disclosure and scrutiny. But, if private sector businesses are to foster genuine trust with employees, it makes sense to be as transparent as possible – saying what you can share and when, even if there isn’t any ‘new’ news.

Equally, be proportionate when talking about change. If something isn’t that big a deal, then treat it appropriately.

The words ‘change’ – and, today, the word ‘transformation’ – triggers certain reactions that aren’t always necessary in communicating your core message.

It sounds obvious, but change comms will be counter-productive and grow the say-do gap if visible leadership behaviour does not reinforce the key messages employees are hearing. Furthermore, communications campaigns often fail to penetrate the ‘permafrost’ layer of middle management, leaving line managers feeling isolated and uninformed and providing oxygen to the rumour mill and the grapevine.

Use the change programme as an opportunity to build a deeper relationship with all levels of leaders, and to clarify engagement responsibilities. Take time to sit down with middle management so they feel they own the programme.

Answer the ‘what’s in it for me?’ question for employees Change is all about people – not the message itself or the channel you’re using.

Focus on your employees. What are their fears and insecurities? What opportunities will come out of the change? What’s in it for them?

Develop a clear, simple narrative that transparently explains the ‘why’, the ‘what’ and shows employees what they have to look forward to in their day-to-day working lives. Use simple, honest colleague-tocolleague language that speaks to them – not corporate waffle or unbalanced propaganda.

thinkBites

05

Case study How a leading financial services company engaged employees on a major merger.

Mergers create many challenges for both companies involved in the process. For this financial company, the greatest challenge was the degree of change and integration required in a relatively short period of time and the need to communicate complex information accurately and maintain levels of positivity across a huge number of sites and employees.

Internal communications at the table from day one

Getting people managers on board

From the beginning, senior leaders recognised the need for communications to both drive the change process through key milestones and integrate the two businesses effectively. The Board and ExCo of the acquiring company were aligned on the business case for the merger, and this supported the creation of a clear narrative for change that emphasised the positive benefits for the business as a whole and individual units within the two companies.

Before cascading the full story to all employees, the business used an ‘activation phase’ to engage people managers and involve them, through train-the-trainer workshops, in understanding their role, defining what new ways of working would mean for their teams, and developing their confidence and capability in engaging employees on change. Key to this process was the perception of involvement: insight had informed the business that managers wanted to feel informed and involved in the change process before being asked to communicate with their teams.

Painting a positive picture Internal communications were able to use this senior alignment to create compelling messaging that provided the ‘what’ and the ‘why’, but also painted a clear picture of how the business would be a great place to be in the future for employees.

Leaders were engaged on the need for honest, authentic, colleague-to-colleague language and a consistent story to make the difference with sceptical employees.

06

thinkBites

Stimulating open, two-way conversations Next, a series of hub-and-spoke events enabled local leaders to host communications events for people managers and employees while linking up with other teams across the business. This enabled high levels of leadership visibility and stimulated open, interactive sessions, in which teams could get to grips with the new ways of working and exploit the wisdom of crowds in defining what the new framework means for them.

Reinforcing the messages

Measuring the impact

A full linked-up campaign through the suite of available comms channels created ‘background’ messaging that reinforced key themes and enabled individuals to explore more about the business strategy and ways of working.

Critically, the business used continuous, integrated insight to chart the impact of messaging. This included pre- and post-event feedback, regular people manager focus groups and depth interviews, and quarterly quantitative surveys.

The key lessons

a

Keep it simple.

Communicate transparently, paint a picture of a positive future and don’t create a change brand – this lessens employees’ sense of involvement in the process.

c

Stimulate conversations.

The wisdom of crowds not only makes people feel involved – talking about ways of working in teams is the only way you will make change a practical reality.

b

Focus on people managers.

There is nothing worse than a manager who hasn’t bought in and disowns responsibility for the change process, pointing the accusing finger upstairs.

d

Control the channels.

A rigorously aligned campaign that uses insight to guide the preferential use of channels will ensure you are in control of messaging – not the grapevine.

thinkBites

07

Know what works for your audiences Using sharp data analysis to focus activity on what makes the difference

Saving money starts with insight

Deep Detractors

xx%

(xx,xxx)

No Hope Leavers

xx%

(xx,xxx)

Anxious Disengaged

xx%

(xx,xxx)

Only by understanding employee preferences and what drives sentiment can you target the levers and channels that will really improve engagement and take people with you on change.

Active Ambassadors

Disappointed Passengers

xx%

xx%

(xx,xxx)

(xx,xxx)

Isolated Champions

xx

%

(xx,xxx)

Frustrated Supporters

xx%

(xx,xxx)

Identify your tribes through segmentation analysis All too often engagement surveys can become a costly activity with a heavy, unfocused report that takes time to wade through.

Integrating HR data sets from across the employee lifecycle with your engagement survey results allows you to pinpoint audience segments with greater accuracy, and to understand more about what makes these tribes tick.

08

thinkBites

Segmentation analysis allows you to identify audience clusters which have different levels of engagement, to see where they are located in the business demographically and what other characteristics they have in common. It helps you create tailored messaging and targeted activity for different audiences that will be much more cost-effective than the shot-in-the-dark strategy unsophisticated research leaves you with.

Pinpoint the right channels to invest in

Emphasise the impact of leaders

Charting the channels colleagues rely on against the channels they would prefer to use helps you understand the ways you can optimise flows of information through your organisation and engage people the right way.

Correlation analysis can help you draw direct relationships between communication activity and tangible engagement results. Here, we’ve pulled out the consistent relationship between leadership visibility and sentiment towards business strategy. As this benchmarked data makes clear, leadership visibility is related not only to how positive colleagues are in terms of support for the strategy, but also their understanding of it and, crucially, what it means for the day-to-day activity in their teams.

100

Evidence like this galvanises leaders into action and shows where resources spent on leadership activity are most effective. It can also help you prove the return on investment for engagement and communications activity with sceptical senior leaders.

Team meetings

Leader townhalls

Those who have seen or heard from a leader in the last few months Those who haven’t seen or heard from a leader in the last few months

Intranet Email

0

Text messages/voicemail

The grapevine

Blogs Use

100

Visualising this data (as in the chart on the right which uses benchmarked data) guides you and your stakeholders to invest wisely in channels that work, like team meetings, as well as reducing investment in those which don’t, like leadership blogs and vlogs. It can help guide leadership activity in the right direction – helping you make the argument that face-to-face leader channels are more effective than conference calls, and encouraging your leaders to get out into the business in the right way.

Leader visibility and understanding of the strategy

Prefer to use

Vlogs

Leader calls

89 70

Support the business ambitions and what the business is trying to achieve Charts use benchmarked data from a basket of leading UK and international brands

82

80 57

Feel informed about what the business ambitions are and what the business is trying to achieve

53

Understand how the work in their team fits with the business ambitions and what the business is trying to achieve

thinkBites

09

Five tips on saving your budget Don’t reinvent the wheel: reuse, recycle, repurpose

1

Start by building on your business’s preexisting comms strategy and channels rather than changing them unnecessarily.

There’s no need to invest in new, flashy platforms when you already have potentially effective channels going to waste with dull, outdated content. Plus, spending big on extravagant campaigns, especially in times of financial difficulty, can be perceived an unnecessary use of money which could be better used elsewhere. Set aside some time to take stock and focus efforts on to what you already have.

2

Invest in comms capability as well as campaigns

Getting your comms capability right will set the foundation for impactful, successful campaigns. The success of a comms campaign starts at the top; with our research showing the importance of leader-led face-to-face comms, it is vital that leaders have a clear view of objectives and can set the standard, so don’t neglect them when you provide training. Spending resources developing leaders and line managers will pay off in the long run.

10

thinkBites

3

Spend well with agencies

Outsourcing communications to experts can lend a fresh pair of eyes to your strategy and challenge your thinking.

Consider what it is you want to gain from working with an agency; a clear understanding of what is required on both ends will make sure all time is spent effectively. Also, don’t be afraid to get external help in short bursts rather than long-term – this will minimise costs while keeping your strategy fresh.

4

Monitor the impact you’re having – and be prepared to shift tack if it isn’t working

5

While focused testing helps you gauge attitudes initially, continuous monitoring will help you keep on top of changing perceptions. Monitoring how your colleagues feel about your approach means you can keep messages current, relevant and informative. The approach that worked last year might not be as effective this quarter – insight will help to clarify this. If your comms are failing to keep up with changing times, you want to know about it.

Test, test and test again

By testing any new comms direction on colleague focus groups early in the process, you can avoid spending time and money developing campaigns that just won’t work. Does your message make sense to people? Is the channel effective in conveying it? Using what you learn from this vital testing phase, you will be able to greatly increase the ROI of all future campaigns by cutting out what isn’t right and using your valuable resources to develop what is.

“The words ‘internal communications’ and ‘shoestring’ go together all too often. The question is: what do we do about it?”

Forum delegate

Paying for a big campaign without investing in comms capability is like giving your managers a Ferrari without teaching them how to drive.

Workshop participant

thinkBites

11

Hope to continue the conversation next time…

The Communication Directors’ Forum 2017 4th – 7th October on board Arcadia.