Tiered Communications Service

Can you relate to the following statements?

• My team has a difficult time saying “no” to routine or low-impact partner requests.
• My team spends too much time supporting tactical projects and too little time on high-value initiatives.
• My team is concerned about allowing non-communicators to “self-serve” their communications needs.

If you nodded in agreement to any of these statements, it might be time to reevaluate (or create!) your existing service level agreements. The truth is all of us in Communications have felt exasperated at times when business partners ask us to complete low-value work. In recent years, this frustration has been compounded as Communications budgets remain flat while business partner requests increase.

Of course, you likely already have some tacit agreements in place with business partners or have agreements tucked in a dusty file cabinet somewhere. In theory these SLAs are great, in practice they are harder to implement because it’s hard to: a.) assign value to individual activities, b.) shift partner perceptions of what Comms can do, and c.) ensure consistency and quality of communications pushed back to the line.

When we explored this challenge, ING Insurance Americas tiered service-level framework stood out. What made it better than your typical SLA? Three things:

1. It was co-created with partners to prioritize their business needs and the related communications support most critical to those needs. Read More »

I found myself walking into the closest branch of my bank the other day to take care of a transaction.  The people at my bank are super nice.  They always go the extra mile.  They always offer me coffee, which I always decline.  Really, they have the customer service thing down.  But for all my fond feelings towards them, I mostly just resented having to drive all the way to my bank to take care of a transaction that I would rather have handled remotely on my own.  The reason—I didn’t want or need their advice—I simply needed their logistics.

Apparently, I’m typical.  For years we’ve worked to entice our banking customers into our branches with the quality of our customer service—wooing them with friendly faces and a hot drink so that they’ll want to entrust us with their financial future.  But by the time they’re easing themselves into our comfy chairs, they’ve already made their financial decisions—they’re simply there because they have to be to finish the transaction. Read More »

As the world becomes more and more connected by technological innovations, it’s no wonder that communicators have become far less reliant on reactive response strategies. Waiting for a reputational threat to arise before thinking about solutions just won’t cut it. But no matters how fast information spreads, communicators — even those well-armed with response tactics — can only move so quickly.

Communicators are successfully enlisting line manager support in limiting reputational risks by erring on the side of simplicity in developing tools and processes for managers to use. Clear decision rules guiding the frequency, nature and venue of stakeholder interactions — plus making clear when to involve the communications team — line managers can play an essential role in local stakeholder engagement.

Line managers represent a powerful resource in identifying reputational threats as well as mitigating risks through engagement with key stakeholder groups. In companies with widely varying stakeholder groups across many locations, managers are much better suited to handle the basics of local stakeholder relations than a centralized corporate communications team. Leading communicators account for the real challenges in developing line managers as players in stakeholder engagement.

Read More »

Why does Marketing seem to have all the fun with new media? Brand managers get to experiment with flashy Facebook pages and micro-sites to drive product awareness and purchase. Corporate communicators are often relegated to simply Tweeting the company’s latest financial statements.

Not all Communications teams are accepting their fates as the “corporate” voice of the company! We’ve shared solid examples from Deloitte and MoneyGram who are using Facebook to unite global audiences around the company, not just its brands. Likewise, Kraft Foods’ Company Facebook page builds connections with stakeholders by providing updates on news and global initiatives. 

We like the page because it’s working toward two main social media objectives: ‘listening’ and ‘connecting’ with stakeholders worldwide. This strategy is reflected in the design of its landing page, the choice of tabs, and rich global content.

So, what is it that makes the Kraft Foods – Corporate page ‘liked’ by its followers?

1. Defined raison d’être: Kraft Foods uses its corporate Facebook page as a common platform for all company news and global events and to listen and connect with its target audience. This distinguishes it from other Kraft Foods Facebook pages like the Kraft Recipes and Tips page which focuses on North American audiences or the Oreo page for cookie loyalists. Read More »

We have just released the Executive Summary of our 2011 Resource Allocation Benchmarking Survey findings highlighting the key communications budget trends for 2011/2012. The budget data collected from our members revealed some very interesting findings that every communicator should take into account when planning for 2012.

In 2011, many communicators saw their budget growth rates drop close to zero as their companies’ revenues stagnated. However, despite slower budget growth, communicators finally saw their budgets recover to the pre-2008 levels when looking at communications budget as a percentage of total revenue.  More interestingly, despite stagnating budgets, communicators across all company revenue bands continued increasing their staff levels at an even faster rate than last year. Read More »

In my time with CEC, I’ve been involved in a variety of projects.  My latest, looking at what Communications can do to improve workplace safety, has been the one that’s been easiest to get excited about! Members we’ve spoken with have been more passionate about this subject than any other I’ve discussed with them, and I guess it’s kind of rubbed off!

That said, something that was discussed in CEC’s recent webinar, “Avoiding Crises: Building a Preventative Safety Culture”, is that some (but not all!) of this passion, energy, and expertise has been misdirected. Communicators are doing more than ever to raise employee awareness of the need to be safe, but awareness alone may not be sufficient to drive the desired safe behavior.

Conflicting Messages

The safety messages that employees receive telling them to take care of themselves, or reminding them of the risks inherent in their jobs, aren’t the only messages that they’re receiving. What about the pressure they receive from their supervisor to hit production targets? Or the pressure from peers, who insist that “real men don’t wear gloves/helmets/goggles?”

A Better Way Forward Read More »

Dirty little (anecdotal) secret: Most CEOs don’t write their own blogs.

That’s right. Despite CEO’s best intentions to write frequently and informally, most communicators end up having to write—or heavily edit—these personal posts.

Ghostwriting your CEOs blog can be an exhausting endeavor! You have to come up with an idea, craft a post that mimics the CEO’s voice and vision, incorporate substantial edits from the CEO, make the post live, and then, wait, fingers-crossed, hoping that the post will receive enough comments or views to prove that blogging is indeed a worthy pursuit, which, of course, it may not be at all! CEC Members, visit our Leader to Employee Communication Topic Center to consider the appropriate channel for leadership communication given your objective.

CEO blogs come in a variety of audiences, intents, and styles, but for the purposes of this discussion, let’s focus on the CEO blog that sits on your corporate intranet and whose main audience is employees. If you’re going to have to write the post anyway, why not write about something that will have an impact on employee performance?

Here are my top 10 questions that your CEO’s next employee-facing blog post could answer:

1. What are the strategic goals of our organization? Which ones are the most ambitious? Why?
2. Which market trends should employees pay most attention to?
3. Which key markets matter most to our company? Will those be the same ones in 2020?
4. What are the risks our company is facing? How are we mitigating them?
5. In what ways might pending government regulation in key operating regions impact our company?
6. How have people or teams from across silos of the business come together to produce amazing results?
7. How is our company building an infrastructure that enables employees to communicate and collaborate more effectively?
8. Which of our competitors do you admire most and why?
9. What publications and people do you follow to stay informed on our business and industry?

10.  What’s the most surprising customer or consumer trend you’ve seen develop over the last five years?

To be clear, I’m not advocating that your CEO spill your company’s proprietary secrets in a 500-word blog post; that just wouldn’t be smart business. What I am advocating is that your CEO shares the bigger picture trends and assumptions that most employees, who must focus on a small piece of the business, might fail to appreciate. Would you rather talk about the CEO’s upcoming marathon or newly adopted golden retriever? Read on to learn why that approach won’t move your organization forward.

Why Talking Trends Works Better than Being Personal

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Kathy Gersch, CMO at Kotter International

Last week our post, Where Kotter’s 8 Steps Gets it Wrong, generated lots of great discussion in the comments section about leading change at organizations. In this post we interview Kathy Gersch, the Chief Marketing Officer at Kotter International, Dr. John Kotter’s change company that seeks to build leaders’ capability to drive transformation in their organizations.

Change Management v. Change Communication v. Change Leadership

The CEC (Kayleigh): People often conflate “change management” with “change communication”. What is the difference between these two concepts and what is the danger of combining them?

Kathy Gersch, CMO Kotter International: I think it’s important to first differentiate between “change management,” which is what almost everyone thinks of when they think of organizational change, and “change leadership,” which is what Dr. Kotter advocates and what we do at Kotter International.

• Change management is often focused on incremental improvements with a goal of minimizing the impact a change has on an organization.
• Change leadership is disruptive by design. It gives people the freedom to change in a way that propels an organization forward in leaps and bounds.
• Change communication is too often focused on the communication about the change that has already been determined by leadership or a small committee.

Communication plays an essential role in any change process, but the quality of leadership is what determines success. Relegating communication to a reporting function (which is generally the case in change management) is problematic because it does not drive engagement.  The concepts of “leading” and “communicating” are much more complementary, as the act of leading (establishing direction, aligning people, motivating and inspiring) is inherently centered on good communication.

CEC Members: Help build “change leadership” at your company with an empowerment workshop by GlaxoSmithKline’s CPSE.

Determining What’s Urgent

The CEC: At some organizations Kotter’s first step, “Create a Sense of Urgency,” is taken too seriously, that is, every initiative is thought of as urgent! In today’s environment of constant change, it’s impossible for employees to contribute to the number of “urgent changes” required by the business. What can a communicator do to diagnose and push back against “false urgency” created by the business?

Read More »

By Kirsten Robinson

If you often feel like a “one man island”—you’re not alone. Communications teams dispersed globally often struggle to interact, share information, and collaborate across time zones and geographic locations.

One way that CEC member Novo Nordisk has overcome this challenge is by launching a simple, yet sophisticated suite of online networking tools to facilitate communicator-to-communicator peer learning across their global team.  It may seem obvious, but the reality is that despite the amount of effort that we in Communications put into creating communications tools for other departments in the company, we ourselves aren’t always the best users of this technology.

Of course, just because internal collaboration tools exist, doesn’t mean that they are in use or make life easier! However, there are some fundamental pieces of advice to consider to make an online network work for your team. We had the chance to speak with Tanya Wymer, Strategy Director at Novo Nordisk, who shared the secrets behind the company’s corporate communicator network. Elements of their network include tools that:

• Help communicators find peers in other countries with shared challenges or projects
• Facilitate discussion boards that help communicators get quick help on specific questions
• Formalize peer collaboration through structured mentoring programs Read More »

By Kirsten Robinson

Online newsletters are an all-important way to relay information and keep employees up-to-speed on company happenings—if they’re executed correctly, that is.

With continuously evolving technology and an ever-changing audience, it’s easy for companies to fall into a rut and for newsletter styles to become outdated.

In case you’ve been wondering how your peers are designing their newsletters, we got the scoop from members who recently gathered in our Employee Communications Forum to offer tips on making changes to improve electronic employee newsletters. Here are some of the takeaways:

• Make it easy to read. This may seem like a no-brainer, but a lot of companies still send out newsletters that are hard to browse. Keep in mind that time is scarce, and text should be simple to scan for key points—no one wants to spend a long time searching for pieces of information. Create clearly defined segments, e.g., group info by region, and have a separate section for employee news. Bulleted headlines that are hyperlinked to a full article on the company site are also a good way to reduce clutter. Read More »