The Journal of Internal Communication Volume 7

THE JOURNAL OF INTERNALCOMMUNICATION

VOLUME 7

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THE JOURNAL OF INTERNAL COMMUNICATION • VOLUME 7

Foreword

Musicians live in fear of cryptomensia. It’s when you steal somebody’s work

without realising it.

One night, Paul McCartney dreamt

the melody to Yesterday. He was

paranoid that he’d unwittingly

pinched it, so he spent a month

going around the music industry

asking people if they recognised it.

Obviously, plagarism is bad. But

bor rowing people’s ideas? Increas

ingly, it’s the only way to succeed.

When Oscar Wilde wrote: “Talent

borrows, genius steals”, what he

meant was that while clever

people appropriate other people’s

ideas, the smartest minds steal them – in other words, they make them their own.

That’s why we created the Journal of Internal Communication.

We wanted to give everybody in internal communication a way to brush up on best practice from around the industry and once again we’ve got a stellar line up.

Lansons’ Scott McKenzie shares the “Three easy steps to ensuring effective change”.

Claire Purves explains how she’s pioneered the use of communications champions within the engineering giant Howden.

And Neil Burgess at RWE nPower

shares his thoughts on “Peerto

peer recognition: the importance

of an ‘applause’.”

Hope you enjoy the issue.

Lee Smith

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Simon Wright

[email protected]

2 www.gatehousegroup.co.uk/joic


ContentsSTRATEGY

Focusing on their people – how News UK made their people the main priority�� 4

Guto Harri, Director of Communications at News UK, talks about how the company is using internal communication to achieve its business objectives.

Using research to leverage internal communications �� 8

Claire Goring, Global Head of Internal Communications at Dentus Aegis Network, explains how research was critical to help build a global collaborative platform.

At Deloitte, a distinctive way to communicate a distinctive audit �� 12

Andrew Ball has the task of communicating Deloitte’s new audit approach to employees. He explains how he uses his newsletter to engage and entertain.

OPINIONS

The first 100 days �� 15

Nigel Edwards, formerly of Pfizer and more recently Betfair, talks about his ‘100 day’ plan to help introduce a new CEO or leader into a business.

Three easy steps to ensuring effective change �� 20

Scott McKenzie, Director of Change and Employee Engagement at Lansons, talks us through his top tips for implementing a successful change communication programme.

Making internal communications ‘FaB’ �� 24

BBC Internal Communications Manager Annie Tufton explains how she used the coined phrase ‘FaB’ to revive excitement, morale and engagement at the BBC.

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TACTICS

Communication Champions at Howden �� 30

How Claire Purves has pioneered the use of communication champions within engineering giant Howden.

Employee Engagement starts with a Woo! �� 34

Colin Wong, Product Manager for WooBoard, talks us through the cloudbased employee recognition platform that focuses on total engagement and peer recognition.

‘Opportunity, excellence, and belonging’ at AMEC �� 39

Tereza Urbankova, Internal Communications Manager at AMEC, discusses the ‘employer brand’ communications campaign and explains how it is changing the way that the company is engaging with its people.

CASE STUDIES

Peer-to-peer recognition: the importance of an ‘applause’ �� 44

Neil Burgess, Internal Communications Busi ness Partner at RWE npower, talks us through the key elements of Employee Value Proposition (EVP) and their new approach to employee recognition.

Communicating global change from a local level – how FirstGroup is empowering its people to change its business �� 49

Cathryn Halton, Group Internal Communications Manager at FirstGroup, talks us through the company’s ongoing internal communication agenda and describes how they have engaged with their people.

News UK, the UK newspaper publishers of newly formed News Corporation, has undergone a number of changes over the last eighteen months. Publications such as the The Times, The Sunday Times and The Sun are all published by News UK’s subsidiary companies. Guto Harri, Director of Communications, talks about how the company is using internal communication to achieve its business objectives.

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FOCUSING ON THEIR

PEOPLEHOW NEWS UK MADE THEIR PEOPLE THE MAIN PRIORITY

5


When I joined the company in 2012, the morale of our staff was very low. There

were many reasons for this, but the public scandals, corruption and the general structural decline of the newspaper industry overall were all key components in this negative opinion. Our people needed to hear that somebody was going to plan for a sustainable future for our company.

The company has undergone some major changes since then. At the center of these changes has been a focus on our people, ensuring that we build our future around them. Our CEO, Mike Darcey, joined us in 2013 and immediately decided to put our people at the heart of everything we do. We consciously decided to put

the past into perspective and to

leave our problems there too.

We have established many

channels to ensure that we

are continually consulting with

our staff, ensuring that internal

communication took centre stage

in the management of News UK

and that our staff became co

partners in the success of the

business. We needed a complete

overhaul of our processes and the

core part of the communication

strategy was to champion our

people and our papers. However,

saying something and doing it are

very different things altogether.

MORE THAN JUST A MEETING OF MINDS When I joined the company, we

started CEO emails that would

provide a consistent message to

every one of our 2,600 employees. These emails, which are still sent today, would cover all sorts of news – from business strategy through to announcements about any awards that we had won. However, we have really progressed since then.

We decided that facetoface communication would achieve the most success; we set up a quarterly program for our leadership and senior management teams – ‘Meeting of Minds’ – which allows us to communicate all business decisions to our most senior leaders who, in turn, cascade this information to their staff. We also have monthly ‘Executive Conversations’, whereby two members of the executive board speak to around two hundred of our staff about a specific subject.


FOCUSING ON THEIR PEOPLE – HOW NEWS UK MADE THEIR PEOPLE THE MAIN PRIORITY • GUTO HARRI

Each month, Mike Darcey invites a member of staff from each department of each paper for a lunch briefing. At these sessions, twelve of our people are able to meet our CEO and hear about our vision directly from him. Over the course of eighteen months, we are able to talk to over two hundred staff in a relaxed and open setting,

allowing us to reinforce our

commitment to communication.

We have also redesigned our

intranet and internet pages, too.

Good communication is meant to

be a twoway street.

NEW COMPANY, NEW HOMEOver the last year, all our papers

now have new editors. Also, twothirds of the Executive have changed in that time. There’s been a change in our processes and procedures with new governance introduced. Our organisation is changing and this is all underpinned by a real commitment to our people.

The printing of our publications is now all undertaken at our sites in Broxbourne, Knowsley and Lanarkshire. We are also getting ready to move to a new central office in London. We will be moving from Wapping, where the printing traditionally also took place, into a new office next to the Shard. We have taken a thirtyyear lease, which demonstrates the commitment to our new company vision and direction. We will be reinforcing our commitment to

Our CEO, Mike Darcey, joined us in 2013 and

immediately decided to put our people at the heart of

everything we do.


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staff communication by hosting

an induction lunch shortly after we

move in, as well as an executive

con versation on the fourteenth

floor.

Mike Darcey, along with the rest of

our Executive Team, also regularly

visit all of our sites across the UK

and Ireland. It is not just our staff

in London who will see the leaders

of our business or hear about key

strategic decisions.

LOOKING TO THE FUTUREDerrick Crowley and his HR team

recently secured record partici

pation in a staff survey, which

speaks volumes about the lift in

morale that has happened here.

Overall, the 96% completion

rate was fantastic. 68% said that

they were optimistic, which is an

improve ment of 24% over the

course of a year. 72% understand

our company objectives – an

improvement of 17% – and 71%

believe that the company has the

courage to take the right decisions.

84% say that they find their

colleagues supportive and 83% say

that they feel that their manager

respects them. 96% of our staff say

they are prepared to go the extra

mile to get the job done.

Once you have empowered

your staff and have raised their

expectations of being treated

like grownups, you cannot go

back on that. Our staff now have

expectations that they will be

informed, listened to and that

their views will be respected.

There would be a high price to

pay for not doing so being in the

industry that we are in.

BIOGRAPHY • GUTO HARRIGuto Harri began his career as a BBC journalist covering UK politics on TV and radio. He was also Chief Political Correspondent at Westminster before taking two foreign postings in Rome and New York. He left the BBC to handle communications for Boris Johnson and helped master mind his reelection as Mayor of London in May 2012.

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Dentsu Aegis Network is a multinational digital communications company stretching across five continents, 24 time zones and 110 countries. Claire Goring, Global Head of Internal Communications, explains how research was critical to help build a global collaborative platform.

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USING

RESEARCH TO LEVERAGE INTERNALCOMMUNICATION

9


I joined the business at a really interesting time, just as Dentsu Inc. completed the

deal to acquire Aegis Media in

April 2013. The deal prompted

an urgent investment in internal

communication that the board

recognised as a crucial factor.

THE MERGER Dentsu Inc, previously known as

Dentsu Network, was headquarter

ed in Japan and had a large reach of

brands and agencies internationally;

this included Aegis Media. Dentsu

Aegis Network comprises Aegis

Business and all the Dentsu owned

companies outside of Japan.

Headquartered in London, we ope

rate across 110 countries, five conti

nents and 24 time zones, we can

communicate in up to 23 languages

at any one time – that presents a

number of practical and cultural challenges. We had to look at how we harmonised the existing expertise across both Dentsu Inc. and Dentsu Aegis Network and work together to build a global function. By bringing together that shared expertise across our network, we’re able to offer our customers a truly integrated offering to match the needs of global businesses.

THE RESEARCH In order to understand what our people needed from a communications function, we conducted a threemonth piece of research. Consisting of three different strands, the first one reviewed best practice and research in global communications. The second part consisted of a series of qualitative interviews across multiple countries, brands and agencies. The third

was quan ti tative; we conducted

surveys across our communities.

We then pulled all of the findings

together, including the results from

our annual employee survey and

analysed all the information to

arrive at our final report including a

series of recommendations.

Those recommendations were taken

forward to our global executive

board and they formed the basis

of our threeyear communication

strategy, across both PR and in

ternal communication.

THE PLATFORMOne of the things our research told

us was that our people needed a

centralised space to connect and

create content to share expertise

and skills across the business. This

global collaboration platform is

called ‘NEON’ (meaning “new one” in


USING RESEARCH TO LEVERAGE INTERNAL COMMUNICATION • CLAIRE GORING

Greek). It allows for quick exchange, honest interaction be tween global networks, business announcements and for people to receive news in bitesized pieces – really important for our majority millennial audience. People are able to share documents and showcase best practice, and examples of work that wins awards globally and/or is appropriate to their market, brand or agency.

NEON represents a completely new way of working. In a complex matrix organisation comprising brands and agencies in multiple markets, we had to get people to ‘buy’ into this platform by heavily selling the benefits of it. We worked with our technology team to create a roadmap for integration of additional functionality onto the platform; so timesheets, forms and various systems including HR and Finance – materials

that make it easier for people to do

their jobs – in effect creating a one

stop shop for information.

We also have a multidisciplinary

com munications group called the

Global Communications Network

com prising communication profes

sionals based in different brands

and countries. The platform gives

this global communications team a

conduit to be able to liaise globally

and get key messages into their

market or brands with the added

benefit of them being able to tailor

those messages and translate as

necessary.

THE LAUNCHWe took a phase by phase approach

to the containing because launching

the platform in Taiwan would be very

different to launching it in Toronto.

Every market had a dedicated

We can communicate

in up to 23 languages

at any one time – that presents a number of practical

and cultural challenges.


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project team in place governed by the CEO of that particular country. The project team would manage the content, a bespoke launch and also monitor the ongoing performance of the platform with the emphasis on quality of content. That model was replicated worldwide. We provided all the networks with the creative tools to launch including videos, posters, stickers, chopsticks, you name it. It was important that the launch experience was a good one in each market.

We also had the CEO of each market on the ground using the platform at the launch with their team to encourage participation. As of today, we’ve got approximately 13,000 people on board the platform out of 23,000; by the end of this year we will have virtu ally 97% of people on board NEON.

THE KEY FACTORS There were a few key factors that contributed to the success of this project. Firstly, research played a big role in bringing the leadership team fully on board. The findings were irrefutable so the recommendations we put forward were accepted unanimously across our board.

Secondly, I have a very supportive manager, our Director of Corporate Communications and Marketing, Louise Evans. We work together really well. People often say that your success relies on having a

strong management team and I think that’s certainly the case here. Louise reports directly into our Chief Executive, Jerry Buhlmann.

The last part is that we’ve worked extremely hard within the business to socialise our strategy every step of the way, building it up whilst at the same time implementing it. We had a big focus on building relationships, familiarising our people at all different levels in the organisation with our plans and promoting this new collaborative culture in line with our new vision and company values.

BIOGRAPHY • CLAIRE GORINGClaire Goring has over 10 years internal communications experience across the engineering, telecommunications and media and advertising industries. She previously managed internal communications at Virgin Atlantic.

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Deloitte’s Andrew Ball has the task of communicating the firm’s new audit approach to several thousand employees. He explains how he uses his newsletter to engage and entertain.

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AT DELOITTE, ADISTINCTIVEWAY

TO COMMUNICATEADISTINCTIVE

AUDIT

13


I’m audit internal communications manager at Deloitte. Recently, part of my job has

been to launch the ‘Distinctive

Audit’ internally – which is our

new core audit product.

Because it’s the Distinctive Audit,

just from a communications pers

pective, I wanted the internal com

munications to feel distinctive. To

feel different. So I used my com

munications champions as the

key channel by which I distribute

our ongoing newsletter on the

Distinctive Audit.

People like reading about people,

particularly people that they know.

So as part of the newsletter, I

interview a couple of our profes

sionals, and draw out from them a

simple story of how they delivered

more value, more challenge, and

greater insight to one of our clients. The newsletter puts all the latest updates and the new tools into one place. With such pressure on email, you don’t want loads of different emails going out across the practice.

DISTINCTIVE NEWSLETTERI send the newsletter to between 20 and 25 people, and they cascade it to their local audience. Some of them will just forward it, which is fine. What I often find more effective is they will forward it, but at the same time as forwarding it, it gives them the opportunity to add that personal touch, that says, you know, “Hi guys, here’s the latest updates. If there’s anything you need, just get in contact with me,” or, “We’re going to be discussing this at our next group meeting on Monday.”

It’s that sort of localisation that

I could never do centrally. There

does have to be a very good

reason for using this strategy

because there’s a lot more work

involved in doing such a cascade.

Firstly, you’ve got to followup.

You’ve got to chase people a

little bit. I mean, there’s just a

bit less control. For me, working

with my stakeholders makes

it slightly more challenging.

I’m accountable for what I do,

because I’m using now a channel

in which I don’t have the same

element of control.

But I think this is the right ap

proach. Because it’s the Distinctive

Audit, and because it needed

to be so embedded across the

organisation, I felt that in this case,

even though much of the content


is the same, it’s still worth going

down the localisation route to get

it out to our 4,000 people.

I recognise that sending the news

letter for them is not as critical as

servicing their client. So I give them

a week to send it, and then I just

follow up if I haven’t seen it within

that week.

WRITING STYLEWhen I communicate with my

stakeholders, I use the ‘hook and

bridge’ technique. I start the email

with a story, then I ‘bridge’ into

the content. That isn’t widely used

within Deloitte as an organisation,

so I was very careful to explain

– the reason I’m doing this is

because there’s a huge amount

of pressure on our people’s time,

but this is the most effective

technique that I have come across

to draw people in and take your audience with you.

The story I use to grab their attention is often from outside the organisation. It might be, for example a story of Muhammed Ali’s star being on the wall of the Kodak Theater, rather than the floor, so nobody would walk on it.

I haven’t had any push back. You worry people will say: “That’s not the way we talk here”. But the danger is that you selfcensor yourself too much. It’s something that as a communicator, you’re playing in your own head. But usually,

people are allowed to talk like that – as long as what you’re delivering is clearly businessfocused.

You have to recognise that consuming your content is discretionary for the reader. So bearing in mind that it’s discretionary, you’ve got to make it as easy as possible to consume and enjoy. I think good communicators have a certain level of empathy to help them do this.

AT DELOITTE, A DISTINCTIVE WAY TO COMMUNICATE A DISTINCTIVE AUDIT • ANDREW BALL

BIOGRAPHY • ANDREW BALLAndrew has extensive communications, research and editorial experience and has worked at Deloitte for over seven years.

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Nigel Edwards, formerly of Pfizer and more recently Betfair, talks about his ‘100 day’ plan to help introduce a new CEO or leader into a business.

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THE FIRST 100

DAYS


I’ve delivered several ‘100 day’ plans, most recently at Betfair and previously with Pfizer.

At Pfizer, it was a new site head rather than a CEO but with over 3,000 employees, it was a very similar proposition to a new CEO. One of the additional pressures for CEOs of listed companies is that there are shareholder, investor community and government responsibilities to consider. This would have been the difference between Pfizer and Betfair for example.

HELPING THE NEW CEO AT BETFAIR SETTLE IN TO HIS ROLEIf we look at the Betfair example, the new CEO had been on gardening leave from a competitor since his appointment nine months earlier. I joined

the company six weeks before

his start date and focused on

working with the Corporate

Communications and HR directors

to develop his ‘first 100 days’ plan.

Naturally, during this extended

period of time, speculation had

been building about the CEO

and his intentions. With the next

financial results update due at the

end of the first 100 days, the CEO

was keen to ‘keep the powder dry’

on his strategy until this date.

I was responsible for developing

and implementing an internal

communication plan which gave

our global family of employees

an insight into the new CEO’s

approach and focus; while also

giving him an understanding of

employees’ issues, attitude and

cultural behaviours.

To get a head start on building the plan, I met with the new CEO before his official start date to discuss activities in his first few days and begin to establish our working relationship. This included, for example, a global webcast on his first day where all employees could ‘meet’ the new CEO to set the tone and share his overall timetable for his first 100 days. I organised town halls and associated messages to coincide with his visit to each site. We also set up a workshop with the top 70 leaders, to share and validate his initial thinking on a new business strategy.

Attendees were provided with talking points to help ensure that their own local communications were consistent. A followup session with the same group was organised on the eve of the

THE FIRST 100 DAYS • NIGEL EDWARDS


17


strategy presentation to investors and the media. I recorded a video interview with the CEO about his strategy, which was made available for all employees on the day of his presentation. This was followed up with a live, interactive ‘global town hall’ within a few days, to enable employees to gain a clearer understanding of the new strategy.

This was his first CEO appointment and, while he understood the expectations from various stakeholders and key milestones during his first 100 days, he greatly valued having an internal communications plan to engage employees on our new strategic journey. The plan helped to create the context and an appropriate state of readiness for change across the group.

ENSURING THAT PFIZER COPED WITH CHANGEThe Pfizer example is quite

different as the outgoing site

leader was wellliked and

popular and there were several

contenders for the job at the

same site. A leader from a much

smaller site was ‘parachuted’ into

a challenging environment.

You can be a new CEO coming from another company, or be an internal appointment. Either way, there will always be things that go smoothly,

or things that have the potential to be problematic.


I took the opportunity to contact the incoming site leader a few weeks before her appointment to offer to help her hit the ground running and be a success. This situation is a big opportunity for communicators, because they can help support a key leader whilst they are in transition to a new role – this is a powerful thing. An additional advantage is once they have become established in the business and you have demonstrated the value you bring, it becomes much easier to operate with that person and to influence them on your communication strategy.

The lesson here is that context is everything. You can be a new CEO coming from another company, or be an internal appointment. Either way, there will always

be things that go smoothly, or things that have the potential to be problematic. The other consideration for communicators is that you have the circumstances of the appointment to take into account. For example, the stage of the business’ life cycle can impact on the success of the appointment. There are a lot of things that can change the approach that you take and so you need to understand the context before starting to tackle it.

TIMING IS EVERYTHINGIs ‘first 100 days’ the right duration? Three months feels about right; but it also depends on specific factors such as the size of the organisation or the way in which the person has joined the company. I think six months feels too long. It’s a long time to get to

know any business so, again, if it

was a very large organisation like

Microsoft for example, there may

be some justification in having it

at six months.

Equally, if it was an organisation

with a single product that

operated in one country, then

maybe a month is enough. It

really needs to be appropriate for

the business itself. In the Betfair

example in particular, it just so

happened that the next financial

results statement announcement

was roughly a hundred days after

the CEO starting, so that was quite

relevant and very convenient.

A written plan is key if a company

has operations internationally;

you need to plan things like what

are the first tier of countries or

operations? Which locations are

THE FIRST 100 DAYS • NIGEL EDWARDS


19


you going to prioritise? Likewise,

you need to plan for some more

troublesome parts of the business

in which there are people who

may need longer engagement.

It’s imperative to know your

audience. Also, it is very important

for the CEO to get to know their

audience and use this to get an

understanding of their business

very quickly.

TOP TIPS:

• Meet the CEO before they join

to understand more about

them and formulate a plan.

• Allow time to develop a

rapport with them as they get

established in the business –

going forward, this can improve

the influence that you have.

• Identify top influencers to help

you and also the areas of the business that may need extra engagement

• Context and timing is everything. Is the company listed; are they going through acquisition; is the CEO appoint ment internal or are they new to the business? Each business will need a tailored approach.

BIOGRAPHY • NIGEL EDWARDSNigel is an internal communication specialist and consultant with over 15 years experience in leader communication, organisational and behavioural change. He has worked in a range of industry sectors including pharmaceuticals, telecommunications, electronics, and online gambling in global, regional and national roles. He has a post graduate diploma in Internal Communication Management.

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Scott McKenzie, Director of Change and Employee Engagement at Lansons, talks us through his top tips for implementing a successful change communication programme. Based on years of experience leading and delivering change communications and employee engagement programmes, both in-house and agency side, Scott McKenzie talks us through his top three tips to ensure success.

20

THREE EASY STEPS TO ENSURING EFFECTIVE

CHANGE

21


STEP 1: BE CLEAR

This may seem obvious, but for any change programme to be successful there needs

to be clarity. Be clear about your

objectives; be clear about your

outcomes.

I’ve seen a lot of change

programmes where those central

to the project don’t understand

what it’s trying to achieve. If those

integral to running the project

don’t get it, then you can’t expect

your stakeholders, employees,

leaders or investors to either.

STEP 2: MAKE SURE THE COMMS TEAM IS INVOLVED FROM THE BEGINNINGToo often change projects do not

engage with the communications

team at the beginning of each

project. The major sideeffect of

this is that many organisations

struggle to get to grips with the

changes and really understand

the impact it has on different

areas of the business.

We get called in too late, typically

when the project team realise

they don’t have the capacity,

capability or resources in place

to effectively engage employees

with the project; and then they

end up having to take two or

three steps back in order to move

forward again.

The lesson is to ensure that

communications is considered

at the start of every change

project or programme. This will

help sharpen its focus and enable

clear stakeholder mapping. It

will lead to clear communication,

clarity around end goals and

employees who are engaged with

the objectives of the project. If

it’s a systems or process change

this is likely to increase adoption

and save time and money; while

moving the culture in the right

direction too.

STEP 3: WHO ARE YOUR INFLUENCERS?This is more of a specific point:

take time to identify who your

influencers are both inside and

outside the organisation. Some of

them might surprise you.

It’s so easy to get hung up on

your organisation’s hierarchy

and while you should make sure

senior stakeholders are informed

and engaged, it’s important to

consider who is going to help

you get the organisation ready

for the change. They can be at


THREE EASY STEPS TO ENSURING EFFECTIVE CHANGE • SCOTT McKENZIE

any level within the organisation. Sometimes this can include those who have been around a long time; people who have got a lot of knowledge about specific systems or processes or those who others listen to. You should also look to integrate your approach across internal and external influencers. Within the wider world this

includes engaging commentators,

journalists, investors, political

stakeholders and regulators.

GOING VIRALI like the way Leandro Herrero

writes about change as being a

virus (in his book Viral Change:

The alternative to slow, painful

and unsuccessful management of

change in organisations). He talks about infecting the organisation with change, rather than the traditional top down cascade. I think this concept has a lot of validity. It’s less about seeing the organisation as a hierarchy where momentum moves down the organisation, and more like an organism where you find the

It’s less about seeing the organisation as a hierarchy where momentum moves down,

and more like an organism where you find the most important parts of the body and target those instead i.e. your influencers.


23


most important parts of the body

and target those instead i.e. your

influencers.

Ultimately, it’s about having an

integrated, 360 approach to

understanding your stakeholders

and the impacts of the change(s)

on those people. Based on this,

we can really demonstrate how

we add value to the business by

helping the organisation make

effective decisions during the

change programme.

BIOGRAPHY • SCOTT McKENZIEScott McKenzie has over 15 years experience in change, employee engagement and internal communications. He is currently Director of Change and Employee Engagement at the awardwinning consultancy Lansons. Prior to this, he worked for Hill and Knowlton, RBS and Lloyds Bank and has also been chair of the CIPR Inside group.

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24

MAKING INTERNAL COMMUNICATIONS

FaBOne of the world’s largest broadcast companies was under going a restructure, with frequent negative press and a division outwardly lack ing in enthusiasm. Internal Com-munications Manager Annie Tufton explains how she used the coined phrase ‘FaB’ to revive excitement, morale and engagement at the BBC.

25


The BBC was undergoing a big restructure when I joined the Finance and

Business division. My role re

ported to the CFO, but I also

maintained a relationship with the

central comms team. I worked on

a variety of channels from the CFO’s

speech writing, planning leader

ship workshops, to announcements

and general newsletters.

THE BEGINNING OF FABGiven that there were so many

changes over a short period of

time, it was a great opportunity

to give the division a new brand

identity.

Finance isn’t known for being the

most exciting area of the BBC.

However, they did do exciting

things that had a great impact

on the BBC, but it was difficult

to make people feel that their jobs were just as important as someone who worked in Production, for example. Given that this department didn’t get a lot of the attention because they were considered ‘back office’, we needed to shake things up and lift up the spirit of the division. When we coined FaB, it basically changed everything. Our people were FaB, and senior managers were known as FaB Leaders.

The CFO used the phrase, “Thank you for being FaB. Thank you for being so FaBulous, and thank you for representing exactly what I expect Finance and Business to be…” It just changed everything once we started using that language. Everyone had a little spring in their step whenever they said it. We created a really fun

logo, and it was all started at the conference. All FaB people were invited to the FaB conference!

THE FAB CONFERENCE Besides a new name and brand for the conference, we had a new strategy for this allstaff event. We didn’t want to put on another event where each area of the division gave an update on what they’ve achieved over the year. We didn’t want to fill up the day with PowerPoint presentations and endless speeches with our goals for the next year. We did that all the time anyway, in team meetings, etc. We wanted to reward our people for all the great work they had done and give them a treat that they would remember, which would encourage them to work just as hard over the next year.


MAKING INTERNAL COMMUNICATIONS ‘FAB’ • ANNIE TUFTON

FaB was the first step in the right direction. We’d had some bad news within the BBC, and there were a lot of negative things to talk about, but there were also a number of people that were working hard every day, and not feeling great about it. So we turned the focus onto our people. We created a FaB conference programme that promoted the successes of our people and that gave news about what how you could get involved with activities in the division. The FaB logo was dropped in anywhere and everywhere and our people began identifying with it right away.

As this conference was going to be very different to the usual ‘sit down and talk about what the business has achieved’ affair, we focused on the ‘thank you’ bit;

thank you for being FaB. What

you don’t get every day is a thank

you. What you don’t get every

day is recognition for how hard

you’re working. We decided this

is going to be a day of reward for

everybody.

We asked one of our BBC

celebrities to host the 8hour

conference; a correspondent

called Steph McGovern from

BBC Breakfast. She was very fun

and was able to add an element

of humour to the conference.

Another way we picked up some

excitement in the audience was

by starting the conference with

an interview with the Director

General, who was George

Entwistle at the time.

SETTING A FAB SCENEImagine, it’s 9 am and you’ve

walked into this big room that’s completely dark. It feels like an evening event. The room is branded top to bottom in black, white and hot pink and you’ve got these bright LED lights shining at you that spell out FaB. You’ve got a programme and a little card at your seat that says, “Thank you for being FaB.”

We also invited paparazzilike photographers to come in and take pictures of everyone as they entered the door against a stepandrepeat background. These are finance people, they were shy at first and ran far from the camera, but by lunchtime, they were queuing up to have their picture taken in front of the branded wall; they were so excited. The energy in the room had gotten so high. They kept approaching the


27


photographer, “Will you take a

picture of me with my team?”

FINISHING OFF WITH THE FaBbies After lunch, we introduced the

FaB Leadership team which were

our ten new directors who were

now heading up the division

following the restructure. One by

one, we asked them to come on

stage and speak for 60 seconds

about themselves. There was a

big timer behind them. There was

countdown music. At the end of

the 60 seconds, the microphone

turned off, a big bright red light

shone on them, and their time

was up.

This was the most comical part of

the day. Again, these were mostly

serious people who weren’t used to

letting their hair down at this type

of event. They got up on stage each

showed off their personality with

a bit of humility and inspiration.

Some came up to the stage and

spoke about their personal lives,

pet peeves and love for the BBC.

Others described their roles and

talked about their teams. But each

of them threw in their own style

and tried to speak beyond the 60

seconds, which was not allowed.

Following that session, we had our

keynote speaker, Dave Fishwick

Annie’s event helped a humdrum part of her business look at itself in a brand new light


MAKING INTERNAL COMMUNICATIONS ‘FAB’ • ANNIE TUFTON

from the Bank of Dave who

shared his inspiring story about

giving back to the people in his

community. He was real and

funny and has to be one of the

most engaging speakers I’ve

ever seen. The audience truly

learned something from him

whilst laughing the whole way

through.

At the end of the day, we had

the awards… the FaBbies of

course! This is where we changed

the whole set and everyone

took a short break to pick up a

beverage. We turned down the

lights, dropped a disco ball in the

middle of the room and threw on

the spotlights. Our CFO, celebrity

host and awards host took time to

change into glamourous evening

gowns and black ties.

There were five awards to give

away, all based on five categories

that were aligned to our values.

The criteria to win each award was

aligned to the behaviours we had

identified with these values. We

underwent a formal nomination

Imagine, it’s 9 am, it’s completely dark. It feels like an evening event. You’ve got these LED bright lights shining at you that say FaB. You’ve got a little card at your seat that says,

‘Thank you for being FAB!’


29


process and as this was our first ever awards ceremony, winning was a big deal. To make it really special, when someone won an award, we would play a 45second video of team members speaking about the winner. For example, if I was winning the award, when the host said ‘And the winner is…’ a video would start playing of all my colleagues and manager saying lovely things about me and that’s when I would realise that I would be receiving the award. It was really emotional and sweet.

After the FaBbies, we all stuck around for drinks and more pictures. People didn’t want to leave so everyone stayed until the lights went off and we were forced out. The conference was just brilliant. You can’t recreate that feeling. We had one opportunity

and we absolutely nailed it. I was so privileged to be a part of FaB and the team that helped make this conference come to life.

THE IMPORTANCE OF FABAt this point in the BBC, we needed everyone to know that they were special. It was about awarding them for being great at what they are and for sticking with the BBC throughout a difficult time. They walked into the room at 9am feeling, “Oh, another conference. Where’s my coffee?”

and leaving the room elated and on cloud nine.

Postconference, we gained higher engagement and higher morale. We followed up with the FaB theme, people changed their signatures on their emails to include the new branding and they put up their little pink card that said ‘Thank you for being FaB’. The FaB Leaders network continued on and the FaB Women’s Network was also started.

BIOGRAPHY • ANNIE TUFTONAnnie graduated from the University of Texas in Austin with a degree in corporate communications, and a second degree in Spanish. She has also worked as an Internal Communications Manager at HSBC and ASOS.

[email protected]


Here’s how Claire Purves has pioneered the use of communication champions within engineering giant Howden.

30

COMMUNICATIONCHAMPIONS

HOWDENAT

31


When I joined Howden I knew I had a particular challenge – I’m based in

Renfrew, just outside of Glasgow, yet we had 4,000 staff in 29 countries (6000 now) speaking 11 languages. Besides English, the only language I speak is schoolgirl French. So I needed to find a way to have sentinels – my eyes and my ears – all over the world.

I knew I needed to have a regular vehicle to speak to people and for people to speak back, but without the use of an intranet back then it was difficult. So I sat down and created the ‘spec’ for my idea of an excellent communication champion – what a communications champion should look like and what makes a really good one. I’ve got a fantastic team. There’s 47 people now in our

communications champions team.

It means we can pull news

from every single part of the

organisation. The communications

champions net work is very well

known within the business. I’ve

got the right people and I keep

close to them, it’s like having 47

children really.

Some of them are super champ

ions. The really key ones are

also language checkers for me

so they’ll check my translations

when they come back from the

translation company to make

sure that we’re on message and

nothing’s been lost in translation.

But daytoday the communica tions

champions are my eyes and ears.

You need to bring those people to

life and turn every single one of

them into a brand ambassador.

We have communications champions in every country. It does become a roundtheclock operation – sometimes you just don’t know what’s coming next! China doesn’t go home until about 9:30am UK time, so when you come in each morning you have to make them the priority because their day’s almost over. America doesn’t come to work until 1pm my time, so you can put off doing things for them.

Then Australia comes to work at about 10:30 at night. If I’m working late, they’re sitting there with a breakfast coffee in their hand while you’re just about to go to bed. We’d all be in bed and they’d be there still in the middle of their working day so that was a bit of a strange one. I love that, though. That’s part of the buzz. This is my second global job and I just


COMMUNICATIONS CHAMPIONS AT HOWDEN • CLAIRE PURVES

couldn’t change that now. I just

couldn’t go back.

I asked the managing directors to

nominate somebody from their

business to agree to me having six

hours a month with them. That was

quite a key figure, because seven

hours looks like a working day but

six is a little bit less to work on

communication projects. In some

months, they just attend online

meetings in their own time zones.

Yesterday, I had three hours of

communications champions meet

ings. They come to the table

with fresh ideas, with feedback,

having consulted with their

colleagues, having come up with

material every single month in

Howden World News; they’d

carry out the annual audit, share

good practice and support each

other – last year we improved the internal communications scores in our global employee engagement survey by nearly 10% – the communications champions should take some credit for that phenomenal shift. I’m blown away with the material that we’re covering. I think, if I could distil that into a bottle as a magic elixir of motivation then I would!

Without my comms champions, I just could not do that. There’s no other way, apart from changing the structure in internal communications. I would need an army of paid communicators in the regions or in the businesses to make that happen. And my communications champions are doing such a great job, I’m not sure I would even want an army of communications managers!

I’m blown away with the material that

we’re covering. I think, if I could distil that into a bottle as a

magic elixir of motivation then

I would!


33


For example, one project they

launched with me was Connect,

our intranet. I got them involved in

scoping the business requirements

– how the site could be made

more intuitive and ultimately, the

launch campaign – a countdown

campaign, an interactive pdf and

a video we made together.

I gave the champions a script that

was broken down into separate

statements, and I got them to

film people on their mobile phone

with a distinct background so

the international nature of our

people and business was easily

recognisable.

They got totally into the project.

Encouraging colleagues to shout

out the lines from the script and

then we cut them all together

and made a video out of it. It was

fantastic! Totally global and 100%

Howden. Some of the material

had to hit the cutting room floor

because it was just too wacky. So

many people had tried to slide

across the floor of their office in

their chairs and as they passed

each other they shout out the word

Connect – some ended in disaster,

but it was great fun. The champions

did that. I think I had 200 video

clips in the end, representing all the roles we have in Howden, from office staff to guys in factories who would turn around from their work welding a compressor, lift their mask and say ‘Connect’.

The concept showed we were a global organisation that understood the value of connecting and that we were a better organisation if we worked together.

BIOGRAPHY • CLAIRE PURVESClaire has over 17 years experience in internal and corporate communications in media relations, brand and reputation management. She has previously worked for Scottish Widows, Lloyds TSB and Exova (a global leader in materials testing). The proud winner of IOIC and PPA awards for Best Employee publications, Claire particularly enjoys inspiring employees to deliver business benefits by defining and communicating Valuesled behaviours and successes.

[email protected]


Colin Wong, Product Manager for WooBoard, talks us through the cloud-based employee recognition platform that focuses on total engagement and peer recognition. Its customers include Ernst & Young, PricewaterhouseCoopers and SunGard.

34

EMPLOYEEENGAGEMENTSTARTS WITH A

WOO!

35


WooBoard was founded in 2011 when our founder, Mick Liubinskas, noticed

a gap within the employee engage ment market. At one time or another, most people have felt discouraged and deflated in the workplace when they’ve put a lot of work into something that ultimately goes unnoticed. Over time, they can start to think, “What’s the point?” and that’s where lack of recognition starts to become a major problem for companies. What WooBoard does is it makes those efforts visible where they can be celebrated together. It can be incredibly motivating to know that your achievements will be visible at all levels.

Essentially, WooBoard is an internal social media platform for companies – where the conversa tion

is focused around recognition.

Every employee in the organi

sation creates an account and is

encouraged to recognise their

colleagues in certain areas, rang

ing from the daily wins to their

big achievements.

Regular engagement is driven

through unique gamification and

social mechanics. The entire pro

duct is white labelled – clients are

able to customise elements such

as colours, logos, teams, managers

and company values – and it’s all

hosted from the cloud. It is a really

flexible product and can be used

to achieve a range of different

corporate objectives, including

recognition, appreciation, en

gagement, culture and values

alignment and interoffice collab

oration.

EMPLOYEE ENGAGEMENT: THE BUSINESS CHALLENGE OF THE NEXT DECADEA number of business leaders think that recognition is simply about making people feel “warm and fuzzy”. In reality, there’s a signifi cant business case for addressing the issue. This year, Aon Hewitt declared “making engagement happen will be the single most important business challenge of the next decade and the focal point of the war for talent.”

There’s a great body of research that backs this up:

• The vast majority of U.S. workers, 70%, are “not engaged” or are “actively disengaged” at work – Gallup, ‘State of the American Workplace’ (2013)

• Disengaged employees cost the U.S. economy up to $550 billion


EMPLOYEE ENGAGEMENT STARTS WITH A WOO! • COLIN WONG

each year – Gallup, ‘State of The American Workplace’ (2013)

• 67% of employees rate recognition as the top motivator for performance – McKinsey, ‘Motivating People, Getting Beyond Money’ (2009)

• Top engagement companies outperform other companies on all financial indicators: Revenue growth (+7%), Operating Margin (+7%), Total Shareholder Return (+14%) – Aon Hewitt, ‘Trends in Global Employee Engagement’ (2014)

What’s becoming increasingly apparent is that the ‘Millennials’ (employees aged 2032) who are now dominating the workforce, are proving difficult to engage via traditional means; how companies choose to engage them will define their success for the future.

NOT THE TYPICAL ‘EMPLOYEE OF THE MONTH’ PROGRAMA large number of our clients approach us because their internal recognition programs aren’t working. They’re largely seen as tokenistic by employees and don’t achieve any of their engagement objectives, thus failing to add value.

Most commonly, they have the typical ‘employee of the month’ program in place where employees are invited to periodically nominate a person that they think deserves recognition. This might be via email or a more sophisticated platform. However, in the great majority of cases, most people don’t participate and the person selected is just the random result of a handful of nomi nations. Essentially, there is no real meaning to this type of recognition.

In order to create a meaningful result, recognition programs must reflect the voice of the company as a whole. Essentially, this requires that your recognition program generates widespread and fre quent participation. WooBoard is designed to do this by using a comprehensive Points System. The platform rewards users for all en gagement actions, including sending and receiving recognition, sharing information, earning badges, logging on, and simply joining in the conversation every day.

That’s the most exciting part of our vision. By driving a companywide conversation we ensure that recognition is transparent and meaningful – that recognition goes to those who deserve it. It’s really simple but, when you achieve that,


37


you immediately have a really power

ful base on which to genuinely moti

vate performance and drive real

cultural change.

CUSTOMER-DRIVEN EVOLUTIONWooBoard has been developed

and evolves in accordance with

the continuous input and feedback

of our clients. If you look at early

screenshots of our product com

pared to where we are now, it’s

almost unrecognisable.

There are always new features

being launched and the product

continues to improve. One of

the biggest benefits of adopting

a cloudbased solution is that,

as soon any upgrades are rolled

out, they instantly go live to all of

our clients so that their platform

remains relevant.

What’s becoming increasingly apparent

is that the ‘Millennials’ (employees aged 20-32) who are now dominating

the workforce, are proving difficult to engage

via traditional means; how companies choose

to engage them will define their success for the future.


EMPLOYEE ENGAGEMENT STARTS WITH A WOO! • COLIN WONG

PROVIDING A COMPLETE SERVICEFor a large number of our clients,

WooBoard is a system that is

managed by the company itself;

it has been built to be really

intuitive. However, prospective

clients often tell us that they

don’t have the time to launch

and implement a recognition

program.

Through the experience of

launching thousands of programs,

WooBoard now features full con

cierge services as part of the

price. Whether it’s consulting

and designing an implementation

strategy, a rewards program or

preparing rollout communications;

clients can be assured that their

engagement will be both effective

and sustainable.

We recently conducted a Q&A

session with one of our clients –

Educators4Excellence, who have

a number of offices across the

US. One of the most exciting

comments from that interview

was that they found WooBoard

regularly sparked ideas and colla

boration within teams – not only

within their local offices but also

between offices all around the

country. For them, it’s been a really

effective way to stay connected

as an organisation and also to

reinforce the national scope

of their work. All of this came

from the simple concept of

providing people with a place

to say “thank you” to each other

– we think this is really amazing.

BIOGRAPHY • COLIN WONGColin heads up WooBoard where he works regularly with major clients on structuring, implementing and sustaining employee recognition and engagement programs. He is an advocate and regular speaker on all things relating to peer recognition, employee engagement, gamification and behavioural change, values alignment and corporate culture. Prior to joining WooBoard, Colin worked as a commercial lawyer and has founded and advised on several early stage companies.

[email protected] • au.linkedin.com/in/colinjwong


mailto:colin%40wooboard.com?subject=Enquiry%20via%20JOIC%20Volume%207

au.linkedin.com/in/colinjwong

AMEC plc is a global consultancy, engineering and project management company, operating across Oil & Gas, Mining, Clean Energy and Environment & Infrastructure markets in over 40 countries. Tereza Urbankova, Internal Communications Manager, discusses the ‘employer brand’ communications campaign and explains how it is changing the way that the company is engaging with its people.

39

OPPORTUNITY, EXCELLENCE,AND BELONGINGAT AMEC


‘OPPORTUNITY, EXCELLENCE, AND BELONGING’ AT AMEC • TEREZA URBANKOVA

The EVP (or employer brand) project originated as part of a training program called

‘Manager Advance’, offered by AMEC Academy, our development platform which provides all development programs for staff worldwide. This program is very useful because it basically puts together a small group of people from different countries, different sectors, with different knowledge and skills and gives them a project that takes them out of their comfort zone. The objective was to identify what AMEC’s EVP is, articulate it, test it and roll it out in the organisation.

The group did quite a lot of external research first, looking at how our competitors and other companies manage their EVP, if at all. They also conducted

internal research throughout

AMEC, approaching various busi

ness units, as well as diverse

geographies.

Throughout the process they were

trying to identify what AMEC

stands for and represents extern

ally, and what our people think

that AMEC is like as an employer.

This research piece took around

six months; it was a deliberately

thorough process.

Then they narrowed their findings

into what resembled a temple with

three ‘pillars’ – a typically ‘engine

ering’ concept! Those three pillars

were called opportunity, excel

lence, and belonging. Once the

concept and research section was

completed, the group presented

the EVP to the senior management

team and it was approved.

The corporate communications

team has been providing support

to the group since the start and

after the senior management

approval, we got involved much

more actively in the testing, roll

out and implementation phases.

THREE GUIDING PRINCIPLESEVP is an employee promise;

it’s a deal between an employer

and an employee which revolves

around expectations. This can

work only when both parties are

fully engaged.

‘Opportunity’ means AMEC pro

vides development opportunities

to its people, be it through the AMEC

Academy or through working

on challenging projects or work

ing for prestigious clients, for

example. At the same time, people

must want to grab opportunities


41


and use them to grow within the organisation.

‘Excellence’ was delicate to manage since it very much overlaps with opportunity; you want people to excel and deliver excellence (one of the core AMEC values), so this was about AMEC providing the environment for its employees to excel in. And that could even include development opportunities, for example.

‘Belonging’ is about people wanting to be respected, recognised, rewarded and valued and AMEC expecting its employees to be loyal and go the extra mile. It’s very subjective sometimes as it also depends on what makes people feel they belong.

FROM EVP TO WHY AMECWe conducted focus groups across all parts of the world to identify if

these three elements resonate with our people globally, which took several weeks. We changed EVP to ‘Why AMEC’ which was much

more accurate for us, and which

our engineers could identify with.

The ‘pillars’ changed to ‘reasons’,

i.e. why people join AMEC and

why they stay. These focus groups

revealed some more findings; we

used them to refine the Why AMEC

terminology.

Eventually, we came to a point

where we thought we had a final

product. By this point, the Group

Senior Vice President for HR was

driving the project, as one of the

strategic recruitment initiatives. We

felt we had something really good,

really meaningful. Something that

resonated with our people, but

there was another challenging task

ahead of us: embedding it into the

organisation.

We had the senior management

support already but we needed

We never stop measuring the engagement

and feedback part of the campaign,

as this gives us validity.


‘OPPORTUNITY, EXCELLENCE, AND BELONGING’ AT AMEC • TEREZA URBANKOVA

support from bottom up. Through

an internal campaign we ‘hired’

over one hundred engagement

champions, all of whom are

volunteers, helping us roll out

individual Why AMEC reasons.

We changed the graphics of

the campaign to make it more

dynamic and we also linked the

individual words – opportunity,

excellence, and belonging – to

our strategy for growth which

we call ‘2015 and beyond’ and

which is all about collaborating,

improving, growing, and therefore

achieving. We consciously linked

the three individual elements to

that strategy, in order to give it

credibility and make sure that

people understand how they

contribute to the company’s

overall strategy when they

implement Why AMEC. We started

communicating this initiative as ‘change for growth’, which again, made it more meaningful to our employees.

AN ONGOING PROCESS OF DELIVERYWe then kicked off the roll out campaign. We divided Why AMEC into parts, with one reason launched in each quarter. However, the previous quarter’s learning was not shelved; we always try to maintain a holistic view of the campaign in order for it to remain relevant. In the process of roll out, the entire Why AMEC team (now comprising of the original team, a couple of engagement champions who wanted to get more involved in the project, HR and Communications) has been supporting our engagement champions driving it.

As with all internal communications,

we knew that measurement would

be crucial to the whole process.

We conducted pulse surveys from

the beginning that focused on

capturing the engagement index

scores as well as feedback on

individual reasons and on the

overall campaign. We never stop

measuring the engagement and

feedback part of the campaign,

as this gives us validity. We were

pleased to see Why AMEC winning

a UK’s ‘cHeRies’ Finders Keepers

Recruitment and Retention Award

for excellence in HR, Training and

Recruitment in 2014 as the cam

paign has helped us in the recruit

ment of over 4,200 people into our

Brownfield and Asset Management

operating units; whilst reducing

onshore voluntary staff turnover

by 6% in 2013.


43


We are still driving the Why AMEC campaign within the business with the help of our champions. We promote their success stories about how they embedded Why AMEC and what tools they used. This inspires people in other parts of the business and they can see it works. We also promote the initiative through the regular CEO blogs, the Intranet and through Yammer internally. Externally, it has also been included on our corporate website and LinkedIn profile under the career sections

which shows how it is viewed as a tangible element that is

part of our Group drive for ‘2015 and beyond’.

BIOGRAPHY • TEREZA URANKOVATereza Urbankova is a PR, communications and marketing professional with over 15 years’ experience in industries such as hospitality, retail, IT, defence, broadcast, logistics and engineering. As well as managing internal communications at AMEC plc, Tereza works as a freelance communications and PR consultant. She speaks Czech, English, Spanish and Russian.

[email protected] www.linkedin.com/profile/view?id=10558221&trk=nav_responsive_tab_profile


The peer-to-peer recognition scheme at RWE npower makes up an integral part of the company’s Employee Value Proposition (EVP) and helps colleagues recognise each other’s efforts in helping the company achieve its goals. Neil Burgess, Internal Communications Business Partner, talks us through the key elements of the platform and their new approach to employee recognition.

44

PEERTOPEER RECOGNITIONTHE IMPORTANCE OF AN

‘APPLAUSE’

45


Our Employee Value Proposition (EVP) is a critical part of our people strategy. In it,

we outline what we expect from our people and what they can expect from us.

CHANGING A CULTUREAlthough our EVP information was definitely out there on the intranet, it tended to be fragmented, unclear, inaccessible from one simple place and not easily accessible for our more remote workers.

We knew we needed to develop something that would help our people understand what was on offer to them and also what the company expected of them in return to help us get it right for our customers.

The result was the launch of People Positive – a website available to all

our people. We also enabled access to people at home via an employee extranet and whilst on the move by launching our very own People Positive app. Enabling our people to access the information in the way that best suits them was always a key consideration as it suits both our officebased and fieldbased employees.

Once our People Positive site had launched, we quickly followed it up with the launch of Applause – our brand new peertopeer recognition scheme. This was a great new addition to our EVP, but crucially served a real business need. Historically we had a lot of fragmented recognition schemes across the organisation. A lot of them were manager led and, in reality, were very hard to maintain effectively.

We felt that the company, and our people, would benefit from one scheme that transcended the business and Applause gave us just that. Being able to recognise someone, even just the simple act of saying ‘thank you’, is very powerful. Applause makes this process easy across our entire business. You may not sit in the same location as the colleague you want to thank – you may have only spoken to them over the phone while addressing a customer query for example. However, you can still formally say thanks by logging into Applause, selecting the person’s


PEER-TO-PEER RECOGNITION: THE IMPORTANCE OF AN ‘APPLAUSE’ • NEIL BURGESS

name and detailing what you want to thank them for.

This is then flagged to their line manager and, if appropriate, can be promoted for consideration

for further recognition. Whether

that further recognition is a

simple message of thanks from

a senior manager or a small

financial reward, there’s enough

flexibility in the system for the

most appropriate and authentic

approach to be taken.

WAS IT SUCCESSFUL?We had around 20,000 Applause

entries submitted in the first 10

months – which was a fantastic

uptake and culminated in ‘The

Pride Awards’ which recognises

the ‘Best of the Best’ examples

of Applause from across our

business and has now become an

annual event.

We arrange the Pride Award final

ists into categories, ten in total,

including ‘putting the customer

first’, ‘best customer experience’,

‘customer advisor of the year’,

improving cost or quality’ and

‘teamwork’. All of the categories

support our strategy and mission

to get it right for our customers.

Our people now really understand and appreciate its benefits; and now readily see the connection between their day-to-day work and the goals of the business

which is great to see.


47


HOW WAS THIS SUPPORTED INTERNALLY?First of all, we listened to our people and gained the insight into what they wanted to see. Delivering a solution that meets the needs of the target audience certainly put us on the path to success. Collaboration was also key. Internal Communication, HR, Reward, our leadership team and representatives from every single area of our business all worked together to create and prepare the launch of Applause. We spent a lot of time engaging with all people managers, and held a series of webinars to explain how the system worked and how managers could support it.

Although Applause is peertopeer, managers still had an important job which was to support the scheme

and promote some examples of

‘Applause’ for further recognition

where appropriate. We then went

into our official launch phase. We

did all the basics you would expect,

intranet articles, targeted email,

posters etc… but we also developed

interactive user guides, which

showed how the system worked

and when to use it. These went

down very well with our people.

Authentic leadership endorsement

was also a powerful tool and the

leadership team really supported

the scheme, including our CEO

taking part in the launch video.

Postlaunch, we quickly turned our

attention to finding those early

adopters to Applause and simply

started a dialogue with them. Why

did they use the system? How did

they find it? What sorts of things

did they like to recognise people

for? How does it feel to receive/

give recognition?

This really brought Applause to life

and has enabled the scheme to grow

to the levels we see today. In fact,

we’ve never stopped promoting

Applause and the scheme continues

to grow – one recognition at a time.

Our people now really understand

and appreciate its benefits; and

RWE’s peertopeer recognition scheme is now a key part of the company’s Employee Value Proposition (EVP)


PEER-TO-PEER RECOGNITION: THE IMPORTANCE OF AN ‘APPLAUSE’ • NEIL BURGESS

now readily see the connection

between their daytoday work

and the goals of the business

which is great to see as it helps

drive employee satisfaction which

in turn will drive customer satis

faction.

We are on course to beat the

numbers from the first ten months

and are always looking at new

ways to improve and develop our

recognition schemes. Everyone

can see the value of having happy

employees and happy customers.

We certainly don’t intend to go

back to the old way of doing

things. Our business has really

taken to our new approach and

everyone is benefitting from the

new way of working.

BIOGRAPHY • NEIL BURGESSNeil began his internal communications career with the Virgin Group. Departing Virgin after seven years, he has since spent time at Cable and Wireless Worldwide, Wincanton Logistics and, for the last three years, RWE npower. In 2012, Neil was recognised as one of the communication industry’s rising stars, being named as one of the ‘top 30 under 30’ to watch.

[email protected] uk.linkedin.com/pub/neil-burgess/13/b58/131


mailto:Neil.Burgess%40rwenpower.com?subject=Enquiry%20via%20JOIC%20Volume%207

uk.linkedin.com/pub/neil-burgess/13/b58/131

FirstGroup has expanded rapidly since the company was formed in Scotland in 1990. Since the management buyout of an Aberdeen bus company, it has grown to become a multinational business that employs nearly 120,000 people. Largely developed through acquisitions, the company has risen to become the leading transport operator in the UK and North America – serving over 2.5 billion people a year on train, bus and student transport services. Cathryn Halton, Group Internal Communications Manager, talks us through the company’s ongoing internal communications agenda and describes how they have engaged with their people.

49

COMMUNICATING GLOBAL

CHANGEFROM A LOCAL LEVEL HOW FIRSTGROUP IS EMPOWERING ITSPEOPLE TO CHANGE ITS BUSINESS


COMMUNICATING GLOBAL CHANGE FROM A LOCAL LEVEL • CATHRYN HALTON

When our new CEO Tim O’Toole joined us in 2010, it brought about a huge change for our company. We needed to unify our people behind a single purpose, with an agreed direction for our company. We decided that our strength was in operating as a group, rather than as a group of companies. We would be able to leverage our expertise across our different divisions, rather than trying to initiate change by imposing blanket initiatives from group level.

NEW LEADERSHIP, NEW VISIONThis meant operating under a shared culture, through a collective set of values so that there was a consistent way of working that every one could expect from each other. Each area of our business had slightly different sets of values, but when we looked at them in more detail we found com

monalities. We could see the explicit

values that underpinned our group.

TANGIBLE EMPOWERMENTWe also felt that it was important

for our stakeholders, customers and

partners to have a consistent ex

perience with FirstGroup; regard

less of which part of the company

they were dealing with. Obviously,

due to the geographic spread of

our company – along with the fact

that we needed to engage with

nearly 117,000 people – we needed

to establish how we would commu

nicate these messages.

Our ultimate audience is our em

ployees but, in order to be realistic,

my focus needed to be on a smaller

group of people. We needed to focus

on the local teams to be able to

deliver communications across their

networks; we knew that their local

channels were already established and trusted, so there was no real need to change this.

At a group level, our aim was to create and define the impact of the messaging and to empower our leaders at a local level to deliver it for us. The very first thing that we did was engage with leadership to buy into the new vision, strategy and values so that it was understood. We engaged our leadership team so that they were clear on their role in achieving this overall vision. Two leader ship events in the UK and North America were organised to speak to our top 250 leaders. We started to tell them the story, describing how the different pieces fit to gether and asked them to start to discuss this back in their business. We needed to them to take the time to understand what the story meant for them and their


51


people, in the context of their own part of the business.

For our group to flourish, all of this work needed to happen on a local level involving a wide range of stakeholders. Ultimately, we needed people who knew the local markets to identify what was needed and then adapt the group approach to meet those needs. It is was only by helping them to reap the benefits

in this way that we knew we would gain their commitment.

After six months or so, we went back to our top 250 leaders and asked them what they thought about it in relation to their individual business. We asked them how they saw themselves taking it forward and what obstacles they think they would encounter. We then empowered them to roll this out across their businesses

with support from our ‘enabler group’,

which was made up of communica

tion and HR professionals.

CHANGING THROUGH COMMUNICATIONThe drive from our senior leader

ship team has really helped us to

succeed with this. By engaging with

our senior leaders, we were able to

gain ownership and commitment to

the overall vision rather than just ask

them to deliver a group message.

They knew what was needed to talk

to their own people, and all we need

ed to do was to engage with them

enough for them to own the mes

sage that we were trying to convey

at a group level.

One of our biggest challenges is

being able to move people from

saying how something is a great

idea to actually believing in it

We decided that our strength was in operating as a group, rather than as a group of companies.


COMMUNICATING GLOBAL CHANGE FROM A LOCAL LEVEL • CATHRYN HALTON

enough to make it something they do every day.

Putting the idea into practice by being able to change the way they work – that’s where the biggest challenge of such an engagement strategy lies.

We consistently measure our efforts using a combination of qualitative and quantitative techniques, so we can clearly define our progress. When we do achieve our goals, it is also one of the most satisfying parts of this work.

One of our biggest successes so far has been the Greyhound business that operates out of North America. They have a very distinct culture and are wary of anything that might disrupt that. However, they have wholeheartedly supported this and the President of that business now lives and breathes our story. It

doesn’t sound like an afterthought – it sounds totally natural and something he truly believes. His leadership team explicitly talks about Greyhound and FirstGroup in the same way now to all of their different audiences and this is clearly seen in how the business operates.

Due to the sheer size and reach of our organisation, we are still in the midst of this transformation. We are constantly trying to refine our work by helping people get to grips with

the strategy and understanding how it aligns with our vision. When people can see consistency coming through our story, they believe in it. We’ve actively avoided any general announcements or campaigns around a new vision or values because we didn’t want these statements to become a barrier to genuine change. We want them to be real and for our people to live and breathe our organisation’s values – that’s where our focus always has been and where it is always going to remain.

BIOGRAPHY • CATHRYN HALTONCathryn joined FirstGroup in 2011 as its first Group Internal Communications Manager. Previously, she spent some time working for G4S in their operational UK security business, leading the delivery of their internal communications strategy.

[email protected] www.linkedin.com/in/cathrynhalton


mailto:Cathryn.Halton%40firstgroup.com?subject=Enquiry%20via%20JOIC%20Volume%207

https://www.linkedin.com/in/cathrynhalton

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