How to manage internal communication - but will it win an award?

Having criticised the IABC Gold Quill Awards in the November 2005 newsletter for an incredible focus on programs and campaigns (at least in the brochure), I promised I’d outline how to win a Gold Quill, Golden Target (or whatever) award for quality internal communication without being distracted by the constant delivery of communication programs.

 

At the outset I must stress that I have the view that if you’re a communication manager (or internal communicator of any description) your role is to help the organisation achieve its objectives by doing whatever you need to do to help everyone communicate as effectively as possible. That’s communication without an “s” as experts like Garth Tompkinson and Kevin Thompson would stress. Your effectiveness is measured by the contribution you make to quality communication not just the production of various programs (or communications with an “s”).

 

UK guru Kevin Thomson once gave a wonderful talk at an IABC International Conference about “The problem with communication is one little letter” referring to the difference between communication and communications. Roger D’Aprix and others had been referring to communicators’ undue and ineffective focus on programs as a “craft” focus for many years.

 

An analogy is the production of advertisements (campaigns, programs). Apparently many award-winning advertisements are not effective (i.e. they don’t sell the product or service), while many ghastly advertisements are very effective (e.g. the dreadful old “where do you get it” John Singleton advertisements here in Australia).

 

It’s noticeable that management gurus speak of organisations being like (biological) organisms with a life of their own with everything being interconnected. Organisational change experts mostly understand how all the bits fit together. They think in “process” mode with change being an ongoing process without an end. Yet many communicators think in program mode – “we’ll do this program and when we’ve finished this we’ll move on to the next program”. (As Richard Bevan used to say “when will communicators realise that communication is NOT a bunch of programs?”)

 

Visiting countless organisations over the years to conduct communication audits, I have noticed that the more framed communication awards there are on the walls of the communication(s) department (mostly, of course, for programs) the more likely it is that the communication audit will reveal poor internal communication.

 

What’s more, in dozens of communication audits I have conducted in more than 20 years, I have only ever encountered one communication program (an electronic internal newsletter) that correlated strongly with overall communication in the organisation. Most programs and media have little, if any, impact at all on the quality of communication (and mostly have correlations of around 0.1). The key drivers of employee communication are almost always the quality of senior executive communication, upward communication (i.e. management listening), change communication, cross-functional communication, and how well employees are involved and consulted. This table shows what the typical correlations are with “I’m satisfied with communication in my organisation”.

 

So having explained what a communicator’s real accountability is – the contribution to quality communication, rather than simply producing programs – what should communicators actually be doing?

 

Clearly the answer has to with working mostly on those things that make a difference (i.e. not newsletters, roadshows, email or the intranet). Many communicators don’t do this, of course. And, to my way of thinking, many of the awards rules encourage a concentration on these “insignificant” things.

 

When I presented my audit findings (and correlations) to an IABC group in Sydney some years ago, I asked the group “why is it that communicators persist in spending most of their time working on things that don’t really make a difference to communication?” One person (seriously) said something like “we were trained to write and this is what we like doing – either in print or online - it doesn’t matter what works best, we’ll keep doing what we like until someone stops us”.

 

So maybe those communicators who submit entries for communication awards for print programs without evidence of improvement in communication are guilty of “having lost sight of their objectives they redoubled their efforts”.

 

A few years ago I did a national tour from Perth to Cairns conducting focus groups for two organisations, each with about 35,000 employees. One organisation had eliminated regular printed publications, while the other had a range of glossies. In the first, not one of the hundreds of employees I interviewed mentioned that they missed or wanted a regular publication. In the second, only one employee (in a couple of hundred) could name one story in a publication that could possibly have helped employees do their jobs better.

 

Another problem with communication awards is that they almost always require that the communication effort (program, campaign) be completed within the year of the award. But it can take years to make an impact on the quality of internal communication (which, of course, largely depends on the quality of the relationships throughout the entire organisation).

 

Now, having said all that by way of explanation and introduction, if you submitted an entry like this would you win an award for internal communication?

 

 

Since commencing with this organisation I’ve worked with people in all parts of the organisation and have improved the quality of communication across the board as measured by employee surveys, communication audits and upward feedback surveys.

 

 

We’ve ensured that we communicate effectively to both recruitment consultants and job applicants so they understand exactly what we are trying to achieve in the organisation (vision, mission, objectives) and how we operate (our values and culture). We ask a lot of questions of job applicants so we understand their job and career needs and preferences. We have introduced the use of various psychometric instruments and trained all managers in “Targeted Selection” (DDI) techniques so we recruit only people who will enjoy working in our culture and who are highly likely to succeed. This has reduced our employee turnover significantly, thus improving our productivity and saving a fortune in recruitment costs.

 

 

We are extraordinarily thorough in our induction of employees. Depending on the organisational level of new starters they may go from a minimum of one week full time up to a month in the case of senior managers.

 

Our basic induction process involves various people from the organisation explaining the history (stories) and vision of the organisation, the values and required ethical behaviour (interactively with case studies, role plays and examples), our customers, our competitive advantage, competitors and so on. All senior executives spend time in discussion with small groups with inductees.

 

For managers, sales people and selected customer-facing employees the induction process includes visits to customer sites with sales personnel.

All inductees get to visit the main parts of the company, especially their internal customers. They receive well-written and illustrated process manuals that are extremely easy to read. We test for comprehension. 

 

In fact, a key feature of our induction process is constant assessment. We use paper and pencil tests, interviews and group discussion sessions daily to ensure inductees understand our vision, values and ethical requirements. At each stage we make it easy for any participants who don’t feel comfortable with our objectives or culture to decide to leave the organisation with respect and dignity (and with a significant lump sum payment as, after all, we selected them).

 

Incidentally, we don’t put employees on probation. The communication meaning of probation is that we don’t trust our own recruitment processes. When we hire people we give them every support and stand by them. If they don’t succeed we have failed, not them.

 

 

Over the years I have gained the trust and respect of all members of the executive team and have managed to convince them, especially the CEO, that the quality of their communication with the workforce is crucial to organisational performance. They all spend a large part of their time engaging with groups of employees (generally no more than about 40 at a time to enable meaningful interactions). I work with each of them on the content and presentation of their talks, especially to ensure the stories and symbolism are consistent.

I have arranged coaching and counselling for executives on their personal communication styles, particularly to deal with feedback from staff in our regular communication audits and employee surveys (we always include items in these to seek feedback on perceptions of executives’ communication efforts).

 

I have convinced executives to take action on managers and supervisors who are shown to be not good communicators (in our upward feedback process). Initially coaching and counselling are provided, but if improvement is not evident people who are not good communicators are removed from management roles.

 

 

I’ve always stressed that communication is two-way. We can only function effectively as an organisation if our employee’s ideas and concerns are heard. As well as using formal communication audits, employee surveys and upward feedback surveys, I’ve insisted that all supervisors and managers are able to get their employees’ ideas and concerns listened to.

 

In addition to this, the sessions run by executives enable them to hear what is on the minds of employees. All formal communication efforts have feedback mechanisms built in. With email and intranet communication efforts this is relatively easy, and I monitor the feedback and plan future communications to address the issues raised. If there is consistent feedback indicating concern about a particular issue we arrange focus groups of employees to truly understand employees’ concerns.

 

 

I’ve also convinced executives and managers that the key to effective implementation of change is excellent change communication. We never undertake change efforts without extensive research to enable us to understand the impact on various stakeholders, and we take this into account in planning our changes. We work hard at understanding and respecting the needs and preferences of our various employee groups, and we always ask managers and supervisors first about changes before “imposing” them on the workforce.

 

We communicate “early and often” and always monitor the impact of our communication efforts to assess the extent we achieved the objectives we set for them. Our managers and supervisors understand that our communications are only as good as the employee behaviour change (if any) they elicit.

 

 

We recognise that in managing communication on any aspect there is a continuum that goes from “tell, to sell, to consult and involve”. Ideally we involve employees affected in the decision making process to the extent we can. Where this is not possible, we consult employees to explain the reasons for the change and work with them to manage the impact of the changes. We avoid the “tell” and “sell” end of the spectrum.

 

 

The effectiveness of our organisation depends on the quality of cooperation and communication between internal suppliers and internal customers. We have mapped all the various “hand-offs” in the workflow process, and we regularly ask internal customers to clarify their expectations and provide feedback on the levels of cooperation and communication they receive from those they rely on.

 

Where possible, we enable employees to spend time in other areas (e.g. on visits, projects, exchanges, rotations and reliefs) to better understand others’ needs. And we encourage teams to invite their customers and suppliers to address them in team briefing sessions.

 

 

We recognise that many employees are not that interested in general company information (e.g. as in other organisations they mainly use the intranet to search for things rather than to keep up-to-date on the company’s news). So we ensure that important information is conveyed in a number of different, and mainly face-to-face, ways. We do put information on the company intranet (including a monthly broadcast CEO message by video streaming) and we do send email messages to various employee groups about things that might affect or interest them. We even use broadcast voicemail and SMS on those rare occasions when this is justified.

 

Important information is passed on by managers or supervisors and in sessions with executives. We ensure that managers and supervisors are able to explain what’s going on to their people and what news means to their work area. A lot of effort is put into organising visits to enable senior executives to discuss issues with small groups of managers and supervisors.

 

 

We go to a lot of trouble to communicate and get employee feedback on our vision, mission, strategic direction and values. Mostly this is done in executive briefing sessions and lunches with employees. Managers are also expected to understand these things and report employees’ comments and concerns.

 

 

Before anyone is appointed a people manager or supervisor, either from inside the organisation or outside, they are assessed with psychometric instruments and thorough behavioural interviews to minimise the risk that they are not good communicators or people managers.

 

Moreover, before anyone takes up a role responsible for managing our people we provide appropriate training and feedback on personality traits and management style. A personal and confidential coach is provided.

 

Most of our managers and supervisors are reported by their subordinates as being good communicators and we are constantly working to improve (by providing 360 degree and upward feedback, training, coaching and counselling) for those who are not rated favourably. We take action when our efforts fail and those who are not going to be satisfactory people managers and communicators are reassigned to non-management positions (or terminated if they don’t find this acceptable).

 

In addition, we provide ongoing feedback and support for all our managers and supervisors, even those rated very well by their people.

 

 

We try to assess how well we’re going with ongoing measurement of our effectiveness in various ways.

 

We use both employee opinion surveys and quantitative communication audits at least each two years to (a) benchmark how we are going in each area (senior executive communication, upward communication, etc.) against Australian norms (b) compare our progress over time in each area, and (c) identify the correlates or key drivers of organisational and communication satisfaction so we can concentrate our efforts on those things which genuinely make a difference.

 

We use upward feedback and 360 degree feedback surveys for all managers.

 

But more importantly we check what impact our communications have on our workforce. We set clear objectives for our communication efforts and we assess the extent we have achieved these. Constant feedback is sought from our various employee stakeholder groups to ascertain the meaning they get from our various messages and what behaviour change, if any, we have achieved. We then modify our communications (approach, content or both) as a result.

 

We continuously seek out employees’ comments on changes proposed. Where the issue is sensitive we use external professionals to conduct confidential interviews and focus groups so we can truly understand the thinking of our people.

 

 

I could go on, but I think you’ve got the drift. We don’t bother to produce any regular publications these days. But we do write and print materials when there is justification for documenting information employees may need to refer to later on.

 

You can tell from the above that I get heaving involved with our Human Resources people. I understand that in North America many (perhaps most) internal communicators are located in the HR department. We have not gone this far, but I do spent much of my time arguing for what I want to improve internal communication with our HR, Organisational Change and Learning & Development people.

 

“The proof of the pudding is in the eating” as they say. And our organisation is performing well financially. Our various survey results (both internal and external) are exceptionally good.

 

Yes, I realise that we have produced many programs in getting to this situation. But the focus has not been on the programs in themselves. We have always tried to focus on improving relationships. This is our ongoing communication “campaign”. We recognise that excellent communication is a never-ending process, not a set of programs that each have a beginning and an end.

 

Do we win an award?

 

 

Rodney Gray

Employee Communication & Surveys

Sydney, Australia