higher education: leading internal communications … · policy, economic & social) 7. the...

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Case Studies of Good Communications

HEliXHIGHER EDUCATION: LEADING INTERNAL COMMUNICATIONS

CASE STUDIES OF GOOD COMMUNICATIONS2

Contents

3 What is HEliX?

4 The 35 Indicators of HEliX Good Practice

7 University Goals, Ambitions and Character

19 Leadership

27 Strategy, Accountability and Evaluation

31 News and Message Dissemination

43 Information Sharing

53 Campus Space and Collegiality

65 Crisis, Safety and Security

75 The Employee Journey

78 Acknowledgements

WHAT IS HEliX? 3

HEliX is the evaluation and benchmarking system for good practice in internalcommunications for the higher education sector. Funded by the Higher EducationFunding Council for England, HEliX is led by the University of Leicester with theuniversities of Bristol, Edge Hill and Oxford Brookes forming the project group. TheKnowledge Partnership is the specialist higher education consultancy supportingthe project and conducting field work.

The project seeks to scope internal communications practice in higher educationand develop a benchmarking and evaluation toolkit to aid HEIs in their internalcommunications work. We hope we have achieved that, but we do not yet regardthe toolkit as a final finished product. This document therefore is version 0.1 ofwhat will, we expect, be a series of ever-improving outputs, as we learn moreabout what the sector most needs to improve staff engagement.

The HEliX toolkit system includes:

• An Introduction to HEliX.

• The Results of the HEliX sector survey of current practice in internalcommunications.

• 35 Best Practice Indicators: indicators agreed by our 4 project universitiesexemplifying ideal internal communications, backed by potential examples ofevidence to allow you to measure your own institution.

• 4-Strand Staff survey, allowing you to measure staff views of your internalcommunications according to 4 typologies of staff and triangulate results.

• Health Check: a specific tool for the senior person in charge of internalcommunications to measure the policy and good practice in place against abenchmark of standards.

• The HEliX Case Studies: short descriptions of internal communications strategiesand campaigns in universities and other organisations that we consider to begood practice.

The case studies have been compiled from a range of sources from within andoutside of the sector. These are not presented as the only way to do things. Theyare simply examples of how some have tackled problems particular to theiruniversity or organisation, with specific strategic, timing or budgetaryrequirements. The top tips are drawn from our experience of analysing internalcommunications and management behaviours over many years. We hope these areuseful, but if you have better tips, we would be please to hear from you.

Where possible we have sought examples from the private sector. These are not asnumerous as we would have wished. Some organisations were reluctant to shareexamples. Others, despite rhetoric, were not shining beacons for universities toemulate. Many commercial companies, although innovative and thoughtful, weretoo dissimilar and too product focused (for example, their internal communicationsstrategies tended to centre around amplifying the qualities of their consumergoods to staff) to draw useful HE comparisons.

We would like to build on these in time, and hope that other case studies willemerge as the work in improving staff communications progresses.

What is HEliX?

For more information, and to addother case studies to the HEliXwebsite, please get in touch.

Louise Simpson, The Knowledge Partnershipl.simpson@theknowledgepartnership.comwww.theknowledgepartnership.com

Richard Taylor, Director of Marketing & CommunicationsUniversity of [email protected]/helix

WHAT IS HEliX?4

University goals, ambitions and character

Leadership

Strategy, accountability and evaluation

News and messagedissemination

Information sharing

Campus space and collegiality

1. The University has a well-articulated vision that enables all staff to understand thedirection of travel of the institution, its ambitions and priorities

2. Consistent with the University’s goals, all academic and administrative departmentshave a vision that sets out their specific ambitions and priorities

3. The University articulates and amplifies its character and strengths to its staff,enabling them to understand and explain its reputation to third parties

4. Excellent communications skills is an essential selection criterion for all seniorexecutive and heads of department positions

5. Internal staff communications is integral part of University decision-making

6. The senior executive team contextualise the environment for their staff (political,policy, economic & social)

7. The senior executive team distil and clarify key messages for staff

8. The senior executive team is highly visible and communicate regularly andintelligently with their staff face-to-face

9. There is a robust corporate strategy for internal staff communications

10. Staff communications is effectively operationalised and resourced to ensure that it iseffective and impactful

11. Heads of both academic and service departments understand their critical role indelivering effective staff communications and have systems and protocols to facilitatethis

12. Staff communications is regularly reviewed to highlight needs, gaps and evaluateeffectiveness

13. University news, events and success stories are communicated to staff effectively

14. There are channels for disseminating and accessing local news around and betweendepartments

15. Important and urgent news reaches staff swiftly

16. Innovation and creativity is in evidence in staff communications

17. Staff have comprehensive access to the policies, plans & information they need to dotheir jobs

18. Committees, formal meetings and working groups are effective in terms of sharinginformation and communicating decisions

19. There is an effective email system and policy in operation

20. There is an effective University website in operation

21. The University is easy to navigate physically

22. The campus environment amplifies the University’s personality and engenders staffpride and affinity

23. The campus estate is conducive to good communications and networking

The 35 HEliX Indicators of Good Practice

24. All staff are fully connected to the University regardless of their campus location,both physically and in terms of access to decision-making

25. There is a culture and professional processes that encourage staff to communicateeffectively/network with colleagues in other departments

26. There is a social programme that brings staff together outside the workingenvironment, encouraging them to feel part of the wider University team

27. Staff communications is designed to be fully inclusive, taking into accountdisabilities, and cultural issues

28. Staff and managers are well prepared for crises

29. Staff can be contacted in an emergency

30. Essential security and safety information is effectively disseminated to managers and staff

31. The University strives to ensure that through the recruitment process prospectiveemployees gain a good understanding of the University’s history, achievements,vision, ambitions and personality

32. All new staff receive timely and effective inductions to the University

33. Staff who have a front-of-house role for the University or a department aredeveloped to be effective communicators

34. There is a comprehensive appraisal system that reinforces objectives, celebratesachievements and allows for discussion about the effectiveness of internalcommunications and staff engagement

35. All leavers are communicated with effectively and are given the opportunity toprovide constructive feedback, including comments regarding staffcommunications and engagement


Crisis, safety and security

The employee journey

WHAT IS HEliX? 5

UNIVERSITY GOALS, AMBITIONS AND CHARACTER6

UNIVERSITY GOALS, AMBITIONS AND CHARACTER 7

University goals,ambitions and character


Oxford Brookes University

Background

Oxford Brookes University is widely regarded in the sector as an inclusive and openuniversity. Thus the way it approached the creation of a new strategy was important interms of observing these values: staff needed to be not only consulted, but put at theheart of the creative process and involved in deciding new and ambitious directions. Theproject manager for strategy development was Professor Denise Morrey, Dean of theSchool of Technology, who worked closely with the Vice-Chancellor, Professor JanetBeer.

Janet Beer outlined the issues in the consultation document: “The Brookes 2020strategy has to define a university that is distinctive in ways we must articulate throughthe strategic consultation process. We have the opportunity to engage in a seriousdiscussion – across and amongst all members of the University, and with our friends.”

Objectives

• To inform staff of the external context that faces all universities.

• To allow consultation to inform the development of strategy through capturing ideasand expertise, and to start a process of ‘buy-in’ to the new strategy.

• To develop a discussion paper that would be led by senior academic staff.

• To create discussion opportunities across traditional internal hierarchies and withclose, external friends.

Concept

Detailed conversations with staff on strategy would create a think piece on the mostrelevant goals and opportunities, a Green Paper. This would be the precursor to a moreconcise public strategy document but it would have the effect of including andengaging staff in the important detail and key messages.

The Detail

The idea of a Green Paper was adopted from the parliamentary model: it aimed toprompt discussion and look for emerging areas of consensus. The paper was basedaround seven key themes, each one led by a Dean, who was then also asked to create a

Project leader

Professor Denise Morrey, Dean of the School of TechnologyOxford Brookes University

HEliX indicator:

The University has a well-articulated vision that enables all staff to understandthe direction of travel of the institution, its ambitions and priorities

The Green Approach: involving staff in the strategic process

1

“We knew that our staff were

ready to engage in this sort of

discussion from our staff

surveys and our work on the

HEliX project. But the challenge

was still to create ways to have

a genuine discussion. I was also

really convinced that the

engagement of academic staff

was critical. Asking the Deans

to lead on key areas really

made a difference.”Denise Morrey


task force of experts in that area whowould support discussion and help togenerate feedback. Themes includedenhancing the quality of the studentexperience, research and knowledgetransfer, and civic and communityengagement.

The Vice-Chancellor announced theforthcoming process in a series ofcampus presentations in June/July 2008,when an on-line staff survey on theUniversity’s strengths and values alsoopened. At the same time, each of theDeans was developing a list of issuesand questions for their theme. TheGreen Paper itself, which also containedbackground information in a range ofareas, was developed by Denise Morreyand by Communications Director, SusieBaker.

The Green Paper was published inOctober 2008 in hard copy and wasavailable on-line. University-widediscussion meetings were held on eachcampus. Each of the theme leadershosted focus groups for staff and forthose on the Board of Governors andUniversity Court. Alumni and a widerange of other externals were invited toparticipate in focus groups. As theuniversity was also consulting on its newStudent Centre building, the discussionstook place in the exhibition area toprompt discussion about the futureopportunities. All Schools andDirectorates held their own discussionsand specialist committees were asked tomake the Green Paper an agenda item.The Vice-Chancellor and ProfessorMorrey attended meetings of interestgroups, such as administrators and theStudent Union Council and Executive;staff, such as the professoriate and earlycareer academics and professionals,were asked to attend focus groupschaired by a member of the SeniorManagement Team. Meetings were alsoheld with the Trade Unions.

A website was established:www.brookes.ac.uk/2020

Costs and timeframe

The process ran from June toDecember 2008. In addition to stafftime, the costs were printed posters,the Green Paper itself and the cateringfor focus group meetings.

Were there any problems?

A small batch of printed copies of theGreen Paper were sent to each Deanand Director, with the assumption thatmany staff would prefer to read thedocument on-line. However, there wereso many requests for extra copies, itwould have been more straightforward(and more transparent) to send a copyto each member of staff – even thoughthis approach does raise concerns onenvironmental grounds. Running focusgroups needed more preparation thanhad been anticipated. Room layouts,discussion structures and timemanagement were revised early in theprocess. There was inevitably a learningcurve for those with less experience athosting cross-institution discussions.

Measuring Success

Professor Denise Morrey: “I am reallypleased with the way that the Deanswere so committed to their part in theprocess. It made such a difference butit was a big time commitment on theirpart. The early on-line survey provideda good backdrop to our discussions”

“The response was amazing. I thinkthat the Green Paper raised such abroad range of issues that everyonecould contribute to a part of it. Thewebsite provides a good indicator. Wehad over 2,500 visitors to the website,which suggests a very high proportionof our staff looked at what washappening. We are now feeding backthe responses; although the finalstrategy will inevitably not pleaseeveryone, I believe that my colleagueswill trust the process we are goingthrough to write that strategy.”

Susie Baker adds:

“We have to think in the long term tosee the impact of the time we’vecommitted. If colleagues haveconfidence in the new strategy that willbenefit Brookes and the communities weserve for many years to come.”

What next?

Feedback on the Green Paper and thenext round of campus presentations willtake place soon, and then we hope topublish our White Paper this year, leadingto the agreed strategy.

For more information see:www.brookes.ac.uk/2020


Goldsmiths, University of London

Background

Goldsmiths, University of London is on a single urban site in south east London andhas a fairly mature student base. Despite previous research showing it had a strongbrand and reputation - it was voted one of the UK’s coolest brands for four yearsrunning - Goldsmiths was not always getting its messages across. For a start, therewas confusion about its title – especially the word ‘College’ – which meant that ithad different meanings in different recruitment markets. Mindful of the potential fornegative PR and the potential costs which might be incurred, Vicky Annandrecommended that the rebranding was approached in an inclusive and researchfocused way, separating out the research element from the creative element.

Project Manager

Vicky Annand, Head, Communications and PublicityGoldsmiths, University of London

HEliX indicator:

The University articulates and amplifies its character and strengths to its staff,enabling them to understand and explain its reputation to third parties

Rebranding a Cool Brand: strengthening corporate values

3“We wanted this to be an

intelligent debate about how

we were perceived, what our

mission and values should

be, and what we were doing,

not what we looked like. We

did not want some big

debate about logos.”


Objectives

• To devise and implement a cost-effective rebranding project,comprising evaluation of Goldsmiths’external perception, Mission andValues, and subsequent refreshing ofthe corporate identity, throughresearch, focus groups, workshops,and stakeholder engagement.

• To evaluate the possible effects of theCollege’s title and the strength of theUniversity of London brand.

• To bring staff, students and keyexternal stakeholders togetherthrough the process.

• To enable staff to communicate theGoldsmiths ‘brand’ (in the holisticsense of Mission and Values) morecoherently.

Concept

An inclusive and intelligence-led staffand student consultation, to review,redefine and embed the Goldsmiths‘brand’.

The Detail

The phase one project team, overseeingthe research, included representativesfrom Senior Management, academicdepartments, and the Students’ Union.Stakeholder research was commissionedto understand how Goldsmiths wasexternally and internally perceived. Theresults of the research were used as thebasis of a practical workshop with allheads of departments to explore theoutcomes and help to developappropriate Mission and Values, (seewww.gold.ac.uk/strategy/mission/)

For the second creative phase, another –more operational – project team wasestablished under the same projectmanager, Vicky Annand, reporting to themembers of Senior Management Teamwho had been on the first project team.This team included representatives fromthe web team, from reprographicservices, internal communications and

the publications and publicity team. Acompetitive tender was held to appointan appropriate design agency who thenworked with the results of the research(Phase One) to develop a versatile andsimple logo.

“The new logo is matt gold for all themain stationery, but departments canuse it in a variety of colours. There’s nocrest, no fussy elements – justcontemporary typography, that is clean,and neat, and can be used easily,”explains Vicky.

The university magazines, Staff andStudent Hallmark, carried informationthroughout the project to keep internalaudiences informed. Staff and studentswere also invited to an exhibition toview and comment on the early designideas. This kept everyone involved andpart of the process, rather than simplypassive recipients of a final look.

Cost and timescale

Vicky explains “The whole review andredesign came in at about £143,000.The research took about three months,and the logo design took a further sevenmonths or so. One of the key messagesall along the line was that resourceswere tight. The implementation wasplanned to be phased in over a two tothree year period, to ensure a cost-effective approach is in place.Departments were encouraged to runstocks of stationery down to minimiseany potential wastage. Materials wereupdated as stocks ran out, or aspublications, such as prospectuses andcourse booklets, were updated as partof the routine, annual cycle.”


“Because of the phased approach, someelements have taken longer than wewould have hoped. We’ve had to do afair amount of work to remind people toensure that Goldsmiths is referred to asGoldsmiths, University of London. Also,we had a potential PR problem when a

student journalist claimed that theCollege had spent a million pounds onthe whole redesign! We had to putpeople straight on that one pretty fastand so we added that to the ‘frequentlyasked questions’ page.”

Measuring success

Vicky feels the whole exercise went verysmoothly: “People were involved in theproject as much as possible using regularupdates in Staff and Student Hallmark,email, exhibitions, and a dedicatedwebpage; there were very fewcomplaints, compared to what mighthave been expected, and the wholeprocess went relatively smoothly. Weeven managed to get the prospectusesrebranded even though we were onlypart way through the second phase ofthe rebranding project. The majority ofdepartments accepted phasing out theirindividually commissioned logos withimmediate effect; the rationale was thatthe design of the new logo was flexibleenough to allow them to use it withwhatever imagery and colours (withinreason) on their materials andwebpages. We took the decision toestablish a brand toolkit page andensure that logos and guidelines werewidely available to staff who neededthem; this meant that people did nothave to try and create their ownversions. In terms of the future, wewould like to commission stakeholderperception research, and to find outwhether people have a betterunderstanding of what we are doing asa university. We also now need to seewhether the rebranding has helped staffto explain the university better to others.That would be the ultimate test.”


San Francisco State University

Background

San Francisco State University is an urban public university serving more than 30,000students and is part of the 23-campus California State University system. It is regarded asless prestigious that the University of California (UC) system. SF State is widely known forits diversity and success in widening participation. Like all public universities, SF State hasto contend with on-going budget cuts, given the huge deficit in California’s State budget(reputedly 41 million dollars in debt in 2008). Architecture is another issue: the University’smagazine says “San Francisco State’s main campus has never been one to flaunt its goodlooks.” Other factors that limit its market appeal include the unfavourable comparisons tomore prestigious neighbours (UC Berkeley and Stanford) and a reputation for being onthe one hand, ‘ultra liberal’, and on the other, ‘stuck in the 1960s’.

Although the liberal reputation (stemming from civil rights activism in the 60s) puts offsome stakeholders, it is profoundly appealing to academics. One Dean described how heoperated in an environment where he could pursue new programmes and researchcentres without reference to ‘the centre’. In short, he contended SF State is a Universitythat ranks creativity over order.

Within this environment, the Director of University Communications, Ellen Griffin, neededto create a campaign that unified the institution at a time of major campusredevelopment but proceed with profound caution to avoid any branding furores.

Objectives

• To create a campaign that builds pride in the University and positively differentiates theinstitution from its more prestigious competitors.

• To do this without major brand arguments, causing staff to think this was top-downspin or a waste of resource.

• To move the university away from negative aspects of its liberal reputation (‘stuck in the60s’) whilst preserving the positive elements of academic freedom and intelligentindividualism.

Concept

A marketing proposition - SF State: The City’s Creative Spark and SF State – it’s a state ofmind – developed and rolled out through ‘guerrilla tactics’.

Project Manager

Ellen Griffith, Director of University Communications, SFSUInterviewed by Dave Penney, Oxford Brookes University

HEliX indicator:


Internal staff communications is integral part of University decision-making

The City’s Creative Spark: creating a vision through ‘guerilla’ engagement

“We used guerrilla tactics

instead, because any reference

to rebranding would just have

generated hostility and

scepticism.”

3

5


The Detail

“What we didn’t do is talk about amarketing proposition,” says Ellen. “Weused guerrilla tactics instead, because anyreference to rebranding would just havegenerated hostility and scepticism.” Themasterplan gave the UniversityCommunications team the perfect excuseto discuss values, ambitions and directionsfully with staff as part of the extensive theplanning consultation. Staff wereencouraged to take part in blue skythinking exercises and generate new ideasfor the future of the University. What wasdelivered was in essence a new startingpoint and narrative to describe SF State’sachievements and direction.

Ellen’s thesis is that effective internalcommunications starts by acknowledgingan institution’s values and meeting people’semotional needs. In the case of SF State,the extensive consultation showed staff feltthe University had a major reputationproblem and there was a pressing need tobuild pride internally and differentiate itselfexternally. The achievements of theUniversity were often drowned out by on-going coverage of student activism and lawsuits related to issues such as free-speechand admissions.

Working with an agency, UniversityCommunications developed a campaignthat both embraced and moved theUniversity beyond its activist image/history.Ellen described the campaign’s centralthesis as: “We are who we are and we areoffering no apology.” The two centralingredients in the campaign were creativityand attitude.

Given the national and international appealand reputation of San Francisco, thecampaign established a strong device tolink the success of this beautiful city and SFState University and allow staff andstudents to take pride in the contributionthe University makes to the city. Street lightbanners with the slogan “SF State: TheCity’s Creative Spark” were launched firstlyon and around the main campus and thenexpanded into the city centre.

The print campaign was based on the tag

line “The San Francisco State of Mind”,which is subsequently defined inadvertisements as ‘the commitment toequity and social justice’. This bothembraces the activist ethos that theUniversity is renowned for and allowedacademic achievements to be showcasedunder a common theme/message.

In both campaigns, staff were prioritisedwith internal launches to allow theUniversity community to be comfortablewith the campaign before it went public.The “San Francisco State of Mind”advertisements were then launched inthe Chronicle of Higher Education inSeptember 2008.

Costs and timeframeThe campaign was developed as a resultof months of discussion and consultationacross the University. The exact costingswere not available, but Ellen says thebanners across the University and city

proved to be the most effective (at$50,000 a year) both in terms of costand profile.

Measuring successWhile the primary purpose of this workwas external promotion, thecommitment to staff consultation inwhat is a highly devolved institutionensured that it was also a highlysuccessful internal communications andpride building programme.

“While no measurement of the successof this branding work on the culture ofSF State was undertaken, I was veryimpressed with the impact the campaignhad on staff and how closely thecampaign matched their ownperceptions about the strengths anddirection of the University,” says Dave Penney.

For more information: http://www.sfsu.edu/~news/2008adcampaign.htm

Top TipsHow to redefine values, mission and visionBe clear what these three words mean:

Values – are your moral compass (your beliefs, history, credo, moral codes). Theseshould always inform Mission and Vision, but they are often identical in manyuniversities, which share very similar values and moral pathways.

Mission – is what you do as an institution and what students and staff come to youfor.

Vision – is what you want to achieve but haven’t yet. This is the journey that inspiresstaff and students to join, stay and work hard. Without a vision, universities becomeindistinct and stale.

• Involve staff in detailed dialogue, in order to understand what the strengths andweaknesses of the institution are. Explore their understanding of values, mission andvision. What’s missing? What works, doesn’t?

• Talk to external stakeholders – what do they know about the university, what ismisunderstood/not known?

• Triangulate these viewpoints to build up a clear picture of reputation.

• Ask whether this reputation is what the university wants it to be.

• Redefine an ideal reputation, work out how you are going to achieve this. That’s thevision.

• Build a plan to turn the ‘ideal reputation’ into the real reputation through activities,research, outputs etc.

• Take this back to staff as an outcome of the consultation, and to further engage,embed and effect.


Stockport Metropolitan Borough Council

Project Leader

Alison Whitelegg, Internal Publicity and Communications OfficerStockport Metropolitan Borough Council

HEliX indicator:


3

Be Proud: an integrated campaign to boost morale

Background

Stockport Metropolitan Borough Council employs 6000 people and is responsible foran area which stretches from the borders of the Peak District National Park to the cityof Manchester. More than 291,000 live in the borough and many more look toStockport for employment or entertainment.

The Council launched the Be Proud campaign in response to independent researchwhich revealed that a sense of pride in working for an organisation is one of the topfactors in employee engagement. The Council felt this was an area that could bedeveloped. The campaign ran throughout October 2008 to coincide with a largeexternal campaign, Community Pride, which publicised the reasons for residents andother stakeholders in Stockport to be proud of the area.

“ The most successful

organisations are those that

fully engage their employees.

Pride in your job is of key

importance to that. In the

campaign we wanted to

explore imaginative ways of

getting employees to develop

a sense of pride in the

contribution they make

individually and at the same

time feel proud to be working

for Stockport Council.”


Objectives

• To encourage and promote prideamong staff in what they do asindividuals in their daily jobs, as wellas pride in what the Council does asan organisation.

• To instil a sense of pride in employees– increase employee response onsurvey to over 50% of employeesbeing proud to work for the Council.

• To communicate the Council’s threestrategic priorities:

1 An Attractive and Thriving Stockport

2 A Leading Green Borough

3 Safe and Strong Communities

• To help employees feel valued in theirjobs and as members of a team.

• To share good practice and successacross the Council and within teams.

• To encourage feedback from peers aswell as line managers.

Concept

The campaign harnessed a variety ofmedia, ranging from traditional methodssuch as posters and magazines, to newmedia including e-cards and podcasts.

Alison says: “The most successfulorganisations are those that fully engagetheir employees. Pride in your job is ofkey importance to that. In the campaignwe wanted to explore imaginative waysof getting employees to develop a senseof pride in the contribution they makeindividually and at the same time feelproud to be working for StockportCouncil.”

The Detail

The campaign explained why peopleshould feel proud to work for theCouncil by highlighting the majorachievements of the last six months,which included gaining a four starranking as an ‘excellent’ council from

the Audit Commission. It also soughtfrom employees the reasons why theywere proud to work for Stockport Counciland how they felt they made a difference.

By highlighting and publicising theseareas, other employees were then able todraw comparisons and in turn also feelproud about the job and work they did.

A variety of employees were interviewedabout their roles, how they contributed tothe Council’s priorities and why they wereproud to work for the authority. Theseinterviews were then made available aspodcasts.

Say it with a Postcard – a ‘wish you werehere’ postcard was sent to all employeeswith payslips, including a message ofthanks from the Chief Executive andLeader.

Employees were encouraged to getinvolved by contributing to a ‘Roll ofHonour’ where they could publicise anyawards their team had received on adatabase held on the intranet. Employeeswere also given the opportunity to sendthank you e-cards to colleagues torecognise their achievements andcontributions.

Posters were designed for the campaign.The intranet also carried dedicated pageswhich changed on a daily basis tohighlight a broad range of Councilachievements. A special edition of theCouncil’s internal magazine, The Reporter,was also produced with a focus on the BeProud campaign.

Costs and timeframe

The month-long campaign cost £3,297,equating to 49 pence per employee.


Sourcing images for the campaign thatportrayed, the concept of pride provedquite a challenge.

Measuring success

The campaign produced the followingoutcomes:

• 58% of employees are proud to workfor the Council, an increase of 17%from 2002. There was a 16% increasefrom 2002 in those who think theCouncil is a good place to work.

• During Be Proud month there weremore than 1,250 hits on the webpagethat carried the thank you e-cards.

• Respondents to a short survey said thatthey found the podcasts interesting andeasy to use. One respondent said that“the podcasts make an interestingalternative to a newsletter”.

• The employees who were featured inthe podcasts were asked a number ofquestions following the launch; oneemployee said that colleagues told himhe had ‘given a good and entertainingaccount of their team’s role’. Anotheremployee featured said that, “podcastsused by senior management aboutcorporate initiatives or information areexcellent for grabbing people’sattention”. More than 60 peopledownloaded and listened to at leastone of the podcasts.

• The campaign won Silver at the CIPRPride Awards 2008 in which the judgescommented:

“The campaign had clearly defined andmeasurable objectives and took a sensibleapproach to reaching employees withclear messages. A range ofcommunication tools were used and thecampaign was effective in boostingemployee pride. It was successful inengaging employees to become brandambassadors and demonstrated thatminds had been won and perceptionsmeasurably shifted.”

One employee who completed theevaluation summary commented: “DuringBe Proud month I found out about thejobs of many other people and it mademe realise just how much the Councildoes. It makes me feel proud that I workin a place that can really change thingsfor people and the area - I'd never reallythought about this before”.


Manchester Airports Group

Project Leader

Liz Douglas, Head of Group Internal CommunicationManchester Airports Group

HEliX indicators:

Put yourself in the picture: communicatingvision and values

The University has a well-articulated vision that enables all staff tounderstand the direction of travel of the institution, its ambitions andpriorities

Consistent with the University’s goals, all academic and administrativedepartments have a vision that sets out their specific ambitions andpriorities

The University articulates and amplifies its character and strengths to itsstaff, enabling them to understand and explain its reputation to thirdparties

1

2

3


Background

The Manchester Airports Group (MAG)is the country’s largest UK-ownedairport operator with four airports -Manchester, East Midlands,Bournemouth and Humberside.Recently, it created a new ten-yearbusiness strategy, which requires all2700 staff, across the four differentlocations, to engage with.

Liz Douglas, Head of Group InternalCommunication, explains:

“The airport group is a complex 24/7operation with the roles of colleaguesbeing highly diverse including roles suchas airfield operations, security, fire,customer services, bussing, along withthe relevant people management andexecutive support team. With such avariety of roles, our people havedifferent exposures to our customersand our business. We needed our visionto be clear so that everyone could havea clear line of sight from their role tothe business vision and we wanted toget key messages across to everyone onour four respective sites. As an airportgroup we are reliant on a number ofbusiness partners to provide our end-to-end customer experience and as suchwe needed to ensure that thesepartners also understood our vision.

Objectives

• To create a visual aid to support theunderstanding of the strategy.

• To show graphically how every aspectof life at MAG comes together.

• To unite staff behind the newobjective and vision.

• To demonstrate how everyone wouldcontribute to the MAG vision over a10 year period.

• To increase measured levels of MAGcolleague engagement.

• To engage other airport businesspartners.

Concept

The team decided to project the newstrategy in an image - a refreshing modeof communication in an otherwise text-rich environment. We were aware of anumber of suppliers who could producethis type of but selected Axiomcommunications, given their track recordin this type of engagement. Afterrejecting a number of themes for thepicture, the team thought of expressingthe journey as a marathon. A number ofimages were drawn freehand by Axiomand developed using MAG’s feedback.Once the final picture was agreed thiswas then converted to a computergenerated image so that the picture hadmore usability in the future.”

The Detail

“The constituents of MAG’s strategywere embedded in the picture – theMAG objective, vision, values andheritage along with participants,competitors, external drivers andsustainability. The key targets for MAGand objectives for the next five yearswere depicted in a margin to the right(not shown). The test of the picture wasreally dependent on staff response. Theexecutive and leadership teamundertook 68 colleague briefings acrossall four airports to communicate theMAG strategy using the Big Picturemarathon. Feedback on both the use ofthe image and the briefings was very

positive as we were communicatingface to face in a different and moreengaging manner than had ever beendone before. A timeline video wasproduced for the company heritage atthe start of the briefings and a 4minute video of a computer generatedimage of a marathon, bringing thewhole picture to life was produced forthe end of the sessions. All colleagueswere given a credit card size fold outof the Big Picture and objectives andpeople managers were given desktopbriefing materials for reference. Allcolleagues now have the Big picture astheir desktop wallpaper and anintranet site on Our Route to successahs been developed to keep allcolleagues up to date on progress inbetween future six monthly updatesand monthly team briefing references.”

Costs and timeframe

“The whole process from initialconcept to deployment took threemonths and cost £70K including allmaterials.


“A lot of colleagues at our airportshave long service and have seeninitiatives come and go over the years.Whilst people really liked the differentapproach of the Big Picture and thehuge effort to complete the face-to-

Where should Internal Communications sit? HR or comms?

“I have worked in internal communications reporting to a variety of

departments – HR, Marketing, Corporate Affairs and Strategy. At

MAG, internal communications sits within HR. I do not believe it really

matters which area internal communications sits in, providing that you

have a direct line to the executive team and CEO. It’s primarily the

relationships that you build that lead to the success of the area not its

position in the organisational structure.”


Top TipsCommunicating a university strategy to staff

1. Involve and engage staff in the process of creating the strategy.

2. Ensure the strategy is a vision for the future rather than a statement of‘where we are now’.

3. Create clear performance indicators to show how you will know whether thestrategy has been achieved.

4. Use words that are clear and jargon-free and ensure that the strategysupports the university’s values.

5. Interview staff and stakeholders to discuss university progress towardsachieving that strategy regularly.

6. Present review results to staff to stimulate debate and further engagement.

7. Communicate the strategy in different ways, and at different times. It is not aone-off announcement.

8. Engage senior staff and academics in how best to communicate the strategy.

9. Ensure that departmental strategies link up to or map on to the universitystrategy in order to help deliver the overall ambitions.

10. Use creative techniques for reminding staff of the strategy – dry or familiardelivery usually results in staff ignoring the message.

face briefings across different times ofthe day and evenings to cover alloperational shifts, they are apprehensiveas to whether the image, objective andvision will stay for 10 years.”

Measuring success

“The initial feedback, collected throughboth hard copy and electronic feedbackforms has been very positive and thebriefings sessions which were interactiveenabled a lot of issues which could be‘blockers’ to be discussed betweencolleagues and senior managers. Wehave measured a baseline ofengagement before the strategy waslaunched and we will continue tomeasure engagement through our

annual survey as well as throughtemperature checks across the group.This will be the formal test of whetherthis communication has made adifference. But in terms of breaking theice, and bonding people, there’s nodoubt that it’s been a success.”

What next?

“This spring, we will be running a seriesof interactive briefings for our businesspartners across the Group to ensure ourcustomers get a world-class customerservice at all touch points at our airports.A values-based colleague achievementreview framework is being introducedfrom April 2009 supported by a values-driven behaviour framework.”

Leadership

LEADERSHIP 19

LEADERSHIP20

Imperial College London

Background

One of the top universities in the world, Imperial College London prides itself ondoing things well. Making sure its 6500 staff understand the College’s strategicdirection is fundamental to achieving its mission and was one of the aims whenrecruiting to the newly focussed internal communications function in 2006. CarolineDavis has since led the function, creating the first internal communications strategyand working closely on integrated projects with communications colleagues in mediarelations, research communications, digital media, events and publications.

Objectives

• To open up dialogue

• To make the senior management team more visible

• To give staff a chance to talk about key issues – especially vision and strategy

• To increase transparency of the decision-making processes

Concept

To use a blog that could be accessed by all staff and students to share details of thediscussions about Imperial’s strategy held at the annual senior staff away days hostedby the Rector.

The Detail

The Rector’s Away Day (actually two days) takes place annually and is attended byaround 80 leaders of academic and administrative departments. Caroline and hercolleagues also go along to report on the discussions and within a week of the AwayDay their accounts of the main themes and discussions are posted on the blog. Anemail is sent to all staff, giving them a taster of the blog contents and encouragingthem to add their own comments, ideas and questions. Caroline moderates the blogso comments do not appear online until she has checked that they comply with theblog guidelines. When questions come in, she consults the relevant member of thesenior management team and a reply is added to the blog if appropriate.

Project manager

Caroline Davis, Internal Communications ManagerImperial College London

HEliX indicator:

Internal staff communications is integral part of University decision-making

Getting the big picture across: a strategic blog

5

“We’ve had very little trouble

with unsuitable material.

I think there were only two

comments that I didn’t post

to the blog because they

were about issues completely

unrelated to the topics

covered in the blog entries.

Having a blog policy helps

make clear what is and is not

acceptable.”

Costs and timeframe

The blogging software cost around£300 in 2006 and since then all thecosts have been in-house staff time,including the writing and editorial timeincorporated into Caroline’s job, andthe time of the web team insupporting the technical framework.When comments are posted, Carolinereceives an email alert and if aresponse is appropriate, she aims topost this within a week.


Caroline thinks most people are verysatisfied with the blog, and thefeedback has been almost universallypositive. Her only concern is keepingup momentum: “Last November wasthe third time we’d used the blog toreport on discussions at an Away Day,and there were fewer comments thanin previous years. We may considerallowing anonymous comments nextyear, which may mean people feelmore comfortable offering their views.We’ll still know they are bona fide staffas the site will remain login only.”

Measuring success

“We haven’t done any formal review,but most comments have been reallypositive. One of the aims of theinternal communications function is topromote the sense of us being in acommunity together. It’s much morethan just keeping staff on side – it’simportant for staff to know whereImperial is going. They all play a keyambassadorial role for the College – ifstaff understand the College’s directionand take pride in it, it’ll influence theirconversations with friends and peoplethey meet, which has to benefitImperial’s reputation.”

What next?

“We will relaunch the blog next yearusing better blogging software we’vefound for our new student blogs.”

Imperial’s comments policy on Rector’s Away Day blog

All comments posted to the blog will automatically have the College member'slogin attached. No anonymous comments are allowed.

Comments must relate to the entry.

Comments are moderated and will not be published if they are:

1. Unrelated to the topic of the blog entry

2. Incomprehensible

3. Offensive

4. Personal attacks

Comments posted to the blog will not appear immediately

LEADERSHIP 21

LEADERSHIP22

Change communications: extending leadership

Background

The O2 Technology division has just over 2000 members of staff spread across severalsites around the UK. Staff cover a diverse range of technical functions, from thenetwork of mobilesites, through customer service systems, to the IT helpdesk.

Here their communications team describe a significant internal communicationschallenge.

The telecoms market is fast-moving and fiercely competitive. Technology is a keyelement of maintaining O2's position as market leader. Recognising that to stayahead in future, the Technology Division would have to find radically new ways ofworking, the Chief Technology Officer (CTO) launched a programme oforganisational transformation.

While this was in no way conceived as an exercise to reduce headcount, radicallydifferent ways of working would clearly require different structures and, in manycases, different skills. The success of the transformation would depend on all staffretaining their productivity and creativity, in the face of major upheaval anduncertainty.

An internal communications campaign was launched, aimed at technology staff, andstakeholders from other areas of the UK and international business. Thetransformation programme was given its own ‘brand’ name and visual identity. Thishelped to position the transformation as a significant challenge and an excitingopportunity.

The Senior Leadership Team (SLT; six people) were all fully supportive of thetransformation. A few projects using new ways of working were already successfullyunderway. It was now crucial that everyone in the next tier of management, knownas the Extended Leadership Team (ELT; around 40 people), become fully engaged inthe programme. Any doubts about the transformation at this level could have adevastating impact on large numbers of staff, and the ultimate success of theprogramme.

Project leaders

Telefónica O2 UK Technology divisionInterviewed by Dave Penney, Oxford Brookes University

HEliX indicators:

The senior executive team contextualise the environment for their staff(political, policy, economic & social)

There is a robust corporate strategy for internal staff communications

Staff communications is effectively operationalised and resourced to ensurethat it is effective and impactful

Heads of both academic and service departments understand their criticalrole in delivering effective staff communications and have systems andprotocols to facilitate this

6

9

10

11

“This was about do or

die: engage your staff

or fail!”

Objectives

• To motivate and enable the ELT toprovide leadership during a period ofmajor transformation.

• To help them understand andsupport the transformationprogramme.

• To enable the ELT to convince otherswhom they managed of the need forchange.

Concept

It was decided that - despite thedifficulties of gathering everyonetogether at short notice - a day-longevent would be the most effective andefficient way to achieve the objective.

The Detail

A key message was that thetransformation was not a top-downimposition; it was about everyonebeing empowered to come up withinnovative ideas of how to do thingsbetter.

With this in mind, the day wasdesigned to include plenty ofopportunities for two-waycommunication rather than simplyPowerpoints. Moreover, a decision wastaken to record the day on film, so thatfootage could be used in presentationsand at other times. Thus managementquestions, responses, and criticalthinking happening at the away daycould be used to persuade a wideremployee audience of the importanceof change.

Key elements were:

• Motivational introduction by CTO(loosely scripted).

• Presentation with detailed slide pack:the need for change, the state of themarket and competitiveenvironment, progress already made,explanation of indicators of success.

• ‘Circle of truth’ exercise: to give

people 'permission' to raise difficultquestions and engage in open, frankdiscussion. Issues and ideas werecaptured on flipcharts by IC staff.

• Exercise in groups followed byplenary presentations and discussion:starting to imagine ways to achievepositive transformation. Content wascaptured on flipcharts; additionalnotes were taken by IC staff.

• Round-up of how people werefeeling at the end of the day.

• Summary and thanks by CTO(unscripted).

After the event:

• Editing a whole day's video footagedown to about 15 minutes, ensuringkey messages and ideas werecovered.

• A feature article was written aboutthe event and the results of theevaluation were publicised to all staffvia online channels. We didn't wantthere to be any sense of proceedingstaking place behind closed doors.

• Further development of presentationpack, including slides and video, forELT to use with their teams.

• Video footage posted to intranet.

• Further evaluation (see below).

Costs and timeframe

The time from inception to completiontook a couple of weeks. Costs included:

• Communications consultant

• Staff time

• Venue hire / catering

• Video production

• Travel expenses


One of the main challenges was gettingso many senior people together on thesame day. A 'three line whip' from theSLT was deemed advisable.

Filming the entire day ran the risk ofpeople not feeling able to speak openlyand honestly. IC staff took on a greatresponsibility to use footage withdiscretion (making sure everyone'shappy with sign-off procedures isadvisable). Fortunately, withencouragement and reassurance fromthe SLT, all participants contributedboldly!

However professional the videoproduction company, and howeverdetailed their brief, you'll probably needto be pretty hands-on with editing toensure the right messages get through.At the same time, you'll need to allowthe specialists to do what they're goodat! If you have the budget and time,the results can be inspirational.

Measuring success

The schedule included a chance forpeople to say how they were feeling atthe end of the day. In addition, anevaluation form was given out. Theresults were overwhelmingly positive.

The real proof of the pudding was inthe ELT's subsequent ability to motivatetheir teams. IC ensured that all staffwere invited via the weekly e-newsletterto take part in an online survey aboutthe transformation. A questionspecifically about communication fromtheir ELT member was included in thissurvey. The results were excellent.

Measuring a return on investment willbe part of the overall success of thetransformation programme as a whole.At some point, no doubt, someone willpore over such measures as Time ToMarket and Operating Income BeforeDepreciation and Amortisation…

From an internal communicationsperspective, however, this was about door die: engage your staff or fail!

LEADERSHIP 23

LEADERSHIP24

Edge Hill University

Background

Edge Hill University has 2000 staff spread across a main campus in Ormskirk andsatellite campuses in Liverpool, Cheshire, Lancashire, Manchester and Shropshire. TheVice-Chancellor, John Cater, wanted an effective and timely, yet informal, method ofcommunicating with academic and support staff at all levels.

Objectives

• To devise a method of communication for the Vice-Chancellor to reach all staff,both academic and non-academic.

• To communicate with staff in a non-patronising manner.

• To engage staff in the life of the University.

• To update staff on key developments of the University.

Project leader

Dr John Cater, Vice-ChancellorEdge Hill University

HEliX indicators:

The senior executive team contextualise the environment for their staff(political, policy, economic & social)

The senior executive team distil and clarify key messages for staff

Just to let you know: Vice-Chancellor email update

6

7

• To provide an additional mechanism torecognise the achievements of staff orto thank them for work beyond thecall of duty.

• To offer staff a broad picture of newsand events across the university.

• To alert staff to sensitive issues thatmay require support from individualsacross the University eg recruitmentmatters.

• To provide a mechanism for staff toprovide feedback to seniormanagement.

• To offer staff a broader view ofdevelopments across higher educationin order to put Edge Hill’sachievements and challenges insuitable context.

Concept

An all staff e-mail, written personally bythe Vice-Chancellor, issued on a weeklybasis.

The Detail

The email is a short summary of headlinenews involving or affecting Edge HillUniversity, written in an informal andchatty tone, with the good humour thatis regarded as a hallmarkof the VC.

John Cater said: “It is extremelyimportant that staff have access to andcommunication with the University’ssenior management. The success of theinstitution relies on the valuedcontributions of every employee of theUniversity as much as the leadershipprovided by the senior team. In all of ourcommunications we try to be open,honest and clear. The one thing I’velearned through all of the roles I’vedone, especially that of Vice- Chancellor,is that you can’t communicate enough!”

• The content is underpinned whererelevant by key statistics and reflectsthe academic background of the Vice-Chancellor as a social geographer.

• The emails often carry a common

theme which people relate to, e.g. aweather forecast.

• Other content includes latestdevelopments with building projectson campus – a new Faculty of Healthbuilding and a new Business Schoolhave been completed in the last 12months, for example, and newstudent accommodation is currentlyunder construction; news of newcontracts won, funding issues, healthand safety matters, details of publiclectures and shows at the University’stwo theatres and recruitment updates.

• Employees are encouraged to takepart in a quiz carried in the email withthe offer of a bottle of wine to thewinner. The quiz is often about agraduate, so it encourages awarenessof student progression in alighthearted manner.

Costs and timeframe

The emails cost merely half an hour ofthe Vice-Chancellor’s time every weekand another half an hour or so torespond to emails.


Covering a wide range of issueseffectively in a short communication wasa challenge. This has been addressed bylimiting the content to top-line messageswithin the email and including contactsfor further details.

Measuring success

The email is widely respected across theUniversity’s staff as a “warts and all”account of Edge Hill life. The highvolume of responses to the weekly quizindicates the email is widely read. Stafffeedback has praised the readability ofthe communication and new staff areoften surprised to find the Vice-Chancellor dedicates the time toundertake this task personally. Thehumorous tone is considered to behugely effective in making thecommunication more accessible whilenever detracting from the seriousness ofthe message within.

Top tips for briefing staff1. Use simple language that is jargon-free but which resonates.

2. Allow departments to customize and add to the main message for ateam brief. Strait jackets won’t work.

3. Use stories and anecdotes to personalize and humanize.

4. Use different and varying media – face to face, podcasts, emails,written letters.

5. Use pictures where appropriate. People often have much better recallof images than words.

6. Encourage conversations and debate in order to engage attention.

7. Add facts and figures to clarify and add research-based intelligence.

8. Keep to a theme, don’t simply scatter information.

9. Be brief.

10. Don’t read from a script. Practise and memorize key points but do therest “off the cuff”.

LEADERSHIP 25

STRATEGY, ACCOUNTABILITY AND EVALUATION26

STRATEGY, ACCOUNTABILITY AND EVALUATION 27

Strategy,accountabilityand evaluation

STRATEGY, ACCOUNTABILITY AND EVALUATION28

University of Manchester

Project leader

Rachael McGraw, Internal Communications ManagerThe University of Manchester

HEliX indicators:

Heads of both academic and service departments understand their criticalrole in delivering effective staff communications and have systems andprotocols to facilitate this

Staff communications is regularly reviewed to highlight needs, gaps andevaluate effectiveness

University news, events and success stories are communicated to staffeffectively

There are channels for disseminating and accessing local news around andbetween departments

Staff have comprehensive access to the policies, plans & information theyneed to do their jobs

Committees, formal meetings and working groups are effective in terms ofsharing information and communicating decisions

Team Briefing: a strategic approach to sharing information

11

12

13

14

17

18

Should managers be taughtcommunications?

“We offer a training course

aimed specifically at middle

managers to help them think

about internal

communications – this is a

two day course with plenty of

practical advice. Now we are

trying to make sure that

communications is included in

managerial job descriptions,

and promote the fact that

communication should be

measured in personal

development reviews.

Sometimes managers felt it

wasn’t their job to

communicate, but we are

making it very clear that it

is.”

Background

When The Victoria University of Manchester merged with UMIST in October 2004,communications were always going to be critical. The Registrar of the new institutionwanted to continue the kind of team briefing he had established pre-merger at TheVictoria University of Manchester. Information, in the shape of a Core Brief, wasmeant to flow from his monthly meetings with his direct reports, to all administrativestaff via a cascade down various levels of management. At each level ofmanagement, local information should be added.

But post merger there were around 5000 administrative staff in total, and it soonbecame apparent that staff were not always being briefed, and that information fromthe monthly Core Brief was just being posted on intranets or issued via email, but notexplained face to face to staff by managers.

An audit of Core Brief and Team Brief was commissioned, and Rachael McGraw,Internal Communications Manager based within the Division of Communications,Media and Public Relations, was asked to consider ways of improving team briefings:“When I interviewed staff I was finding that some people didn’t know how to usethe briefings, and what kind of local information to add to them. There was also alack of knowledge about the system, and some said the Core Brief was of littlerelevance to them or their staff.”

not managed by the Registrar, and theircommunications and briefing variesaccording to School or Faculty. Asinductions take place locally, Team Brief isnot always explained within them, whichprevents early endorsement for new staff.The most significant problem, however, isthat feedback is not always making its wayup the management chain.”

Measuring success

“A staff survey two months after therelaunch said that 64% of people foundface to face meetings with their teamseither very useful or useful. We regularlyrun training sessions for managers andteam brief forms a major part of thistraining.”

What next?’

“We are looking at Team Brief in somenon-administrative areas now – for examplethe University Library. We may considercarrying out briefing for academic staff,however this would need to be piloted firstand we would have to think about wherethis information cascade begins.”

Objectives• To create a system whereby people had

face to face contact with their managersonce a month.

• To ensure there was a mechanism forstaff feedback.

• To give people a strategic over-view ofwhat the University’s administration wasdoing.

• To make University information morerelevant to staff.

• To help managers give out relevantinformation in a more structured way.

• To stop people putting things up onemail or the intranet.

Concept“Research was carried out into how theTeam Brief system was working (or not) bytalking to a number of staff in variousDirectorates, Faculties and Schools. Wethen thought about how to improvecontent and delivery, and re-launch theteam brief afresh.”

The Detail“Following the research we developed arevised version of Team Briefing andproduced a set of guidelines for itsimplementation which were put on thestaff intranet. The Registrar held a re-launch meeting with 60 key managers inthe administration, myself and the Directorof Communications. After this we ran fouror five training sessions for managers. OnceTeam Brief had been up and running forabout three months, we ran a mini phonesurvey to see how it was going.”

Costs and timeframeThe actual launch of Team Brief took aboutthree months, from doing the research, tocreating the guidelines and trainingprogramme. All the costs were absorbedinto the communications team overheads,including the research, and the creativeelements for the guidelines. The researchand training costs would probably be themost expensive if the work had been doneexternally. Rachael spent about threemonths of her time carrying out the initial

research and constructing the new systemand training. Now she spends about oneday a month at training sessions talking tomanagers about the system and how bestto use it.

The University of Manchester’sadvice on running teambriefings

• Keep the meetings to no more than 15people.

• Hold them no more than five workingdays after the Registrar’s monthly CoreBrief.

• Explore staff concerns and feed thoseback to the Registrar.

• Keep the content to broadly 30% fromthe Registrar, and 70% about your ownarea of work.

• Make sure managers think about whattheir local content is going to be.


“Occasionally, some staff will say they don’ttake part in team brief, so it’s not gettingthrough to everyone. Academic staff are

Top TipsReviewing staff opinion/conducting a survey

1. Keep views confidential. Surveys must be anonymous.

2. Use face to face interviews and focus groups to flush out key issues that help informthe questions you ask in the survey.

3. Use an external consultant if you can afford to do so, to ensure staff open up withhonesty in interviews and results are objective.

4. Ensure that the staff are invited to do the survey by the University’s leader.

5. Include in the survey invitation a summary of what actions were taken last time therewas a survey, showing how it improved the university.

6. Make it clear that their views count.

7. Share as much of the results as possible with the staff, except those that are highlypersonal criticisms of individuals.

8. Show that the review has had an impact with high visibility actions delivered as aresult of the survey.

9. Offer a prize draw to incentivize completion and show who won it in your newsletter.

10. Create working groups to execute the delivery of the survey findings.

11. Make sure there are hard copies as well as online copies for completion.

STRATEGY, ACCOUNTABILITY AND EVALUATION 29

NEWS AND MESSAGE DISSEMINATION30

News andmessagedissemination

NEWS AND MESSAGE DISSEMINATION 31


University of California Davis

Background

UC Davis, one of the ten campuses of the University of California, and wasestablished as the University Farm (of UC Berkeley) in 1905.

UC Davis has grown to become a prestigious public research university, especially inthe arts, humanities, environmental sciences, life and health sciences, agriculturalscience and engineering disciplines. It is regularly ranked as one of the United States’best public universities and also rated as a leading international research university.

The UC Davis campus is the largest campus in the UC system, spanning over 5500acres (22.3 km2). It is made up of approximately 30,000 students. In the internalcommunications context, the campus effectively operates as a small town in a highly

Project team

Dateline news team, University of California DavisInterviewed by Dave Penney, Oxford Brookes University

HEliX indicator:


Important and urgent news reaches staff swiftly

Innovation and creativity is in evidence in staff communications

Editorial Lines: a campus newspaper with independent views

13

15

16

desirable and picturesque setting. Thecampus, for example, has its own airportand fire department. The Universitycommunications department’s focus hastraditionally been on gathering anddisseminating news (to both internal andexternal audiences) and staff interviewedremained sceptical of the placemarketing has in universities. Indeed themajority of the media management andinternal news staff are former journalists(including a Pulitzer prize winner) andtake pride in the fact that they bringstrong journalistic values and approachto their work at Davis.

Concept

The editorial policy for UC Davis’ weeklyprinted staff newsletter, Dateline, isunique and virtually unheard of in UKuniversities. Its freedom from the seniormanagement team means the tone of itscoverage of University stories is stronglyindependent. The contention from UCDavis’ Interim Assistant Vice Chancellorfor University Communications is that bytaking this approach, Dateline is a moreeffective internal communications tool. Itallows staff to trust the information theyreceive from the official Universitynewspaper. From interviews with eightstaff across the UC Davis, it is clear thatthis view is widely shared.

Objectives

• To sustain a campus newspaper thatreflects the “town/village” ethos ofthe University.

• To use the campus newspapers as aforum for debate on key Universityissues.

• To maintain trust in the University’ssenior management by presentingviews honestly.

The Detail

The Dateline newspaper is run by twoformer journalists (Clifton Parker andDave Jones) and overseen by MitchelBenson (Interim Assistant VC for

Communications). The communicationsgroup takes a great deal of pride in thepublication and its effort to, at times ofcontroversy, maintain an independentline from the University’s seniormanagement team.

Clifton Parker (editor Dateline) says UCDavis operates as a town and theDateline newspaper must, to be effectiveand honest to the UC Davis tradition,fulfil a similar function to that of a townnewspaper or even town crier. While itsoverall editorial approach stops short ofmandating an editor to hold themanagement of UC Davis to account (inthe traditional fourth estate sense) it isclear the Dateline staff are givensignificant freedom. For example, whenthe Chancellor holds “brown bag” lunchsessions for staff, Dateline will report onthe event, including coverage of difficultstaff questions, union protests etc.Dateline has also published an exposéon the management of the staff pensionscheme. This investigation caused ripplesthroughout the University of Carliforniasystem. Staff interviewed who workedfor the staff publication at UC Berkeley,(The Berkeleyan) described the reportingas ‘bold’ and were clear that it wouldnot be tolerated in most US universitypublications.

UC Davis’ other unusual feature is itscommitment to regularly run lettersfrom staff. The letters policy states:

“As part of Dateline’s commitment tointellectual debate, letters and forumpieces are published in the newspaper.Although this opportunity is notavailable at many other colleges anduniversities, we believe it is important toprovide this forum so that members ofthe community can communicate witheach other about topics affecting theuniversity. These contributions promote adiversity of opinion and stimulatethinking. Letters should address issuesand ideas of general interest. If they docall into question a particular individual’sactions or decisions, or the basis for aparticular program or effort, Dateline

will allow the individual or program inquestion to respond. Like mostnewspapers, however, Dateline will notprint letters that include incorrectinformation or personal attacks, and willedit letters for accuracy and length.Letters are limited to 250 words…Aswith most newspapers, Dateline also willnot publish ongoing debates — lettersrebutting letters — by the same authorwho raised the issue in the first place, inorder to allow space for more points ofview. To better give all members of thecommunity opportunity, Dateline willaccept letters from the same authoronce every 30 days.”


Dateline’s coverage of a vote of noconfidence in the Chancellor of UCDavis by academic staff pushed theindependence issue to a critical point.

The no confidence motion arose afterthe University terminated the contract ofa Vice-Chancellor, Celeste Rose, andsecretly agreed to not only to give$50,000 to Rose, but to keep her on thepayroll as a senior adviser for two yearsat $205,000 a year. During that year,Rose's new job did not have any regularduties and she couldn’t be fired. Thisresulted in a motion to the Universitysenate to condemn the actions of theChancellor for his “serious impropriety”and “irreparable damage to the imageof UC Davis". In the UK the forum forthese types of comments is the TimesHigher Education website.

Dateline covered this issue in severaleditions and its writers aimed to giveequal coverage to the Chancellors andthe academic staff’s perspectives.Dateline staff attended campus meetingsand quoted the Chancellor’s critics.Mitchel Benson says Dateline walked adifficult tightrope between being a“management publication” and beingan independent newspaper – butultimately saw its overriding obligationas being to the “truth first”. ThereforeDateline refused to just print the



sanitised statements from theChancellor’s office. For example,Dateline covered a meeting of academicsand its coverage included thisparagraph:

“Frustration with Chancellor Vanderhoefand the University of Californiaadministration in general spilled overfrom the faculty members, regardless ofwhether they declared themselves to befor or against the no-confidencemeasure. They vented about ‘profounddemoralization’, poor leadership,‘cronyism to the max’ in theadministration, inadequate graduatestudent support, faculty salaries, the‘disaster of undergraduate teaching’ andother matters that they said aredetracting from the UC Davis mission.”

This resulted in the Chancellor callingthe Vice-Chancellor of Communicationsto an emergency Sunday morningmeeting where he reportedly threatenedto withdraw funding for Dateline.

The VC for Communications, Lisa Lapin,defended her staff and its coverage ofthe no confidence motion, arguing thatany attempt to shutdown or censorDateline would ultimately becounterproductive for internalcommunications and ultimately theUniversity. It’s interesting to note herethat Lisa Lapin both defended her staff’sright to cover the no confidence motionwhile at the same time also having toprotect the University’s overall reputationas official University spokeswoman tothe outside media.

Costs and timeframes

Dateline UC Davis is printed each Fridayduring the academic year, with breaksfor the holidays. It is read by 12,000staff from UC Davis. There was noestimate made of costs.

Measuring success

Mitchel Benson says as a result of the noconfidence motion and the subsequentdebate about the role of Dateline, the

University’s senior management teamhave broadly accepted the view thatDateline should be given some freedomto cover controversial issues. This helpsto ensure that the publication is notdismissed by the University communityas just a ‘management mouthpiece’.

While UC Davis has not sought toquantify or measure the impact of thisunique approach to an in-housenewsletter, Mitchel Davis believes thatDateline is a more effective internalcommunications tool as it can crediblycommunicate both corporate messagesand also build and maintain a strongsense of the community that drives UCDavis. In other words, because the papercovers good and bad news, staff will bemore willing to accept the coverage ofpositive developments.

For more information:http://www.dateline.ucdavis.edu/


Kingston University

Background

A staff survey at Kingston revealed that internal communications scored badly withinthe University and staff felt they didn’t know what was going on. Until mid-2008,the only internal communication at Kingston was a quarterly magazine, designedmore for external than internal audiences, and a staff intranet that was used more asan information store than a communication tool. Karen Leithead was asked toimprove and reorganize the internal communications function at Kingston; she is anexperienced publications writer/editor, who had recently completed Kingston’s ownprofessional diploma course in internal communications, and had the appetite fortrying some new ideas out. Her first action was to run a staff survey to find out whatcommunication they wanted. Overwhelmingly, staff said they would like a regularnewsletter – and 80 percent said they would like this newsletter to be electronic. Sotheir first recommendation was to launch an e-bulletin that would be sent to all staff.

Objectives

• Give staff a regular newsletter to find out what was going on centrally and locally.

• Build a sense of community.

• Inform people about central decisions and corporate messages.

• Get staff involved in creating and adding to the content

• Create two-way information streams and offer mechanisms for feedback.

• Raise the profile of internal comms and help develop corporate identity.

Concept

A fortnightly staff e-bulletin called Insight.

The Detail

Insight comes into staff email inboxes every fortnight, with colour photographs and apersonal message, linking to articles on the intranet about research, events, staff

Project leader

Karen Leithead, Corporate Communications ManagerKingston University

HEliX indicator:




Insight: the virtues of E-bulletins

13

15

16

What would you say tosomeone starting an internalcommunications function?

“Find out what staff need/want

first. Resist pressure to

produce quick fixes and take

time to get it right. An

e-newsletter is easy to get off

the ground, can have high

impact, is environmentally

friendly and very good value

for money. That doesn’t mean

there isn’t a place for a

printed newsletter, but that

takes much more time, money

and effort.”

changes etc. As Karen explains: “Thetone is upbeat and newsy. Feedbacksuggests it encourages people to talkmore and share what they are doing. Aspeople start to trust the format, I thinkthere will be a more open and deepereditorial style. Our first priority was justto give people information – theywanted to be told what was going onwithin a reliable channel that gave thema sense of community. It is nowbeginning to change the way the smtare communicating and we arebeginning to tackle bigger issues andopen up some interesting debates.”

Insight is sent via an external electronicdispatching house. Only staff can accessthe stories, and if it were to beforwarded to someone outside theUniversity, they would not be able toopen the links, which are passwordprotected. “In between issues, we emailabout 100 people as key contributors, toprompt them for news items. Thebulletin is encouraging people to sendus a lot more stories about research andideas at Kingston, which we can feed tocolleagues in the Press Office.”

Costs and timeframe

The bulletin was launched in June afterabout six weeks of planning. Theelectronic design house charged approx£1200 (ex VAT) for the one-year contractthat includes template design, technicalsupport and a distribution package of60,000 email addresses. “It’s amazinglycheap compared to normal postage. Ittakes about four days of our time toprepare each issue. There’s also oureditorial time, but if we weren’t writingstories for the bulletin we would putthem on the intranet anyway.”


“I was worried about the technology,and whether it would be ‘safe’ to handthe mailing process over to an externalpublishing house, but we have had noproblems. We agonized over whetherpeople should be able to ‘unsubscribe’,

but in the end we decided not to allowthat option. That doesn’t mean theycan’t put an email filter on to blockdelivery. And of course they don’t haveto open the email. It goes to nearly4000 people and we have only hadthree complaints from people whodidn’t want to receive.”

Measuring success

“We can monitor readership and seehow many people click through towhich stories. We have a very popularsection, called ‘Did you see?’, whichlinks to picture galleries of events. I thinkI’d also measure success in terms of howmany stories we are now receiving forthe intranet. A year ago, we posted 40stories/announcements a month andnow we are putting up 100-150. We arealso able to use the new influx ofeditorial copy in other corporatecommunications, eg the alumni andfundraising publications. We’ve alsonoticed a lot more people are using theintranet, as they realise the content isnow being regularly updated. Finally, wehave received considerable positivefeedback – one tutor said, ‘the bulletinmakes me feel the University is reallybuzzing!’”

What next?

“Team briefing is a next big challenge,and we also want to work out ways ofincreasing senior management visibilityacross the university.”



University of Bristol

Background

For many years, the Public Relations Office at the University of Bristol produced aninternal newsletter, University News, distributed to all staff (approximately 6000 intotal) as well as to the media, peer institutions and community partners. It was nothowever felt to be the most impactful or immediate way of passing news across theUniversity. As more ‘outward-facing’ news items, in the form of press releases, werealready published on the top-level University web pages, there was a need todisseminate all news in a similar format and from one source.

Project leader

Jill Cartwright, Head of Public RelationsUniversity of Bristol

HEliX indicators:




Online: moving over to web-based news

and information service

13

15

16

Objectives

• To provide a comprehensive news andinformation service for all staff andvisitors to the University’s website.

• To report news as it happens.

• To respond to the increasing volumeof information for dissemination.

• To rationalise the way in which newsis disseminated and avoid duplicationof work.

• To free up staff time and resources todevelop a termly magazine featuringmore in-depth articles with a longershelf-life.

Concept

An integrated online news service on themain university website, replacing themonthly newsletter.

The Detail

Publications Officers worked withcolleagues from the web team and theInstitute for Learning and ResearchTechnology to develop a newshomepage. The existing online templateused for the publication of press releaseswas enhanced to accommodate variousother categories of news, with differentlayouts and extra features. Thetemplates were tested and stockpilednews stories were uploaded over thecourse of the summer, a traditionallyquiet news period, ready for the launchin October, to coincide with the start ofthe new term. Publications Officersworked with colleagues in the pressteam to develop guidelines forcategorising and processing differenttypes of news item.

Staff are invited to send details of newsstories to central email boxes maintainedby Publications and Press Officers.Stories are allocated to individualsdepending on category and subject area,and are worked up into illustrated newsitems which are then uploaded on to thenews website.

A link to ‘Latest news’ on the Universityhomepage leads to a news homepage,where all news stories are listed, withthe most recent item appearing at thetop of the page. Each item is displayedwith a ‘clickable’ headline andthumbnail image, both of which lead tothe full item, and a summary of thestory. Eight stories are displayed beforethey drop off on to a right-hand listingof archived news stories. The three mainnews stories of the day are alsodisplayed on the University homepage.

The news is divided into categories,which are listed in a left-hand navigationbar on the news homepage, andcomprise: research news; grants andawards; press releases; the University inthe media; Vice-Chancellor’s messages;obituaries; staff notices; and events.Other links in the left-hand navigationlead to related web pages (for example,news direct from departments, wherelinks lead directly to departmental pagesthat are not maintained centrally; andSubtext (the staff magazine thatreplaced the printed newsletter).

Costs and timeframe

University News was gradually phasedout, with later issues carryingannouncements about the forthcomingchanges. Publication ceased in earlysummer. The technical developmentwork for the project was part-funded bya grant distributed by the Campaignsand Alumni Office Fund panel. Thetimeframe from conception tocompletion was approximately a year.


One of the more complicated templateswas withdrawn because of technicaldifficulties in displaying large images,but there are enough remainingtemplates to be able to display itemswith sufficient variation. Small ads,which had been been a feature of theprinted newsletter, were originallyincluded as one of the categories ofonline news; however, the burden of

administration soon outweighed anybenefits, as the income generated wasminimal, and the category was removed.Another category, Letters, failed toattract much attention, and was alsodropped. An email facility at the bottomof each news item allows for feedbackto the Public Relations Office, but this isnot published and there is no facility forpublic discussion of news items. Theexistence of a forum was hotly debatedbut it was decided that the resourcerequired to monitor all feedback beforepublishing was too great. The left-handnavigation on the news homepageallows for limited categories of news,and some types of story do not fit neatlyinto any of the existing categories. JillCartwright adds: “The online newsservice is not an intranet, and the staffnews category by no means addressesall our internal communications needs.”

Measuring success

There is no formal monitoring, but thewaiting time for news items to beuploaded has been much reduced. Themost recent news items appearing in theformer University News were threeweeks old by the time the newsletterreached staff. News items are usuallyuploaded on the day they are sent tothe Public Relations Office.

What next?

A discussion forum is being consideredso that news pages are more interactive.



The University of Bristol

Background

The University of Bristol employs nearly 6000 staff. For many years a staff newsletterexisted in different formats – broadsheet, tabloid, full-colour glossy magazine – andthe frequency of circulation varied from weekly to monthly. With pressures on budgetand staff resources, however, plus the growing dominance of the web with itsimmediacy and lack of space constraints, the decision was taken to move all newsonline. But it was still felt that there was a need for some kind of communicationthat offered a more reflective view of the university.

Project leader

Jill Cartwright, Head of Public RelationsUniversity of Bristol

HEliX indicators:




Subtext: making staff magazines a good read

13

14

16

“We wanted to reflect the

sheer wealth and

diversity of work and

people at the University,

and bring these stories

to light in an intelligent,

entertaining way.”

Objectives

• To create a more durable record ofuniversity news than simply onlinenews.

• To circulate departmental successesto other departments.

• To demonstrate that the University'speople are at the core of its successand to:

• highlight their work and their motivations.

• To bring creativity and a ‘light touch’to bear on serious issues, avoiding‘mouthpiece’ mannerisms –especially important for a communitydefined by independent thinking anda general distrust of ‘spin’.

• To reinforce the University's brandand core values in every article.

• To showcase internal news aboutstaff research to raise the university’sexternal profile.

Concept

A termly magazine, with highproduction values, that would havemore depth and shelf life than thestaff online news.

The Detail

Jill Cartwright was one of themembers of a small publications team,who worked on the new magazine.“We wanted to reflect the sheerwealth and diversity of work andpeople at the University, and bringthese stories to light in an intelligent,entertaining way. A really goodnewsletter might erode the ‘silomentality’ often observed in the pastand contribute to the University’sawareness of itself.” The team wereclear that a professional magazineneeded some external input. “Duringearly discussions we concluded that afresh design and layout would best beserved by an external design agency.Three local companies were invited to

pitch; the agency that won delivered acreative concept that was clear, cleanand pleasing to the eye, with strongemphasis on photography. It wasdecided that a variety of approacheswould be used, including first-personnarratives, transcribed (and carefullyedited) dialogues and a Q&A format, aswell as the more conventional third-person article. Whilst the design agencytook responsibility for layout and print,the editorial remained in-house.”

Articles were proposed and assigned tofall under several headings: either a‘profile’, or a number of regular slots,such as ‘How I got here’ (featuringinternational staff or those whosecareer path to Bristol is of particularnote), ‘The scholar and the soundbite’(featuring academics who haveengaged with the media in a significantway and their reflections on thecompromises and successes involved),‘Tales from the field’ (researchersdescribe life and work in variousenvironments, eg deep ocean,Antarctica, volcanoes, studyingBuddhist death rituals), and ‘Why Ibecame…’ (academics recount theirearly motivations, pivotal moments,etc). To maintain a (still rather unequal)balance in coverage between academicand support staff, a regular slot, ‘Otherpeople’s jobs’, brings the work ofvarious ‘unsung’ members of staff intothe spotlight. The new title, Subtext,reflected the depth and discursivenature of the editorial content.

Costs and timeframe

Subtext runs to 20 pages and ispublished in February, June andOctober. The annual budget for threeissues is currently £23,000 with a printrun of 7000 (6000 for staff, 1000 forexternal contacts). This includes thedesign, print and photography. Theschedule is flexible but generally allowsfor one month of interviewing and firstdrafts followed by one month ofrevisions, photoshoots and layout.However, the publications team usually

have several other jobs runningconcurrently with Subtext, and willalways keep an eye out for candidatesfor future issues.


“None that were major obstacles butcost may become an issue in the future,since professional photography andgood design and printing are expensive.Some senior staff bemoaned the‘touchy-feely’ approach and wanted areturn to straightforward news andfacts.”

Measuring success

“Any criticisms were far outweighed bypositive comments from staff, andindeed from readers in peer institutionsand colleagues in the States. In late2008 Subtext won a CASE Circle ofExcellence Silver Medal in the PrintInternal Magazines category.”

What next?

“There are long-standing plans to giveSubtext an online presence, but notsimply the text versions of articles: wewould like to explore audio and videoversions of some of the features, andalso include feedback from readers.”

Should internal staff news alwaysbe written with the assumption itwill be seen by external audiences?

“I think this depends on the size of theUniversity, and the type of news. Withprint news, you can’t possibly stop anice glossy falling into the hands ofvisitors. And in fact we want visitors topick up Subtext, so we have to write itwith both audiences in mind. For anon-print media, e.g. online news, it’smuch easier to keep control of the copyand write it in a more staff-focusedway. However, you always have toassume that it will be leaked to thepress or to anyone if you publishsomething. Publishing, of course,means making public.” Jill Cartwright.



BackgroundThe O2 Technology division has just over 2000 members of staff spread across severalsites around the UK. Staff cover a diverse range of technical functions, from the networkof cell sites, through customer service systems, to the IT helpdesk. In addition to its ownfinance and HR teams, Technology has a small internal communications team of two,plus five full- or part-time 'extended comms team' members based within variousdepartments.

The company were keen to improve internal communications channels at both corporateand local levels without increasing email. Their Technology Communications Teamdescribe their progress.

The Objectives• To counteract the risk of email overload.

• To provide a high-profile mechanism for staff to access, and share, news.

• To deliver a visually attractive format, to maximise appeal and contribute to a 'feel-good factor'.

• To increase the quality of content and tone, ensuring consistency with brand andcorporate tone of voice.

The ConceptA new e-newsletter, Snippets.

The DetailA central, company-wide edition would be produced weekly; in addition, divisions hadthe option to produce their own local e-newsletters, using similar branding. These wereintended to be complementary to the centrally-produced Snippets.

The e-newsletter would consist of an HTML email containing links to stories posted ontothe intranet via the existing content management system.

Snippets: a refreshed e-newsletter

Project leader

Technology divisionTelefónica O2 UK

HEliX indicators:






13

14

15

16

17

“A little knowledge can go a

long way, and the results are

definitely worth the

investment in software and

training.”

A communications consultant wasengaged, initially for three months, tosupport the launch of a e-newsletter forthe technology division to complement theO2 wide e-newletter ‘Snippets’. This wasbranded ‘Technology Snippets’.

To encourage the channelling of news intoTechnology Snippets (TS) rather than ad-hoc emails, an audit was undertaken ofwho had permission to send out emails toall staff or to large groups. Some of thesepermissions were then curtailed orremoved.

An HTML template was designed by anexternal creative agency. The formatincludes branded banners at head and footand clearly-delineated zones for a leadstory, feature-style items and news in brief.TS adapted the format slightly to includeregular zones for practical 'people'information such as training or companyprocedures; a 'fun' item; and links forpeople to send in their feedback andcontributions.

Every opportunity is taken to link throughto non-written content, such as podcastsand videos.

Software applications, to allow non-technical staff to edit the template and tomanipulate images, were installed onrelevant staff members' computers. Basictraining in using these applications wasprovided.

TS is sent out the day after the centrally-produced Snippets, so that people don'tfeel bombarded and each publicationretains its own identity and impact. For themail out, we use an external serviceprovider offering tracking services. Thisprovides statistics such as open rates andclick-throughs for each newsletter item.

Costs and timeframeSetup costs: template design (fundedcentrally); software licenses; training;communications consultant; staff time.

Ongoing costs are staff time and the costof using the tracking service (fundedcentrally). Once all content is sourced andposted to the intranet, compiling the HTML

email and uploading it to the trackingprovider typically takes about half a day.Staff time required to source and editcontent varies from week to week,depending on the quality, quantity andcomplexity of news items: anything fromhalf a full-time post to two full-time posts.

Were there any problems?The editorial process, and associatedchallenges, are the same as with anynewsletter, e.g. news submission (last-minute/unsuitable/poorly written/non-existent); political pressure to prioritisecertain contributions, etc. The challenge ofensuring TS does not duplicate the contentof the centrally-produced Snippets is ever-present, but generally easy to manage.

The format was designed to be image-rich.Although O2 has a large bank of images todraw on, locating images that are suitableand can be used legally is time-consuming.The technology comms team only had onecamera, based at one of the main sites.Investing in a further camera at an earlystage would have made life a lot easier!

It is slightly disappointing not to be able tomatch the visual appeal of the HTML emailwhen people click through to the fullstories. These are posted onto the intranetvia a content management system offeringlimited presentation options.

With HTML, a little knowledge can go along way, and the results are definitelyworth the investment in software andtraining. However, basic training is notalways adequate when it comes to sortingout occasional glitches: provision forongoing training and/or access to technicalbackup is advisable.

Maintaining a good quality mailing list isimportant but takes time. If emails arebeing sent to people who have left thecompany, they will not be opened, and thiswill affect the open-rate statistics. Inaddition, in Technology a significantnumber of people who have O2 emailaddresses are in fact contractors whoshould not have access to any internalcommunications. Identifying those whoshould not be receiving the e-newsletter

was a substantial task, relying heavily oninput from HR.

Measuring success

Each edition of TS contains a link throughto a quick online survey, and an email linkfor comments and story submission. Theonline survey was put together using analready available tool (e-response). It offersa choice of three options(like/dislike/neutral). Response rates to thesurvey are low, but overwhelminglypositive.

The tracking service provides statistics suchas open rates (how many people open theemail) and click-through rates (how manypeople click on a link in the email to accessthe full story). It's important to bear inmind that open rates and click-throughrates provide little indication of how peoplefeel about the quality of the items they'reaccessing.

There's no rule about what constitutes a'good' open rate (although the externalagency who designed the template wereimpressed by the rates we achieved). WithTS the open rate has remained fairlyconstant over time, and comparable to thatof the centrally-produced Snippets. Weknow that not everyone accesses all of TS'scontent, but we also know that we cancount on the majority of its contentreaching the majority of staff.

We were able to use an existing resource –focus groups set up to gain insight into arange of staff satisfaction issues – to gainqualitative feedback; however we will onlybe able to use this periodically, as there areother issues the groups need to cover.

What next?

We plan to develop other ways to gainqualitative feedback, e.g. by regularly 'cold-calling' small, random samples ofTechnology staff.

Improving the visual presentation optionson the intranet is on the agenda, but willhave to be a company-wide project; it maybe some time before this becomes abudgetary priority!


Information sharing

INFORMATION SHARING 43


Background

There are 6500 staff based across Imperial’s eight campuses, mainly sited in WestLondon. Staff reviews suggested that news of University business was not flowingwell through the veins of this busy and highly distributed institution. Managementminutes were often not being cascaded. As part of a new university internalcommunications strategy, a more reliable way of cascading information was required.

Project manager


HEliX indicator:


Committees, formal meetings and working groups are effective in terms ofsharing information and communicating decisions

There is an effective email system and policy in operation

The staff briefing email: a quick summary of university business

17

18

19

INFORMATION SHARING44

Objectives

• To provide an opportunity for theRector and other senior staff to shareregular messages with staff abouthigh level priorities and to highlightproud achievements.

• To help cut down on the number ofemails distributed to all staff.

• To provide a summary of mainuniversity business decisions.

• To create a more immediate form ofcommunication than circulatedminutes.

• To provide news of opportunitiesavailable to staff, from College awardschemes to campus activities.

Concept

A fortnightly briefing email issued to allstaff.

Detail

The Staff Briefing is sent out on aTuesday every fortnight to all staff atImperial. As well as including a messagefrom the Rector or a senior manager anda summary of the key decisions made bythe College’s high level committees(Council, Management Board andSenate) it also offers staff practical newsof building projects and of events andactivities they can get involved in. EachBriefing is posted on the websitealongside a PDF that managers can printout to put on local noticeboards for staffwithout access to email. The formattingof the email is kept simple in rich text soit looks the same in any emailprogramme and can be read easily on ahand held device. The length is usuallyabout three pages of well-spaced text,with links throughout to furtherinformation.

Cost and timeframe

The first Staff Briefing was issued inOctober 2008 and has appeared everyfortnight since. The only cost has been

in staff time. There are regularcontributors to the Staff Briefing fromacross the College and Caroline isresponsible for pulling together thedigest of committee discussions anddecisions, editing the Briefing, seekingthe relevant approvals and distributing itto over 6500 email addresses.


“Some hated the look of the very firstStaff Briefing, so we changed it fromPlain Text to Rich Text.”

Measuring success

“Every Staff Briefing requests thatfeedback is sent to a central emailaccount and we’ve received positivecomments via this route, as well asanecdotally. We’ve also looked at theweb stats for the links included in thestaff briefings, which show that staffrarely click through to read a fulldocument, for example a policy. Thisshows the importance of making anykey action points clear in the body ofthe email. Unsurprisingly, the link thatreceived the most hits was about pay!”

What next?

”We’d like to survey staff in the nextyear to receive clear feedback on thestaff briefing, which we can use toinform its future direction.”


University of Oxford

Background

Oxford University’s Finance Division has its own communications team, led by Cécilevan der Weert, a Dutch born, English-educated postgraduate, with a background incommercial marketing and communications. One of her recent change managementprojects was to guide users through the upgrade of the University’s financial softwaresystem. This involved shutting down the original system a few days before and afterEaster, and then encouraging IT staff in each department to download the softwareand test it before the 1300 system users would need it again after Easter. Given thatchanging to new IT software is often notorious for generating major discontent,Cécile knew that care and meticulous preparation were essential, since everyoneneeded the finance system to be up and running as soon as they returned from theirEaster break for their purchasing, invoicing and other financial management tasks.

Objectives

Cécile describes the objectives as falling into distinct categories:

• Cooperation: To manage the transition smoothly and to encourage users to finishfinal pre-changeover processes before the Easter deadline.

• Facilitation: To make all the right information available and to ensure the softwarewas downloaded and tested in time for the switchover.

• Operation: To help staff use the labour-saving aspects of the new systems – newbuttons, new screens – and use the new software well.

• Emotion: To create trust in the project and the Finance Division.

Concept

The project team chose a ‘no frills’ approach to the task, using a monthly newsletterand daily email updates, supported by web pages and printed manuals. As Cécilesaid, “Our approach was informed by consultation with our software user group andother technical parties. Withdrawal of supplier support meant we had no choice butto upgrade the system, which determined how we carried out the communications

Project leader

Cécile van der Weert, Communications ManagerFinance DivisionThe University of Oxford

HEliX indicator:


Committees, formal meetings and working groups are effective in terms of sharing information and communicating decisions

The Great Easter Countdown: Communicating a complex finance change

17

18

“We didn’t want to waste

people’s time, so we had

to make sure they had all

the facts at their

fingertips.”


exercise. We didn’t want to wastepeople’s time, so we had to make surethey had all the facts at their fingertips.”

The Detail

“We set up an online course to take staffthrough the changes and they could alsotrial the new system online if they wantedto. Through the internal user group weknew what our stakeholders’ views wereand this guided us on the proposedchanges and required communications,guiding us in our strategy.”

Further communication tools included:

• One A4 hard-copy sheet with key factsand dates to ensure staff were aware ofwhat was happening;

• A checklist asking people to carry outspecific actions at certain times;

• Weekly emails counting down to theupgrade weekend explaining progressof the project and further user actionsrequired;

• Daily system updates by email in theweek leading up to going live and afew days after;

• A website with Frequently AskedQuestions to reassure people andprovide further information.

“Our communications strategy identifiedvarious audiences we needed tocommunicate with differently - e.g.strategic leaders, users, onlookers,decision makers, so for each targetsegment we adopted a differentapproach.”

Costs and timeframe

“There was no specific budget because itwas a matter of our time - using existingtools and channels such as emails and anelectronic newsletter - meant there wereno additional costs.”


“We did a survey after the Upgrade, anda few people said they felt over-

communicated with, whilst some of theIT support people felt under-communicated with. Although it isimportant to acknowledge theseresponses, I consider thecommunications exercise a success, asmore than 90% of our audience wassatisfied with our approach.”

Measuring success

“The results of the online survey whichwe carried out after the event werereally positive”:

• 89% of our audience found theupgrade briefings in the Newsletter“useful”.

• 91% found the upgrade informationin our System Update email "useful".

• 96% found the information about thesystem downtime “clear, accurate andtimely”.

• 93% found the information about thesystem upgrade “clear, accurate andtimely”.

• 98% were “aware of the actionsrequired” by them before and afterthe upgrade.“

“At the end of the day, it’s about savingUniversity administrative staff time, -avoiding people making unnecessarycalls to the helpdesk about, for instance,the planned downtime. This projectincreased user engagement andawareness and provided them withconfidence and replenished trust in boththe project and the Finance Division. Byimplementing a comprehensivecommunications strategy, people wouldbe saving their valuable time andefforts, which ultimately reflects well onthe Finance Division.”

How have internal communicationschanged over the last five years atOxford University?

“We have come a long way at theUniversity since I started in 2005. At thetime, finance suffered from having veryfew formal communications in place,

and now we have strengthened ourreputation and our branding, we haveregular communication tools in placeand are generally much more in controlof the consultation processes with ourtarget audiences. And since 2007, whenthe University appointed its own Head ofInternal Communications, this hasimproved across many areas, resulting ina wide communications network ofvarious comms professionals within theUniversity being established. Whilst wemight be in different departments, ouraudience (the staff) is often the same.”

“ This project increased user

engagement and awareness and

provided them with confidence

and replenished trust in both the

project and the Finance

Division.”



Background

Staff at the University of Bristol found that they were receiving too many emails thatdidn’t apply to them. In some cases, email was taking over from other, moreappropriate, forms of communication. Moreover, some emailers were forgettingcommon courtesies and the tone of emailing had, on occasion, become fairly curt oreven rude. As part of the University’s Positive Working Environment (PWE) campaign(which aims to make working life productive, rewarding and enjoyable for all staff),email became a goal for improvement via the first of a series of positivecommunications leaflets.

The objectives

• To limit unnecessary emails

• To promote more personal methods of communication where appropriate.

• To encourage staff to be courteous when emailing.

• To remind staff of legal and data protection issues surrounding email.

Concept

As part of Bristol’s PWE campaign, Personnel Services, in conjunction with theCommunications and Marketing Division produced advice on good practice whensending internal emails. This was circulated in the form of a concise, easy-to-readleaflet, which was left in reception areas of buildings and posted on the PersonalServices website. Staff were actively encouraged to comment on or add to thisadvice.

The Detail

The email guidelines included the following suggestions:

• Consider your mode of address. If you know someone very well and emails arealways going backwards and forwards between you, it may be natural to drop anypreamble (‘Dear Joe’, ‘Hi’) or sign-off (‘Regards’,’ Thanks’). But in other cases,launching straight into your message and giving no friendly parting shot may beseen as cold if not downright rude. Old-fashioned pleasantries still have their place.

Project leader

Barry Taylor, Director of Communications and Marketing ServicesUniversity of Bristol

HEliX indicator:

There is an effective email system and policy in operation

FYI: Making internal email a blessing rather than a curse

19


• Don’t fire off an email in anger. It’seasy to use email to vent yourirritation or administer instantretribution, but you may regret it later.If you have a complaint, wouldn’t it bebetter to go and talk with the person(preferably once you’re calm)?Particularly annoying to some peopleis colleagues’ use of capital letters forwhole sentences in emails as a sort ofelectronic shout.

• Remember that an email is forever.Never put anything in an email thatyou wouldn’t want your boss, youraunt, a lawyer or the Daily Muckrakerto see. Even if you delete an emailfrom your ‘sent mail’ box, it lives onelsewhere. And bear in mind that theData Protection and Freedom ofInformation laws apply to emails aswell as to paper records.

• Make links to the web as convenientas possible. If you are including a URLin your email so that the recipient canclick on it and go straight to awebsite, put angle brackets (< >)around the URL. That way, even if theaddress goes over to a second line, itwill still be ‘clickable’ and you will savesomeone cutting and pasting.

• Do respond. Just because you receivea large volume of email, it’s no excusenot to reply to colleagues (but youdon’t have to use email, of course).When you do reply, enter your textabove the sender’s message ratherthan below it to save themunnecessary trawling.

Costs and timeframe

The publication comprised a four-page,folded, A5 leaflet printed in two colours.Print and design costs amounted to£1,500. The whole process (writing,editing, design, print and delivery) tookapproximately four weeks.

Measuring success

While there was no formal monitoringof emailing, staff welcomed the initiative

and reported that the advice had gonedown well. The staff surveys followingthe initiative showed a more positiveattitude to emails since the campaignhad been implemented.

For more information:www.bris.ac.uk/pwe/pos_communications_1_email.pdf

“ There’s always a danger that we

patronise people by telling them

how to use email, but it’s also

dangerous to assume they are

doing things well. So we had to

make sure that the advice was

fairly light, easy to absorb, and

straightforward. The campaign

was not intended to force people

to do things in a certain way –

just to offer them some

thoughts,”


BAT

Background

British American Tobacco (BAT) is a multi-national company with business in 180countries and over 300 brands. There are over 90,000 employees worldwide and thebusiness has an annual gross turnover in the region of £24 billion. With such adiverse organisation working in so many different cultures, time zones and markets,communication is a constant challenge. How to articulate the global brand anddevelop a culture of collaboration when the individual marketplaces are so diverse?

Driven by a directive to ‘work smarter’ the company has employed many different ITtools, introduced database solutions, user manuals, but the focus was more often onprocess and IT rather than people. The challenge moved towards how to giveemployees the tools they needed to manage their business communications and

Project team member

Richard HareFlare Consulting/British American Tobacco

HEliX indicator:

There is a culture and professional processes that encourage staff tocommunicate effectively/network with colleagues in other departments

Simply Connect: the use of social media to connect

staff across the world

25


show them by demonstrating howeffective they could be.

Richard Hare is a knowledgemanagement (km) consultant andmember of BAT’s KM and Intranet teamwithin the HR function. The team worksclosely with Internal Communicationsand IT, as well as Marketing and Legal totake internal social media forward.

Objectives

• To encourage staff to ‘connect,collaborate and innovate’.

• To help develop people for wider roleswithin the organisation.

• To help employees to ‘work smarter’by:

• introducing new online tools such as blogs and social networks to staff.

• demonstrating how such tools may be used by introducing them in a fun and gentle social way.

• demonstrating to staff how effective such tools could be to staff in their internal business communications.

Concept

To move from technical knowledgesystems and an intranet based aroundfunctional hierarchies to one wherepeople connect and share knowledgewith each other through onlineconversations.

The Detail

The team introduced a new, simplifiedcontent management system for theintranet, named SiteBuilder, Designedwith an emphasis on usability, thestandard page uses five fields and mostinformation can be input using just two:a headline and a body text field. Ahouse-style was adopted offering peopledifferent colour options based on a newcorporate brand, which helped increasethe speed of uptake.

The next step was to redevelop the globalHR intranet site. A workshop was heldwith 20 people from various functionsstructuring the information from the site.(According to web design guru, JakobNielsen, a group of 15 people in a usertesting group will produce a statisticallyvalid consensus, the new intranet usedsimple Amazon-style tabs with news onthe front page and functionalinformation, HR, office support, forumsand information about the company allaccessible from the other tabs.

One of the propositions posed in thebiannual employee survey is: ”I feel it issafe to say what I think”. BAT scoredsignificantly lower than peerorganisations against which it wasbenchmarked, Encouraging people to useblogs to communicate more openly wasan attempt to address this. It began withfour blogs which everyone could viewand comment on. The most successfulwas written by a communicationconsultant who had previously been ajournalist and his blog was full ofentertaining stories and generated a greatdeal of interest. Within a year, everyonewas given the opportunity to write theirown internal blog.

How do you police the content ofyour blogs?

“The issue of needing to police blogs hasnever arisen. Staff agree to certainstandards, mean what they say and backtheir statements up with their identity. Ifan employee feels something falls shortof expected standards, they are free tocomplain. ‘You post it, you police it’ is theethos. This removes the overhead presentin centrally-managed efforts.”

Staff were encouraged to set up smallcommunities of practice but the ones thatworked well were those with genuineresonance. During the World Cup, staffacross the world were able to findcommon ground by discussing thecompetition, which proved effective inhighlighting the value of informalnetworks. Usage then graduallydeveloped towards more practical issues,

with the most successful communityconnecting 400 of the organisation’sManagement Trainess around the world.

In 2007, the online employee directoryConnect was transformed into a socialnetworking tool when existing directorieswere combined and the ability for peopleto make ‘connections’ and post statusupdates was introduced. The benefits ofConnect are still unfolding but it supportsthe company working as a singleenterprise by helping people find theirpeers, build relationships, communicateand share information. As Richard,explains: “It helps with working virtuallyacross cultures and geographical barriers.You can forget that you’re 5,000 milesfrom the person you are connected towhen you see what they are up to an adaily basis.”

Costs and timeframe

Rather than a single project to redevelopthe intranet, the team took anevolutionary approach, prototyping ideasand improving them at each stage,before deciding on the next step. BATwere not able to give us a budget for thewhole project, as involved many differentteams. But they say replacing standaloneagency designed sites with off-the-shelfSiteBuilder sites (saved an estimated£250K in the first year. Making sitemaintenance easier, led to increased useof Interact which in turn increased itsvalue to BAT.

Adding the social networkingfunctionality to the existing Connect toolwas approximately £20K of developmentwork.


The team is not well funded and has tocreate alliances with other departmentswho are looking to experiment with newtechnology in order to pay for technicalimprovements. This makes the team veryinnovative and user-focused, but cancreate conflict with the organisation’s ITdepartment.


Measuring success

• Usage of blogs went from a zero inJune 2004 to 3,000 readers permonth by December 2008.

• There are now over 26,000 registeredusers of the intranet, up from 18,000three years ago.

• Weekly use of ‘Connect’ rose from300 to 3,000 people and monthlyprofile page views rose from 1,200 to50,000.

What next?

Connect is spreading on a worldwidebasis. Even markets with their own local

Top TipsArguments for and against social networking

For:

• Evidence that it may increase employee retention.

• Allows for discussion about university topics but within a more relaxed, electiveframework.

• Stops staff getting bored.

• The younger generation have grown up with it, and would expect that type offorum.

Against

• Diverts staff from work.

• Encourages dissent topics.

• Perhaps staff already spend too much time at a computer.

• Encourages more emailing.

Top tips for creating a blog

1. Include themes, and ask questions

2. Include a response mechanism

3. Create an editorial calendar to create future looking pages

4. Use facts and figures, not spin

5. Quote yourself, not other people

6. Change things, shake things up – familiarity is dull

7. Use a graphic designer to set up the blog. Make it look good

intranet can access Connect if they areemailed an invitation to join. Byproducing something that is easy andenjoyable to use and releasing thingsquietly using a more exponential,contemporary approach, take up hasbeen steady.

The aim is to see every single BATemployee connected because then thecollective knowledge of the organisationis available to each and every employee.As Richard observes:

“We are starting to see the kind ofbehaviours and excitement within theorganisation that are becomingprevalent with social networking sites

on the internet. People are really gettingto know one another virtually, even ifthey worked thousands of miles apart,and have real conversations about bothwork and other aspects of life.”



CAMPUS SPACE AND COLLEGIALITY 53


Background

A series of networking evenings for researchers was launched as part of a campaignto enhance the profile of research at Oxford Brookes University. The campaignfollowed the opening of a £5 million building, a dedicated home for Brookes’research functions.

Research councils and donors are known to favour inter- and multi-disciplinaryresearch, and the format of the evenings was designed to open up possibilities forthis. However, primarily the evenings were an opportunity for the University tonurture and develop its research community in a unique way.

Objectives

• To provide an opportunity for researchers from across the university to meet eachother and discover research overlaps and synergies.

• To experiment with new ways to promote internal communications and inter-disciplinary conversations.

• To celebrate research at Oxford Brookes and to make research staff feel recognisedand valued by the University.

Concept

It was decided that structured networking evenings would work better than informalsocial events, and that by adapting the familiar concept of ‘speed-dating’ to theacademic environment, researchers would be intrigued enough to try something theymight otherwise have avoided.

The promotional material for the first event made much of this link, with referencesto ‘five minute dates’ and researchers ‘flirting with possibilities’. However, the seriouselement was not underplayed, with the university recognising that opportunities forresearchers to meet across disciplines are relatively rare.

The Detail

Five speed-networking evenings have so far been held, with attendance varying from40 to 15 participants. Seating is arranged to engineer cross-disciplinary meetings as

Project leader

Professor Diana Woodhouse, Pro-Vice-Chancellor (Research)

HEliX indicators:


There is a social programme that brings staff together outside the workingenvironment, encouraging them to feel part of the wider University team

Serious dates: Research speed-networking evenings

25

26

CAMPUS SPACE AND COLLEGIALITY54

far as possible. Each ‘date’ lasts fiveminutes, with one minute in between,and the evenings are broken up withdrinks and a buffet.

Crib sheets of questions are providedto stimulate conversation, and for thefirst two such events participants weregiven coffee vouchers to use in theUniversity café should they wish tomeet up again afterwards.

The events are hosted by the Pro-Vice-Chancellor (Research) and planned andrun by the communications team.Feedback is gathered and used toinform future events.

Feedback from the event showed42% found the event extremelyuseful, and 58% found it quiteuseful.

Costs and timeframe

The costs are minimal: catering (wine,soft drinks and buffet) and staff time.


The events have attracted positivefeedback, but attendance levels havevaried and it is time to consideradapting the format of the evenings.There is also a recognition that acommitment to research needs to bedemonstrated in a number ofsystematic ways across the University,to counter any accusations that it isonly skin deep.

On a practical level, it is necessary toemphasise the importance that peoplehonour their commitment to attend sothat the ‘dating’ runs smoothly. It isalso crucial to have a large room withenough space between pairs to enableaudible conversations.

Measuring success

Feedback has consistently shown highlevels of satisfaction with these events:

‘Worked much better than simply asocial event, because you are forced tospeak to people you might nototherwise’

‘Have had coffee at JB’s with someone Imet there, and we’re exploring ways inwhich we might collaborate’

‘A very innovative initiative and verysuitable for our University wherecolleagues are fairly scattered and theresearch seminar culture is not thatdeveloped yet.’

‘Stimulating, enjoyable and opens eyesto what others around the Universitydo.’

What next?

Feedback has suggested variations forfuture events, all of which are underconsideration:

• Focus on particular research themes.

• Hold similar event for juniorresearchers only.

• Have event based on methodologies.

• Post brief descriptions of participants’research interests on intranet prior toevent.

• Invite people from outside Brookes –other universities, industry, commerce.



Background

Edge Hill University staff and students are offered a broad-ranging programmeof social activities to encourage interaction, greater engagement with theUniversity and well being in the workplace. Last autumn a new concept wasborn – a musical experiment to encourage staff of all musical abilities to form achoir to sing in four-part harmony.

Project leader

Ian Shirley, Senior Lecturer Primary Music Education, Edge Hill University

HEliX indicator:

The campus environment amplifies the University’s personality andengenders staff pride and affinity


There is a social programme that brings staff together outside the workingenvironment, encouraging them to feel part of the wider University team

Voices from the Edge – launching a University choir

22

25

26

“What is impressive is how a

group of such diverse

people can come together

and show the same

dedication, commitment

and enthusiasm for a

common purpose. The

result is something quite

special.”


Objectives

• To encourage staff and students of allages, genders and musical abilities toparticipate in the singing project.

• To promote the social and healthbenefits of singing as an activity.

• To use singing as a means ofencouraging greater interactionbetween staff and students in aninformal setting.

• To offer a fun, stimulating andentertaining leisure activity for staff andstudents together as a learningcommunity.

• To create a choir capable of reaching astandard for performing to fellow staffand students.

Concept

The initiative involved an open invitationto all members of academic and supportstaff and students to join the choir, Voicesfrom the Edge, irrespective of theirmusical ability.

“Singing is a fantastic way of bringingpeople together for a shared experience.It is also a great social leveller in thatthere are no hierarchies in a choir like thisand every person’s contribution is equallyvaluable. The benefits of singing to aperson’s health and wellbeing are well-documented – it encourages betterbreathing and posture, for example andtriggers the release of the ‘feel good’endorphin hormone into the body. Thechallenges offered by choral singingprovide a stimulating and engagingactivity in which singers pursue highstandards and musical satisfaction,” saysIan Shirley.

The Detail

Voices from the Edge was promoted witha poster campaign throughout theUniversity’s main campus andelectronically via a weekly enewsletterthat features staff social events. The Vice-Chancellor also used his weekly email tostaff to encourage people to join.

Some 40 people joined the choir,comprising staff from all quarters ofthe University – academics, supportstaff, manual and non-manual,students and two Pro-Vice-Chancellorsfrom the directorate team.

The choir met (and continues to meet)on Tuesday lunchtimes from 1pm-1.40pm for rehearsals.

Ian Shirley led the choir in building arepertoire that combined morechallenging Christmas songs with well-known carols for a performancebefore staff and students over thefestive season.

Costs and timeframe

Apart from the negligible cost ofproducing a number of posters in-house, no other costs were incurredother than the time committed bymembers and the musical director tolunchtime rehearsals and learning theirparts at home.

Rehearsals ran from October-December in preparation for theChristmas performance. Owing to thepopularity and success of theperformance, the choir is now anongoing concern and has been invitedto sing at forthcoming universityevents.


A low take-up from male members inthe early stages left some gaps in thebass and tenor sections. This was soonrectified as news of the choir spreadthrough both word of mouth andemail correspondence. However, thereremains a target to attract additionalmale members.

Measuring success

• Some 40 people joined the choir.

• Although attendance varied due towork commitments, the Tuesdayrehearsals were extremely wellsupported.

• Members committed personal time tolearn their parts to ensure a highstandard was reached and maintained.

• The choir gave a performance formore than 200 staff and students at aChristmas mince pie event, enhancingan already very popular staff event.Applause was rapturous.

• The positive reaction to the choir’sperformance and the enjoymentshared by members has resulted inVoices from the Edge beingestablished as a ongoing concern.

• Members are busy learning a newrepertoire of songs ranging from folkto gospel. Given the tight rehearsalslot, the conductor supports learningby providing recordings of individualparts, and time is used effectively byhaving a good pace to the rehearsals.

• A number of members of theaudience were inspired to join thechoir as a result of the Christmasperformance.

• Members talk regularly about how thechoir has lifted their spirits at work,provided a highly-effective relaxationmechanism and provided achallenging, yet fun, setting in whichto learn or develop the skill of singing.

One member Sharon Buckley, Edge Hill’sCorporate Events Officer, said: “Thechoir has become a really important partof my week. I hate to miss rehearsalsand my close colleagues and friends allknow not to invite me to a meetingduring Tuesday lunchtime. What isimpressive is how a group of suchdiverse people can come together andshow the same dedication, commitmentand enthusiasm for a common purpose.The result is something quite special.”

What next?

Back by popular demand. The choir hasbeen invited to give a follow-upperformance before a similar audienceduring an Easter staff event.


Nottingham Trent University

Background

One thousand staff at Nottingham Trent were moved out of two major campusbuildings temporarily in order to refurbish and restructure office space. Internalcommunications manager Lynda O’Hare has the ongoing job of keeping staffinformed and on-side throughout this four year project. Having worked for theSamaritans as a co-ordinator of 17,000 dispersed volunteers, she was a firm believerin face to face communications and consultation.

“This is a really major scheme for us, a multi-million regeneration project, but we hadto take people out of the buildings, rehouse them, and soon we will have to putthem back in. This is a massive communications exercise, and people always getanxious about being moved. To move them twice could take stress to a whole newlevel!” Lynda O’Hare

Objectives

• To inform staff of the overall regeneration project, and the strategic objectives thatit supported.

• To inform staff of what was happening and why, and keep up morale throughout avery difficult period.

• To create a sense of what the university would be like when the work wascompleted – the light at the end of the tunnel!

• To involve staff in the look and the use of the refurbished buildings.

• To help them settle into their temporary accommodation whilst reassuring themthat the new building would be worth the inconvenience.

Concept

The internal communications team is a standalone department which helps them bemore genuinely staff facing, and to give them a more autonomous status. Under the

Project leader

Lynda O’Hare, Internal Communications Manager.Nottingham Trent University

HEliX indicators:


The campus estate is conducive to good communications and networking

All staff are fully connected to the University regardless of their campuslocation, both physically and in terms of access to decision-making

Campus Update: Keeping staff onside during renovations

22

23

24


project title, Creating an InspiringWorking Environment, the internalcommunications team used events,publications, intranet and face to facemeetings to support the objectives. Theyworked with academics, administrativemanagers and the Estate Team toensure the proposals were understoodand well communicated down andacross the university.

“Before I started, we had a staffmagazine that was mainly about ourexternal successes while staff werecrying out for basic information to helpthem to do their jobs. When you dointernal communications, you have tobe careful that it’s not internalmarketing. You have to be honest, andnot spin what is happening. Otherwisestaff just hear about the icing, and notthe cake. We wanted to be seen ashonest brokers.” Lynda O’Hare

The Detail

There were face to face meetings tokick things off with staff and a networkof ‘move coordinators’ was set up -representatives from each departmentwho organised the relocation on behalfof their team.

They created a section on the intranetfor the relocation with floor plans,relocation handbooks, frequently askedquestions and checklists. It was takendown after the first set of relocationsand is being reviewed in preparation forthe next tranche.

A set of core stories are updatedregularly as the many decisions aremade about the new development -highlights of the usage, look and feel ofthe new building – e.g. decisions aboutteaching space, social learning space,lecture theatres, colour schemes,catering, furniture etc.

A monthly magazine (now discontinued)highlighted key aspects of the buildingto showcase architecture, orenvironmental matters in more depth.

In partnership with the EstateDepartment the team held a five dayexhibition too and students and staffwere invited to drop in when it suitedthem.

“What we tried to do all the time

was to present the big picture as

something exciting and visionary,

whilst making sure on an

individual level people knew

what was happening about their

workspace.”Costs and timeframe

The project is a four year one, and stillongoing. A total communicationsbudget of £20,000 was reserved for thewhole four year exercise.


“We needed better projectmanagement across the differentdepartments involved – more role claritywould have been helpful. This is aproblem sometimes in HE – projectmanagement tools and techniques arenot always applied yet they can makesuch a difference.”

Measuring success

“What was good was the way we keptstaff up to date with the changes, theprogress as it’s happened, and tried tomaintain the interest at key times.Because it’s a four year project, it’s noteasy to sustain a level of interest thathelps people to fully appreciate whatthe scheme means for the Universityand indeed the City of Nottingham.

“Although we haven’t measured staffsatisfaction over communications, wehave got a good response from peoplewanting our (as a comms team)continuing involvement on this andother projects. We are now being askedto help other individual departments

such as the Libraries and LearningResources and Information Systems andthe university’s network of learning andteaching coordinators. This has comeabout as a result of trust in us, I think.”

“There probably isn’t an easy way ofmeasuring the success of what we’vedone. If we hadn’t got it right, wewould have had some disgruntled staffand possibly union disputes. Think of thecost of that, compared with a £20,000spend on good communication? Thisnew scheme symbolises NTU as asuccessful university well on its way tofulfil a mission to deliver education andresearch that shape lives and society.”

What next?

“The whole area of how we ensuremanagers communicate well is one thatwe are looking at and I’d like to see allour leaders work to a set of corecommunications competencies. We arealso keen to measure internalcommunications in the near future.”




Background

The physical environment of universities is important, both in terms of enabling themto fulfil their teaching, research, business, community, cultural and social functions,and in terms of attracting a high number and calibre of students and staff.

Many of the buildings at Oxford Brookes date back from the 1950s and 1960s. TheUniversity has decided to invest more than £150 million to redevelop its campuses.This will take place over a decade and will see the majority of the existing 1950s and60s buildings demolished and replaced.

The estates redevelopment work is concentrated on the main campus in Headington– an already densely developed site which is used mostly for teaching. Initialdemolition work began in 2007, and the buildings to be cleared (about a third of themain campus) will make way for for the University’s first landmark building, which isintended to change the way the University is seen in the city.

Project team

Susie Baker, Director of Communications and the Communications Group Oxford Brookes University

HEliX indicator:


Space to think: Improving the campus environment

22

The demolition and subsequentconstruction programme was identifiedby the Communications Group as asignificant challenge in terms of staffsatisfaction. The quality of the physicalenvironment in universities is a keyindicator in surveys of student and staffsatisfaction and Brookes’ biennial staffsurvey consistently registered staffconcern about the quality of teachingand office spaces.

The Concept

The Communications Group has run athree year campaign to communicatethe University’s overall aspirations forthe estate with a comprehensiveconsultation and marketingprogramme branded ‘Space to Think’.This firstly provided staff and otherstakeholders with numerousopportunities for input into themasterplan that would guide thecampus redevelopment work over thenext decade.

After ensuring staff input into plans forthe estate, the campaign moved on toensure the demolition and constructionsites were used as an opportunity toshowcase the University’s achievementsto internal audiences.

Objectives

In terms of staff communication, theSpace to Think project aimed to:

• Manage the risks associated with theconstruction/demolition work oncampus to overall staff satisfaction.

• Enable key audiences, including staff,to understand the benefits of theoverall estates redevelopment.

• Keep staff informed about andengaged with the University’s visionfor its estate.

The Detail

The first stage of the Space to Thinkcampaign was to ensure effectiveconsultation with stakeholders.

The Communications team advocatedand led a thorough three-stageconsultation process. All stages usedexhibitions and questionnairesdesigned by academic experts. Thefirst sought general views aboutdesign preferences and whichelements were important tostakeholders. The architects producingthe masterplan then used these viewsto produce three options for campusredevelopment, which formed thebasis of the second stage ofconsultation. The final stage involvedconsultation for a landmark newbuilding for the main campus.

At every stage, special presentationswere held for staff and on average athird of the University’s totalworkforce took part in the exhibitions.

As the plan developed and demolitionwork started, the CommunicationsGroup investigated how other sectors‘dressed’ their estates duringconstruction periods.

The University’s Heads of Design andPublic Relations visited the Director ofMarketing for Land Securities, a realestate investment trust with a £14billion property portfolio. LandSecurities has won numerousmarketing awards for its estatescommunications work andrecommended several design agenciesthat were well placed to respond to ahighly demanding design brief.

Ten agencies were invited to tenderand four were shortlisted. Afterpresenting its initial concepts, HatTrick Design was selected in July2007.

During the campaign developmentthe Communications Group was alsoreviewing the University’s overallmarketing messages. This meant HatTrick could be briefed on this workand help articulate one of theUniversity’s key marketing messages –the expression of the University’spersonality. Brookes’ staff are driven

by an ethos of support and ‘thinkingahead’ about individuals’ needs and,through its corporate socialresponsibility agenda, research andteaching, the needs of the widerworld. The new Vice-Chancellorsummarises this as ‘a university that isquietly changing the world’.

Based on this research, Hat Trickpresented the University with fourcreative concepts and the Universityselected the concept called ‘150 Trees’,which used images of trees toshowcase the University’sachievements. The campaign was torun from 2008 to 2015, which wouldbe 150 years since the foundation ofthe institution that has become OxfordBrookes. It was branded ‘Space toThink: 150 Trees’ to build on theexisting estates communications workwhich was well established within theUniversity and the City.

A generous timetable – four months -for selecting and developing thecampaign was planned. This allowedwide consultation and discussion inorder to develop an idea that would beseen as durable, flexible,‘campaignable’ and appropriate to thebrand values of Brookes. The tree ideawas especially popular with staff as theUniversity’s main campus is located in aconservation area and some of themost visible/high profile areas aredominated by protected trees. Thesecond largest campus, Wheatley, isalso located in an area designated asGreen Belt.

The Communications Group identifiedthe valedictory lecture by theUniversity’s Chancellor, Jon Snow, inMarch 2008 as the moment to unveilthe Trees Campaign.

The Communications Group aimed tocreate the first 20 of the 150 trees forthe Jon Snow event. All schools anddepartments were invited to submitideas for trees that demonstrated howthe University was ‘thinking ahead’.


Costs and timeframe

In 2007, SMT agreed to a dedicatedbudget to market the estate visionduring the transition period starting at£150,000 a year.

The development of the Trees Campaignwas an intensive creative activity andsignificant time and resources wereallocated to this stage. During thisdevelopment period regularpresentations were made to thecampaign steering group, to SMT andgovernors and wide support and buy-into the campaign was achieved.

Once approved, the concept was quicklydeveloped into artwork and copy over athree week period and installed in aweek. This put considerable stress onthe existing communications team andthe decision to bid for funding for anew member of the team to handle allestates communications was essential tothe delivery of this work.

For more information:www.brookes.ac.uk/spacetothink

Where there any problems?

Inevitably for a campaign that involvedsuch high profile work, some staffchallenged the creative expression (iequestioning the artistic merit) and/or theresources involved (eg couldn’t themoney have been better spentelsewhere). Some areas also questionedwhy their work was not included. Thesecomplaints were handled by the Vice-Chancellor, who strongly supported theproject.

Measuring success

In terms of quantifying the impact andoutcome of the campaign, the mostformal evaluation activities related tostudent open days, which registeredstrong recognition of the work. As wellas this quantitative analysis, theCommunications team have monitoredthe informal/anecdotal feedback. Thisincludes:

• Staff and governors have describedthe campaign as ‘the best marketingcampaign the University has everundertaken’. Several Deans atBrookes, when asked to evaluate thework of the Directorate of CorporateAffairs for its annual review, singledout the Trees Campaign as the mostexciting development in recent years.

• Oxford Brookes hosts the Booker PrizeArchive and highlighted this with a‘book tree’. The chief organiser of theBooker Prize Foundation visited staffon campus in July and asked to besent copies of the trees campaign toshow the Booker FoundationCommittee.

• More than 100 staff witnessed thecampaign being unveiled at theChancellor’s valedictory lecture.

• A lecturer in interculturalcommunications at the University hasinvited the Communications Directorto run a module on the treescampaign for a communication, mediaand language course on persuasivecommunication.

• The trees campaign is now beingextended to dress/brand thetemporary buildings used as decantspaces during the construction work.



Background

Staff and students from the Business, Law and Criminology departments werescattered across the main campus. They lacked a clear identity and a true sense ofunity. The lack of a single, high-impact building to impress external stakeholders andpotential students was also considered to be a significant obstacle in the futuredevelopment of the three departments and the University.

Objectives

• To create a building that would bring together staff from the Business, Law andCriminology departments.

• To create a building with which staff and students would be proud to be associated.

• To create a sense of identity for staff through the new building.

• To break down barriers between staff and students for interaction.

• To create social spaces in the new building to provide opportunities .

• To meet the operational requirements of staff.

• To remove low-quality hutted accommodation dating from the War and in its placecreate a central hub linking disparate parts of the campus.

• To design and construct a building that would enhance the environmentalsustainability of the campus.

Concept

• To separate teaching spaces and academic offices as part of the design but ensurethat academic staff remained accessible.

Project leaders

Andrew Brown and Simon Almond, ABW Architects, Liverpool

HEliX indicators:

The University is easy to navigate physically


The campus estate is conducive to good communications and networking


Social Hub: Creating a statement

building for Edge Hill

21

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23

25


• To provide “clarity of route” ie toassist staff, students and visitors tonavigate themselves around thebuilding.

• To produce “quality of space” -ensuring all sections of the buildingenjoy a view, are lit effectively yetsensitively and that there is a senseof comfort within.

The Detail

• To assist interaction, narrow spaces,such as corridors, have deliberatelybeen excluded from the design.

• A central atrium space boasts seatingareas with open access to PCs alongwith a coffee bar to encourage staffand students to mix.

• An attractive roof garden – whichserves an operational purpose ofsoaking up rainwater that would putpressure on the drainage system –has been further developed toprovide an outdoor social space forstaff and students.

• The building has outstanding“green” credentials, boasting lowcarbon emissions, natural ventilation,solar water heating, combined heatand power and extensive use of LEDlighting.

• Other features include a “mootroom” – which transforms thelecture theatre into a mock courtroom.

Costs and timeframe

The building cost £8m, and took justten months to construct.


Some members of staff objected tosharing an office in the new buildinghaving previously had their own space.However the many positive features ofthe new building have outweighed thedisadvantages in the eyes of manystaff.

How did you measuresuccess?

Although the building has only been inuse for two months, a number ofpositive outcomes can be identified:

• The building was delivered onbudget and on schedule.

• The campus now boasts a strikingcutting edge new Business, Law andCriminology building that embodiesthe ambitious capital developmentplans of the University.

• The development has transformed alow quality quarter of the campuswith a bold new building and thebeginnings of a central hub.

• The social spaces created within thebuilding have proved highly popularand offer excellent opportunities forstaff and students to interact.

• The roof garden has already proveda highly effective location for makingan impression on influential visitorsto the campus.


Andrew Brown from ABW architects,said:

“Much of the success in

constructing the building on time

and on budget was due to the

excellent communication

between the various partners

established on site and driven by

Edge Hill University. A co-

operative problem-solving

approach was adopted, which

differs from the traditional way

these things usually work.”

CRISIS SAFETY AND SECURITY 65

Crisis, safety and security

Goldsmiths, University of London

Background

Crises are not always of the fast, flash-in-the-pan kind. Some are slow-burners thatsmoulder quietly and then either turn into an explosion, or, with careful management,are put out entirely. Goldsmiths experienced the slow burn crisis in 2007 when a projectcomprising a basic recladding of one of its most noticeable buildings in the middle ofthe campus was affected by subsequent major structural issues. These resulted in amajor decant with around 150 staff and students requiring temporary rehousing.Research, teaching and administration were all disrupted, and staff were moved intohastily delivered portacabins or asked to share workspaces with other colleagues acrossthe campus. This took place during one of the institution’s busiest terms, when manystudents had assessments and academic staff were finalising collaborative researchprojects.

Project Manager

Vicky Annand, Head, Communications and PublicityGoldsmiths, University of London

HEliX indicator:

Essential security and safety information is effectively disseminatedto managers and staff

Decant! A slow-burn crisis

30

CRISIS SAFETY AND SECURITY66


Objectives

• To take responsibility for devising andimplementing a coherent and consistentstakeholder communications strategy,providing a bridge between staff andbuilding contractors.

• To keep staff and students directlyaffected by the works, informed andengaged, and provide them withalternative accommodation.

• To communicate with the wider staff andstudent community throughout theproject.

• To minimise negative publicityparticularly through student feedback.

• To communicate with a small number oflocal residents who might be affected bythe building works.

Concept

A careful and sustained strategiccommunications campaign across allplatforms to stop an emergency turning ina crisis, by keeping staff, students and localresidents informed as appropriate.

The Detail

Vicky Annand explains:“We put acommunications plan in place including adedicated website and email lists of thoseaffected, as soon as the scale of theproblems came to light. Staff and studentsacross the campus were affected by ourhaving to closethe largest lecture theatre.Labs and computer rooms in the buildinghad to be shut and moved elsewhere ifpossible. Major externally-funded researchprojects were also affected. We wereconcerned that the whole thing would putoff potential students and damagerelations with staff and students. We werealso concerned about the impact on asmall number of local residents who livedopposite the building site”

“We were very open in our approach,holding regular update meetings with theproject management team, identifying keymessages and being quite clear about boththe good and the bad news. We

apologised and didn’t pretend that itwasn’t a really difficult time. The Students’Union took the same line with students.”

Other measures put in place:

• A dedicated email address, for staff andstudents affected by the building workssupported by regular emails to all otherstaff via the departmental email system.

• A dedicated web page, regularlyupdated to show FAQs and photos fromthe project to show progress.

• Within each affected department, therewas a key nominated individual whobecame the sole point of contact for theestates and the communications teams.Questions raised were responded topromptly.

• Regular messages were drafted by theInternal Communications Manager, andsent out from the Registrar andSecretary.

• Letter drop to local residents.

A logistical team was established to dealwith the crisis, chaired by the Registrarand Secretary (whose office had beenlocated in the building), and with theHead of Psychology (whose departmentwas also based in the building)representing users. The Registrar andSecretary regularly met with peopledirectly affected by the decant. TheWarden (Goldsmiths’ VC) also talkedopenly about the problems in the termlystaff meetings, which would usually havebeen held in the affected lecture theatre.“Because members of senior managementhad to leave their offices, they were clearlyaffected too; there was a real ‘blitz spirit’to the whole thing. People started to seethe funny side of being in portacabins!”

Vicky ensured that communicationsremained firmly on the agenda byattending the project board meetings andreminding the project managers of theneed to keep people updated, even if thenews was bad; at times, there seemed tobe no end to the problems arising: “Therewas always something which needed tobe communicated to staff and students,

so I made sure I was there – at timesadopting the role of ankle-biter. You needto keep reminding people of the need tobrief those affected at times like this –there is always a danger that they willforget to do it otherwise.”

Costs and timescale

“Like most crises, there’s no budget for it.You just have to manage. We did a lot onemail as it was immediate and went directlyto our target audiences. The mainexpenditure from our point of view was ontemporary signage, as we had to tell peoplewhere it was safe to walk, and there wasthe unplanned ‘cost’ in terms of theamount of time which our team wasinvolved in the project.”


“We were marked down on some of theNSS surveys for poor facilities, of course,which we had expected. As acommunications team, the lesson welearned was that we were too hands onperhaps, and we took too muchresponsibility for doing things that othersshould have done. We needed to be moreenablers rather than doers. And there weretimes when it was hard to get informationout of others in timely fashion because thesituation kept changing so fast as thingscame to light.”

Measuring success

“There was no negative external publicityand, although students and staff were vocalat points of tension during the project, nostudents actually asked for their fees to bereimbursed, so we were relieved. We gotthrough it, and now the building looksmuch smarter on the outside. The keycontacts are now used as touch points forother matters, so a real network came outof it. I think it also showed that all the hardwork we had put into internalcommunications before it happened, hadreally paid off. The structures, conduits andmethods for communicating were alreadyin place and we’d learnt a lot from previousbuilding works.”

The University of Leeds

Background

Like all universities, Leeds has quite a challenging time getting staff to noticehealth and safety warnings and regulations. However, contractually, staff are allresponsible for their own health and safety, and whilst the information mayseem dull, the penalties for ignoring the advice are heavy – either for theindividual or the whole university. In February 2007, the University receivedserious criticism from the Health and Safety Executive regarding themanagement of health and safety. The VC decided that enough was enough,and staff had to be lulled out of their boredom and disinterest, and madeaware of health and safety on campus. A small team was assembled - theHealth and Safety Office, working with Helen Priestly, Head ofCommunications, and an outside consultant – to tackle the issue head on:

Helen explains: “It can be seen as an uninspiring but important subject, we hadto do something really arresting and boil things down to some very simplemessages.”

Objectives

• To raise awareness of health and safety.

• To improve health and safety at work.

• To protect employees.

• To launch a new H and S website, and standards for H and S.

• To avoid penalties for falling foul of H and S standards.

Concept

An attention-grabbing health and safety campaign that would confrontcomplacency and demand participation.

Project team

Helen Priestley and Sue UnderwoodHead of Communications and Employee Communication OfficerUniversity of Leeds

HEliX indicators:

The senior executive team distil and clarify key messages for staff

There is a robust corporate strategy for internal staff communications

Staff communications is effectively operationalised and resourced to ensure that it is effective and impactful

Essential security and safety information is effectively disseminated tomanagers and staff

Not Me!: A Remarkable Health and Safety Campaign

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9

10

30

“An impressive organisational

commitment to re-energising

OS&H in the university

sector”(SHP IOSH Awards brochure)



The Detail

Helen explains: “We decided to createa campaign that was going to be quitethought provoking and visually veryarresting. We used surprise tactics, andprovoked interest by putting hugeposters around the campus puttingforward a series of challengingstatements. Bold colours using blackand neon yellow startled people, andsafety hazard tape mysteriouslyappeared around university buildings.People thought it was either fun oroutrageous. No one was quite surewhat was happening.”

The first slogan rolled out “Notme!”followed by “Then Who?”. Thisbuilt up finally into the answer “Meand You” and later “Still me, stillyou”. These slogans popped upunexplained on websites and on Leedsbuildings. “Everyone was talking aboutthem – some people thought ourwebsites were being hacked into.”

Helen continues: “The academiccommunity wasn’t going to take anynotice if we had just issued an emailwith the five steps to good health andsafety. We knew we had to becontroversial in order to piquecuriosity. There wasn’t a call to actionreally, just a call to think, and takeresponsibility.”

After the teaser messages the morestandard phases were rolled outincluding induction packs, a healthand safety website, and new training.A new health and safety DVD with lotsof good practice was also issued,which the VC instructed everyone towatch.

Costs and timeframe

There was a proper budget managedby the Health and Safety team for thewhole exercise, and there wasadditional staff time from theCommunications team. The main non-staff costs were the agency costs andthe posters. The website was

developed in house, and most of theinternal events were inexpensive.Although the whole campaign had asignificant budget (undisclosed), it wasmuch cheaper than a major accidentor a corporate infringement of healthand safety.


Helen explains: “It was time intensivefor staffing but the main problem waskeeping it secret. We nearly changedour approach a few types as it all felt

so high risk – but we knew we weredoing the right thing. This was ourTrojan horse, which would only workby being big, and taking everyone bysurprise.”

Because it was a teaser campaign andonly a very small group of people werein on it (including the VC and Directorof HR) – it was tricky to manage. Theuse of unbranded posters caused someproblems, where over-zealous cleanersand porters removed them. TheCampusweb (intranet) viral campaign

Phases of the Leeds ‘Not Me’ Campaign

1 Catching attention

The first phase publicised the University’s transformed outlook, focusing onindividual accountability. Campus was covered with bold yellow banners, posters,stickers and hazard tape, proclaiming “Not Me” . During this teaser phase, thesubject was kept secret, to get people talking and guessing.

Umbrellas and high-visibility vests were printed with the straplines

• ‘Not Me, Then Who?’

• ‘Me + You = Health and Safety’

• ‘You know it’s you’

2 Offering guidance

A restructure of health and safety information created simple guidance thatoutlined everyone’s individual responsibilities. This culminated in a redevelopedhealth and safety website which is extremely accessible and gives clear guidanceon important topics.

A series of mini poster campaigns raised awareness of health and safety topics,and directed staff to guidance on the renovated website. The fire safety phasewas especially successful, reminding staff ‘If you think fire drills are a pain, try thenext one blindfolded and holding your breath’. These campaigns also reinforcedthe new online training packages, which all staff are now required to take.

3 Embedding messages

Briefing sessions were held for all staff to watch a DVD of University case study,specially produced to feature examples of best practice and bad practice. Staffdiscussed local priorities with their senior managers and met the new health andsafety managers.

At the end of the briefing sessions, leaflets and posters were distributed toeveryone, which clarified their own individual responsibilities.

caused mayhem as people thoughtthe website had been hacked into.Once it was revealed, some academicsfelt they were being patronised andsome people questioned the cost(without knowing the figures).

Measuring success

The ‘Not Me’ campaign won a majorIoSH award – Best Improvement inHealth Safety – for best campaign,and best achievement in public sector.Most importantly, everyone wastalking about it.

“Feedback has shown that thecampaign has brought a notablechange in awareness and attitudes.Whether individuals liked the materialsor not, they have got people talkingand made them realise that health andsafety must be taken seriously,”explains Helen.

Statistics from the health and safetywebsite showed an increase of 24,000page requests around the time thecampaign and online training waslaunched, and 93% individuals whofed-back about the training pages feltthat they had been helpful.

Other reactions from staff have beensignificant including departmentscreating their own ‘Not Me’ postersand requesting extra posters to takehome with them! As the messagesbecame clear, people from every levelwanted to know more about theirresponsibilities and training. This led tolocal health and safety managersbeing inundated with requests formore information. “In the space of sixweeks we had made these vitalcommunications exciting and instantlyrecognisable, taking health and safetyfrom a back seat priority and putting itat the forefront of everyone’s minds,”says Helen.

“Students, who were not originallyour target audience, have beeninterested too! In a recent survey heldby Leeds University Union, the ‘Not

Me’ campaign was highlighted as themost memorable campaign of the year– overshadowing all others completely.”

What next?

Other mini campaigns following thestandards (manual handling and DSE)were peppered throughout the year. The“me + you” campaign was followed bylaunching “2009 is the year of riskassessment”. This was a continuation ofencouraging staff to acceptresponsibility. The launch took the formof a well publicised event – eightmembers of the University (two seniormembers of the H&S team, a dean, twostudents and three union members) didan abseil off a high building todemonstrate that H&S is not a barrier todoing dangerous things. This will bebacked up by a roll out of new softwareand training.


University of California Berkeley

Background

Following major national crises such as 9/11, Hurricane Katrina and the shootingsat Virginia Tech, the team at UC Berkeley wanted to be able to put in place amuch more reliable crisis communications system. Being in an earthquake zone,they also had to ensure they were well prepared for catastrophic events thatmight cut out their power.

Objectives

• To ensure an immediate communications response to a crisis.

• To ensure that systems are supported by back-up power.

• To ensure staff used the system.

Concept

A speedy and effective campus crisis communication system, WarnMe, wasdeveloped, to alert 35,500 students and over 2000 academic staff.

The Detail

UC Berkley implemented a two-level crisis communication system: one forpredictable and monitorable crises, and ones requiring immediate evacuation orother instant safety responses. In the event of level 1 predictable crisis, such as ahurricane, students and staff would log onto a simple electronic bulletin board topost messages to parents/friends and parents/registered users who are able toaccess the information through a password-protected route. This system issupported by external power sources in the event of a power cut on campus. Fora level 2 emergency, such as a shooting incident, a chemical spill or a bombthreat on campus, a more immediate response and messaging system is required.The team established WarnMe (http://warnme.berkeley.edu/) – an alerting andwarning service for staff and students. WarnMe uses the preferred contactinformation provided by users. Emergency alerts and instructions can be sent via

Project leader

Chancellor Robert J. BirgeneauUniversity of California Berkley

HEliX indicators:

Staff and managers are well prepared for crises

Staff can be contacted in an emergency


WarnMe – A crisis alert system for staff and students

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29

30


mobile phone, text messaging, email,and office and home phones.

The system, provided by an externalsupplier, is free and runs on an opt-inbasis. Signing up is a simple process andall information is held confidentially andnot linked to any other Universitysystems.

Costs and timeframe

Systems costs were not disclosed, but inwhat the team described as ‘a fundingfirst for such a communicationsinitiative’, a budget of$40,000 wasmade available to explain and marketthe system to the campus.


The concept was greeted positively.Having funding in place to market theidea helped pre-empt any concerns anda detailed FAQ was developed for thewebsite.

Measuring success

As of autumn 2008, some 15,000members had already signed up. Thesystem was established in time toengage with all first year studentsautomatically and the vast majority ofthem signed up immediately.

What next?

To sign up all staff and students to the‘WarnMe’ system.



Background

Recognising the important role health plays in our working, learning and personal lives,the University of Bristol encourages its staff and students to take a proactive approachto their health and well being. One group who were ready to make improvements,were Bristol’s security staff. They, like many staff, felt they needed health and exerciseadvice, but they also experienced back and joint pains from the extra pressures ofwalking in heavy security equipment, and their diets suffered from the unsociable nighthours. The managers, through exit interviews and reviews, identified a recurrentproblem of poor diet and sleep patterns that combined with 12 hour shifts wereleading to accidents at work ,lower productivity and higher levels of sicknessabsenteeism, and managers were also keen to reduce the amount of minor caraccidents (backing into pillars) the security team have during the night patrol ( typicallybetween 4am and 6am) as not only is there a risk to people but the damage caused isa considerable expense to the department.

Objectives

• To improve safety at work.

• To improve exercise patterns amongst security staff.

• To promote healthy eating, physical activity, back care, smoking cessation, positivestress management and relaxation strategies.

• To improve the concentration and productivity at work of this group.

• To improve mental health and of course longer term benefits such as reduced risk ofcardiovascular disease, cancer, obesity and diabetes.

• To improve sickness absenteeism and staff retention.

Project leader

Karen Harvey, Healthy Lifestyles ManagerSport, Exercise and Health,University of Bristol

HEliX indicator:


Wellness Days: improving health and safety at work

30



Concept

A ‘Wellness Day’ for Security staff.

The Detail

Wellness Days are part of Bristol’s healthylifestyle programme and are available tostaff and students throughout the year,provided by the University’s Sport, Exerciseand Health team. A draft Wellness Dayprogramme was planned with the AssistantSecurity Services Manager and a SecuritySupervisor to ensure it covered areas ofconcern raised in appraisals, exit interviewsand accident investigations including lack ofenergy for the 12 hour shift pattern, back,neck and knee injuries and high levels ofstress. It was agreed to make attendancecompulsory as part of the security stafftraining programme and security staffwould be paid accordingly.

The programme content had a practicalelement as much as theory. Karen Harveyexplains: “Recipes for easy, quick to preparemeals were provided, our back care sessionwas very interactive with all participantstaking part in Swiss ball exercises and weeven showed them what pace they need towalk at for optimum health benefits.” Boththe Security Services Manager and AssistantManager attended a Wellness Day whichgave a very strong message of top levelsupport.

Costs and timeframe

A Wellness Day costs between £650 – 700,depending on the programme content andtherefore speakers. Lunch and handouts areincluded and Sport, Exercise and Health alsogive exercise class vouchers or free 10-daysports passes to participants. Each wellnessday requires one month’s notice to arrangesimply because so many staff are involved inthe delivery and this can be difficult to co-ordinate.


Karen explains “There needs to be morescheduled and systematic follow up to thewellness days so that the long term impactof Wellness Days can be measured and

continued support made available toparticipants. Limited resources (particularlystaff time) is the main reason this hasn’thappened but Sport, Exercise and Healthare committed to improving this follow upphase. The cost of Wellness Days is alsoan issue as departments are unlikely toallocate a budget to them in the sameway that they might do some other formof personal development training. TheHealthy Lifestyle Manager and othercolleagues involved in the HealthyUniversity and Positive WorkingEnvironment initiatives are workingtowards changing this perception of staffand student health.”

Measuring success?

“Firstly we were pleased that the SecurityDepartment ensured all staff wereengaged in the Wellness Day andallocated a budget and staff time to theprogramme and follow up interventions.The course also seemed to hit the markwith the participants who made verypositive comments, and said they wouldrecommend it to others.” Follow upInterventions included:

• A review of food storage and preparationfacilities at the Security offices - toidentify ways to help security staff bringin and prepare healthy food for breakfast,lunch and dinner.

• Free fresh fruit, dried fruit, nuts, fruit juiceand breakfast cereals are now readilyavailable in rest areas alongside tea,coffee and water giving staff healthychoices 24/7.

• A referral programme has been set up forsecurity staff in need of physiotherapy toaddress neck, back and knee injuries.Treatment is subsidised by SecurityServices but only when staff prove thatthey are making an effort to improvetheir physical health and prevent injury byimproving weight and fitness levels.

What next?

“We are working on new Wellness Daysand other health initiatives, such as ourPedometer Challenges, Feel 10 Times Betterand Support to Stop Smoking session tohelp everyone at the University live, workand learn to the best of their ability.”

Top Tips

For a Healthier Workforce

1. Provide staff with sports and health facilities on campus at a subsidised rate.

2. Ensure healthy options for snacks and lunches are readily available andcompetitively priced.

3. Inform, educate and inspire staff to make simple, positive lifestyle changes.

4. Ensure there is a culture of health and wellbeing and not just a policy.

5. Encourage staff to eat away from desks to ensure computer breaks and encourageconviviality and good eating habits.

6. Develop a range of programmes to engage staff with different levels of activity.

7. Promote healthy lifestyle behaviours that benefit mental as well as physical health.

8. Set up lunch time and after work sport and activity programmes.

9. Set up staff running clubs or softball tournaments.

10. Offer health checks as part of personal development.

11. Create your own ‘wellness’ day programme.

12. Ensure staff have access to fresh fruit and water.

The Employee journey

THE EMPLOYEE JOURNEY 75THE EMPLOYEE JOURNEY 75


Background

Imperial College London has 6500 staff, recruited from all over the world. One of itsexplicit missions is to recruit and retain the best and brightest staff. In view of this,the College was keen to ensure that new employees received a professional, relevantand inspiring induction, making them feel proud to be part of Imperial from thestart of their association.

Objectives

• To make new members of staff feel welcome and valued by the College.

• To give new members of staff a positive first impression of the College.

• To instil pride in the institution.

• To ensure staff know of the wide ranging work of the College.

• To improve affinity and retention.

Project manager


HEliX indicators:

The University strives to ensure that through the recruitment processprospective employees gain a good understanding of the University’shistory, achievements, vision, ambitions and personality

All new staff receive timely and effective inductions to the University

Recruiting the Best: Staff induction DVD

31

32

“The DVD reminds them why

they feel proud to work for

the College.”

THE EMPLOYEE JOURNEY76

THE EMPLOYEE JOURNEY 77THE EMPLOYEE JOURNEY 77

Concept

A 12-minute DVD to be issued to newstaff alongside their contract ofemployment.

The Detail

The DVD was one output of anoverarching project led by HR to reviewImperial’s induction processes. TheCommunications Division wasresponsible for producing the DVD,including the messaging and script, asCaroline Davis, Internal CommunicationsManager explains: “We wanted to showImperial was lively, a place with warmthand vibe. Previously new staff justreceived reams of paperwork alongsidetheir offers of employment, containingdry policy documents, which didn’t do agreat deal to inspire. We hope that afterthey’ve watched the DVD new staff willfeel excited about the opportunities thatImperial will offer them.”

The film has impressive sweeping shotsof the College, with aerial views of thecampuses, including its medical sites, allintroduced with some upbeat‘documentary rock’ music. Staff thencut in with practical and emotivereasons for enjoying working atImperial. They are all shot in anaturalistic way, talking to aninterviewer off screen, and the finishedeffect is one of honesty and enthusiasm.As well as leading academics, there areadministrators, librarians, lab techniciansetc. Some shots of the College crèche,dining areas and the subsidised sportsfacilities available to staff add thepractical details and suggest that theCollege is a rather pleasant andsupportive place to be.

Cost and timeframe

The DVD cost £7000 including thevoiceover artist, aerial footage, musicand DVD replication. The editorial andvideo production work took place in-house. The interviews were filmedbetween July and November 2008 and

the editing work then took about sixweeks. It was two weeks betweensigning off a final version of the filmand receiving the 1000 DVDs.


“There was some irony in that justwhen we had a final product, theCollege announced a freeze onexternal recruitment in some areas sowe cut back on the number of DVDswe had replicated.”

Measuring success

“At the start of the project to reviewinduction processes, we surveyed 100staff who had joined the Collegewithin the previous two to fourmonths to ask about their experiencesof induction. This gave us a baselineand I hope that when we do a follow-up survey six months after the newresources have been launched we’ll be

able to measure the results and gainsome positive feedback. From thepreviews shown to current staff todate, the DVD has been really wellreceived with some saying it remindsthem why they feel proud to work forthe College.”

What next?

“The first few copies are now beingmailed to ‘new joiners’ so we’ll haveto see! Heads of Department will eachreceive a copy of the DVD and will beencouraged to show the film in staffmeetings to inspire their existing staff.We’ll be reviewing the content of thefilm on an annual basis to ensure it’scurrent and incorporate new footagewhere required”.

For the new website with informationaimed at new members of staff, visit:www.imperial.ac.uk/newstaff

Top Tips

Imperial’s induction advice for managers (full guidance available atwww.imperial.ac.uk/newstaff):

Guidelines for Line Managers

Welcoming new staff

A well-planned and executed induction should:

• make new members of staff feel welcome.

• provide an introduction to the College.

• give an insight into other people’s jobs.

• provide essential background information to assist new members of staffwith their own work.

• clarify job expectations and initial objectives.

The Line Manager’s role is to ensure induction meets these requirements sothat every new member of staff has a strong start in their new role and feelspart of their new team as soon as possible.

Project team

Paul Smith, Edge Hill UniversityRoy Bayfield, Edge Hill UniversityDave Penney, Oxford Brookes UniversitySusie Baker, Oxford Brookes UniversityBarry Taylor, University of BristolJill Cartwright, University of BristolRichard Taylor, University of LeicesterMichelle Crooks, University of Leicester

Other ContributorsVicky Annand, Goldsmith’s CollegeMitchel Benson, University of California DavisRobert Birgeneau, University of California BerkeleyJohn Cater, Edge Hill UniversityCaroline Davis, Imperial College LondonLiz Douglas, Manchester Airports GroupEllen Griffith, San Francisco State UniversityRichard Hare, British American Tobacco/Flare ConsultingKaren Leithead, Kingston UniversityKaren Harvey, University of BristolRachel McGraw, University of OxfordDenise Morrey, Oxford Brookes UniversityLynda O’Hare, Nottingham Trent UniversityHelen Priestly, University of LeedsIan Shirley, Edge Hill UniversityCécile van der Weert, University of OxfordAlison Whitelegg, Stockport Metropolitan borough CouncilDiana Woodhouse, Oxford Brookes University

For more information, visit

www.theknowledgepartnership.com

www.le.ac.uk/helix

Acknowledgements

Thanks to all the HEliX project team and all the contributors for their time, energyand patience in putting these stories together. Without the support and faith ofHEFCE, this project would also not have happened.

We would like to thank the many VCs, Directors of Communications and HR whocompleted the survey that started this project. We would also like to thank the stafffrom the universities of Leicester, Bristol, Oxford Brookes and Edge Hill who took partin focus groups, which helped to shape the indicators.

Louise SimpsonThe Knowledge Partnership

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS78

CASE STUDIES OF GOOD COMMUNICATIONS 79

© University of LeicesterLeicester LE1 7RHUK

www.le.ac.uk

© University of Leicester 2009Leicester LE1 7RHUK

www.le.ac.uk

For more information

HEliX Toolkit Contents and where you can find them

• The Importance of Good Communications and the origins of HEliX (pdfwebsite)

• Using HEliX (pdf website, and printed publication)

• HEliX 4-Strand Staff Survey pack (downloadable from website)

• HEliX Health Check: (downloadable evaluation questions and markingspreadsheet on website)

• HEliX Case Studies (pdf website)

• HEliX project findings “Summary Survey Findings: Scoping InternalCommunications in Higher Education, Autumn 2008 “ (pdf website andprinted copies)

The HEliX publications are available at:www.le.ac.uk/helixwww.theknowledgepartnership.com

and

For information about HEliX, email:[email protected] [email protected]

This brochure was printed by AVS Print,University of Leicesterusing vegetable based inkson FSC certified stock 1249_0309

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