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“Building an internal communication strategy in your organisation.”

Janelle Yates – Development and Communications Manager Ballarat Cancer Research Centre

+Who am I?

Janelle Yates – Communications Specialist

I am an experienced consultant with extensive skills in strategic planning, CSR, social media communications and professional writing for online and traditional communications mediums.

With professional qualifications in Public Relations and Journalism, I have hands-on experience in strategy development and campaign management, having been involved in several high profile communications campaigns in both Australia and the UK.

+My role at BCRC.

At Ballarat Cancer Research Centre, I manage all media, marketing, advertising, social media communications and major stakeholder relationships for the Centre. I am also responsible for the new Community Partnerships program, designed to strengthen links with stakeholders and the acquisition and relationship management of major corporate donors.

My key agenda for 2012 is to create synergy and cohesion internally at BCRC, so as to ensure clear messaging is communicated to a currently confused community of donors and an unaware potential market of new donors.

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Ballarat Cancer Research Centre (BCRC) aspires to reach the highest standards of medical research and foster innovation and creativity in cancer research, placing great value on the generosity of our donors and supporters.

The BCRC mission is to advance the understanding and treatment of cancer by making an internationally recognised contribution to cancer research.

+BCRC Mission.

+What is internal communication? Internal communication is a subset of effective

business communication, which is built around this simple foundation: communication is a dialogue, not a monologue. In fact, communication is a dual listening process.

+The forgotten strategy.

Nowadays, most organisations understand the importance of strategic communication with their stakeholders and have moved to either hiring their own dedicated marketing and communication staff, or externally contract communications specialists to produce communication plans for external use.

However, few organisations address INTERNAL communication in the same way. The question is, how do you ensure your staff are communicating the correct messages in the outside world, if you’re not all on the same page internally?

+Some quick stats.

According to the Gallup Organisation, Australia has some of the lowest engagement levels in the world with fewer than 20% of employees engaged (“eager beavers”), 60% are not engaged (“complacent cows”) and 20% are in the real negative danger zone, disengaged (“corporate cancer”).

 Alarmingly, Australia has some of the lowest engagement levels in the world, with 82% of workers either not engaged or disengaged.  Disengaged employees cost the Australian economy about $31.5 billion a year through loss of productivity, sick leave and even sabotage!

+From ‘advocate’ to ‘badvocate’.

Employees talk. They talk to family, friends and potential competitors. Today, they have the power to influence opinion by talking in face-to-face situations like BBQ’s, the pub, over dinner and in broader forums online like Facebook, Twitter and in blogs – everyone they talk to is a member of the PUBLIC and every time they discuss work they expose you to these people.

Uninvolved, unaware or uninformed staff have scope to unintentionally turn from ‘advocates’ to ‘badvocates’ of your organisation.

Your employees should be your organisations best advocates – Empower them by providing a positive internal communications strategy they can adhere to and a culture based around contribution and involvement.

+On the same page. Your employees need to be abreast of organisational

messaging and company strategy to deliver positive and accurate messages to the outside world.

Creating a platform through an internal communications strategy creates a workforce that understands the mission, goals, values and procedures of the organisation.

Involve and engage everyone in the process to ensure constant saturation of messages.

Remember the three C’s of internal communications:

Collaborating

Communicating

Connecting

+Where are you now?

Before starting to develop any form of strategy for improvement it is important to know ‘where you are now’ or your starting point. The use of organisational diagnostics in the form of an audit is a useful place to start. This audit should be company wide and differentiate divisions and levels – as identifying blockages is important. The audit should help answer a number of important questions including:

Are employees receiving accurate information?

How are employees receiving regular information?

Are messages consistent across the company?

Do employees understand both the goals and the results of communications?

+Do’s of internal communications. DO permit employees to make more decisions since they have

the tools and knowledge needed to make the "right" decisions.

DO encourage a sense of identification, on the part of staff, with the goals, mission and procedures of the organisation, which can result in a sense of "making a difference". This sense of ‘ownership’ can have direct impact on effort and efficiency.

DO encourage staff to contribute and make them feel a part of the organisation’s key decisions.

DO create a common culture, that aims to harness all of the organisation's communication resources to achieve the purpose.

DO aim at a set of measurable common goals on which employees can act every day.

DO lead by example – Rules followed by an employee are also highly applicable to management.

+Dont’s of internal communications. DON’T attempt to dominate or control employees through

internal communications.

DON’T substitute personal contact and leadership with things that won't take up managements time but which they hope will have the same motivational effect on staff.

DON’T restrict internal communications entirely to the word. Lectures, motivational talks and tedious sessions, without leading by example, will not achieve cohesion.

DON’T ask an employee to communicate a message that you have not completely understood yourself.

+MBWA - Management by walking about – The most powerful tool.Perhaps the name itself is its biggest enemy, because it suggests either goofing off or a time-wasting and silly pastime in which no serious businessman would indulge unless his company was doing so well he could afford the luxury, however, do you really know what your employees jobs entail?

Before attempting to implement an internal communications strategy walk in your employees shoes. Spend some time doing what they do, move amongst them and motivate by associating with them and showing interest in them.

REMEMBER this isn’t question time for you, it is your time to learn and educate yourself. Questioning employees will foster a feeling of distrust which is not the purpose of MBWA.

+Most importantly… DON’T use this guy as your inspiration when practicing

MBWA…

+An Overview of The Internal Communication Planning (ICP) Process. Understand that we plan for internal communication for a long term time

period. Since the effects of communication exert themselves over an extended period, we need to look at an approach that will extend over years. While event based tactical communication planning is reactive and short term, strategic ICP is by it's nature, longer term and proactive.

Be clear about what kind of workplace you are attempting to create and what values, principles and procedures need to be in place so that your vision is realised by those your communicate it to.

Consider a broad and integrated approach to deciding on the internal communications elements. Do NOT limit the decision process to management. Management are responsible for finalising the information and putting it on paper, but the decisions that are made in the organisation are the "real communication tools” and should have employees contribution. If you cannot do this, it's almost better to do nothing at all, since an inconsistent, non-comprehensive approach to communication breeds resentment and cynicism.

 

+Summary of key elements.

The key elements of an internal communications strategy so far: 

Long-term focus 

Clear values, goals 

Comprehensive, pervasive methods 

Consistent messages

Integration and involvement from employees

Cohesive contribution from the whole organisation

+Outline of ICP Steps.  1. Identify the common culture needed/wanted 

Make the distinction between what is needed and what is wanted. The culture we seek to create should somehow enable the organisation to better achieve the goals, role and mission it has set for itself.

The parallel here is to the visioning process that occurs in strategic planning, except it answers the question: "What values, principles, procedures and behaviours must we create so that we can achieve our mission?" In practical terms, this step can result in a set of goals. 

+ 2. Identify the available communication tools 

Since we consider internal communication in a broad sense, we need to identify the means by which we can affect corporate culture in the direction we want to go.

Some examples:

Memos, newsletter, brochures, performance appraisal documents, slogans, pay packet enclosures, E-mail, web sites and intranets

General meetings, division and branch meetings, team addresses, one-on-one (face to face) manager to staff communication 

Any and all management/executive behaviour that sends messages, either intentionally or unintentionally about the values, principles, purposes of the organisation 

Surveys, other forums such as staff meetings, individual meetings etc.

Policies and procedures need to reinforce and be consistent with the messages being sent by other "channels”

Training and learning settings are often used to teach specific skills and values (e.g. customer service) 

+ 3. Determine what tools are suited to which goals 

We need to match the tools we have at our disposal to the goals that we identified in Step 1. Some tools are best suited to certain types of goals and not to others. In general, though we want to aim ALL of our available communication tools at the achievement of our goals. 

4. Develop a description of how each tool will be used. 

5. Plan for remediation 

Since the ICP process is comprehensive, we may end up asking people in the organisation to behave and communicate differently. That may mean we will need to help people develop the skills needed to fulfill these new expectations. For example, a manager might need to learn how to rephrase memos, or conduct cooperative performance appraisals so they are consistent with the desired culture.  

6. Plan For Implementation 

At this point we should know what we need to communicate, how we are going to do it, etc. We may want to flesh this out a bit by determining who will do what, and when it will be done. Let's remember that this is NOT a project, but an ongoing process...we want to change communication approaches over the long term. 

(Note: In both strategic planning and internal communication planning, we often need to "cascade" from the top of the organisation down). 

7. Implement 

8. Continuously Monitor and Revise 

Over time, new communication tools may become more obvious, or we may find that some tools are ineffective. So consistent with a continuous improvement approach we need to assess the effects of what we are doing, and "re-steer" as needed. Some organisations use annual surveys to assess whether progress is being made, and solicit additional ideas. 

+ 6. Plan For Implementation 

At this point we should know what we need to communicate, how we are going to do it, etc. We may want to flesh this out a bit by determining who will do what, and when it will be done. Let's remember that this is NOT a project, but an ongoing and long-term process.  

7. Implement 

8. Continuously Monitor and Revise 

Over time, new communication tools may become more obvious, or we may find that some tools are ineffective. So consistent with a continuous improvement approach we need to assess the effects of what we are doing, and "re-steer" as needed. Some organisations use annual surveys to assess whether progress is being made, and solicit additional ideas. 

+Conclusion.The development of a strategic internal communication strategy, and it's implementation can provide a number of benefits to management and employees.

To achieve those benefits we need a coordinated, comprehensive, long term communication approach, that can be revisited on a regular basis.