Recently, we ran a one-question survey through our CEC Employee Discussion Forum to gauge members’ interest in using mobile technology (text messaging, mobile apps, etc.) for internal communication. More than 80% of respondents reported already using or considering the use of mobile technology.

However, as we spoke to members, we found that although there is keen interest, there isn’t clarity on how to best leverage this emerging technology.

To drive home my point, let me first ask you if the following statements sound familiar?

• “We need a mobile app for…”
• “We should redesign our intranet to make it accessible on mobile devices…”
• “We should record videos of our executives to…”

Do you notice a trend in these statements? The technology is being put ahead of the objective. Often, communicators and business partners put more focus on what the solution should look like, whether it is an app or intranet redesign or a video content, than on the desired goal that the solution should achieve. While it’s smart to think about technology, falling into a “technology trap”—using technology just for its novelty—isn’t a great idea. After all, the approach is not without pitfalls:

• Limited goal achievement: Many organizations consider redesigning their intranets to cater to the rising number of mobile employees. However, mobile employees have limited time, attention span, and needs different from desktop users. So, while the desired objective might be to improve their productivity, a mere replication of desktop solutions to mobile platforms may not serve the purpose.
• Wasteful resource expenditure: “There’s an app for everything” phenomenon seems to be fast catching up and giving corporate IT teams sleepless nights. You might have often heard IT complain about being bombarded with requests for creating apps from various business groups that often when probed are unable to justify the rationale for the app. This is not to say that apps are unnecessary, in fact, they are extremely effective in interactive communication. However, it’s a waste of organizational resources if the same outcome can be achieved without an app, by using other less resource-intensive mobile device capabilities, for example text messaging or MMS.

So, what’s a better approach? Think goal first, technology second. Before you begin planning for employee communication initiatives using mobile technology, answer these three questions: Read More »

CEC members ask us questions about improving internal communications on a daily basis. They want to know about communicating new strategy, cascading new company values, reducing e-mail volume, improving employee engagement, implementing a culture shift, etc. etc. etc. What’s interesting is that we don’t hear the question that is perhaps one of the most important of all – “How do we enhance our line manager dialogue?”

Employees need to talkwith someone who grasps both their world and the bigger picture. Senior leaders, communications, or anyone at the corporate center can never have the proximity, credibility, or understanding of employees that managers have. We’ve found that effective line manager communications is not only employees’ preferred source of communications, it’s also the most effective way to create a personal connection between employees’ day-to-day jobs and company goals.

So what’s the problem? Most managers are not natural communicators. They don’t understand dialogue’s importance and they don’t feel comfortable holding dialogue. More often than not, managers will forward on an e-mail or read talking points from a corporate memo and go back to their jobs thinking they have just effectively communicated with their employees. Is that effective? Absolutely not. Here are three ways you can improve internal communications by enhancing line manager dialogue:

Prepare Managers for Difficult Conversations

It’s no surprise that managers face difficult conversations when changes occur in a company. With difficult conversations come difficult questions. With this uncertainty, managers are reluctant to hold dialogue because they know they won’t have all the answers. Nordea addressed this issue by creating “dialogue prep sessions” where managers work out concerns in a low pressure environment. With any major event, they bring their managers together and have them brainstorm questions that will likely field. More often than not, managers had not thought of all the potential questions that might be asked. They then practice handling these questions and communicating new information with each other making dialogue more approachable. Not only can managers practice answering difficult questions themselves, but they can learn different approaches by listening to their peers practice. Read More »

As technology evolves and becomes increasingly accessible, more communicators than ever are considering the use of mobile technology—text messaging, podcasts, smartphone apps, etc.—to enable communication to, from, and among employees.

While there can be numerous opportunities for using mobile for internal communications depending on organizational needs, here are three broad scenarios when launching a mobile communication channel may be more effective and beneficial.

#1: Target the “On-the-Goers”

The workforce is becoming more mobile as businesses compete in a global economy. Field technicians, sales executives, auditors, logistics personnel, etc. are always on-the-go for their work and struggle to remain updated about what’s happening back at the company office. In some cases, such employees are so disconnected that they run the risk of becoming disengaged. Thankfully, mobile employees are generally not without their mobile devices. So, wouldn’t it make sense to employ mobile technology to keep them aligned with the organizational goals, say a simple SMS update on important corporate news? Also, how about a mobile app that enables them to communicate with their office-based peers for problem solving? Learn how Chevron segmented its employee population to focus on mobile technology development for its “on the road” staff.

#2: Target the “Time-Starved”

Non-wired employees (i.e. those in production facilities, retail stores, restaurants, etc.) are not too willing to leave work in-between or use their limited break times to visit that lone intranet kiosk or read that dense information put up on the bulletin board. Even if you designed the best intranet site, put up the most visually-appealing message on the bulletin, or bombarded them with regular emails , employees may be just too time-starved to take notice, regardless of whether they are “wired” to the company network or not. Imagine a contact center employee putting down the phone to access the intranet. Sounds scary, eh? Well, now imagine a mobile communication strategy that provides easy, timely, interactive, and “at leisure” access to employees. Use CEC’s simple tool for selecting the right mix of traditional and virtual channels for communicating with non-wired staff.

#3: Target the “Information-Avoiders”

Yes, you read it correct – employees “avoid” accessing the information. But don’t get baffled. There may be absolutely nothing wrong with your communication strategy or employees’ engagement levels. Rather some cultural barriers, such as a manager expecting his subordinates to spend work hours only on productive/billable activities, may discourage employees from accessing the intranet so as not to be seen as slacking off. (You might want to share some of these simple empowerment tips with managers to help these managers cede some control to employees.) In other cases, employees may feel uncomfortable accessing information in the presence of their peers, especially on topics that are too sensitive or personal. Here, a mobile-based solution could enable a comfortable, private, and guilt-free information access to employees.

These are just a few examples among many more where mobile technology can be leveraged for improving communication effectiveness. If you have any examples about how companies are using mobile for internal communications, we would love to hear back from you. You can email me or leave a comment here.

CEC Related Resources:

• Non-Wired Communications Channel Selection Guide
• Deepen Your Stakeholder Understanding
• Message Management

CEC Related Blogs:

• CEC’s Top 4 Internal Communications Tools
• Communicating with Hard-to-Reach Employees
• Next Step Tech—The Mobile Intranet
• User Profiles: The Cure for an Unloved Intranet

You’ve long championed the need for an employee collaboration platform at your organization. After building a business case and securing resources, you launched a brand new social media platform for employees. However, the sad realization dawns soon. After some days of buzzing traffic, the platform looks deserted with just a few irregular visitors. You’re left disappointed and wondering why employees aren’t taking advantage of the opportunity to connect and share, given that they were clamoring for it.

Sound familiar? You’re not alone! Most companies struggle to not only drive initial adoption but also ensure sustained employee interest when they deploy internal social media platforms.

Here are two main reasons why it’s such a challenge—and what you can do about it.

1)  Limited Visibility: Having limited knowledge of who they can connect to and learn from, employees resort to connecting with those they already know (i.e., obvious connections based on function, title, and proximity), and thus don’t quite achieve the anticipated benefits of networking.

2)  Extra Effort: Due to the complexity of sifting through overwhelming irrelevant content, employees struggle to remain engaged with the network.

Leading communicators realize that it’s not the size of an employee network that matters, but the quality and diversity of connections that impacts employee performance. Moreover, the platform needs to be as intuitive to use as anything else that employees use in their personal life to find answers and stay in touch with friends.

Case in point: MITRE

MITRE developed an internal social media platform “Handshake” that automatically suggests relevant peer connections and aggregates relevant content for each employee based on his activity on the platform.

• Relevant peers are recommended based on shared interests (e.g., submissions around same topic, common memberships, etc.), irrespective of function, hierarchy, or geography, thus helping employees to build diverse, non-obvious connections across the organization. 
• Relevant content is recommended based on the employee’s activities and interests (e.g., keywords searched, discussion forums participation, etc.), enabling employees to quickly view and join relevant conversations.  

CEC members can learn more about how MITRE’s internal social media platform enables employee sharing and learning.  

CEC Related Resources:

• Peer Learning Platform (The MITRE Corporation)
• Principles for Peer Sharing and Learning
• Customizable Business Case for Internal Social Media

 CEC Related Blog Posts:

• Improve Your Performance through Peers
• What Makes Novo Nordisk’s Global Collaboration Effective
• How MITRE Measures the Impact of its Internal Social Network

As communicators we pride ourselves with understanding and empathizing with diverse audiences.  As employees we know that, despite our best efforts, there are always a few people with whom we find it difficult to work.  Karen Combs, a researcher with our sister program, the Market Research Executive Board, recently shared her take-aways from an HBR blog outlining tips for working with people you hate.  Here a few of the actionable recommendations to think about.

1. Manage yourself first: don’t think of how they behave, think of how you react.

• CEC Members – Take our “Dialogue Style” Assessment Tool to see how your personality style impacts others.

2. Don’t involve others: resist the urge to “commiserate” with others, being negative can hurt your own reputation.

• CEC Members – Explore the topic center on improving Employee-to-Employee Communication.

3. Work with them more: spending more time with the person may actually help you understand him or her better and develop a better sense of empathy.

• CEC Members – Check out our classic CEC case explaining the Principles of Driving Peer Participation. Read More »

You may or may not have noticed, but we upgraded the CEC member web site last week.  In addition to some aesthetic enhancements, this upgrade adds three cool functionalities that I encourage all our members to check out:

 1)     Recommended for you.  An earlier upgrade added a reminder of recently viewed content.  Now, that viewing history lets us populate a “top 3” section based on what else your peers who also viewed that content are reading.  It’s not unlike the collaborative filtering tools now used by many consumer web sites, such as eBay and Amazon.

2)     Member spotlight.  One of the coolest aspects of the Council is the incredible network of over 9,000 communications professionals at CEC member companies.  Now, we’ve added a “member spotlight” section on the right margin to showcase some of innovators among this group and share what they are up to.  Read More »

CEOs are gearing up to share their 2012 strategy with employees through live and virtual town halls, blog posts, and Q&A sessions. While no one underestimates the importance of company leaders’ plan for the year ahead, employees often leave strategy sessions unsure of what, exactly, they should do with the insight and how they will be expected to contribute.

One of the best tools to think about engaging employees in strategy conversations is your employment value proposition (EVP). Your EVP is the set of attributes that employees value about working at a company. Attributes like compensation, future career and development opportunities, and work-life balance are usually at the top of the list. Understanding what employees value and feeding these insights into leadership communications and business unit discussions about the implications of company strategy.

EVP, or employment brand, is usually the purview of Human Resources because of its importance in recruiting and retaining employees. But Communications can play an important role by supporting HR in crafting and communicating about the EVP, and taking the lead on driving employee engagement through organizational alignment with the EVP.

Learn how you can support HR in creating a successful EVP and engage employees through your EVP. By breaking the EVP realignment process into two stages, it’s easy to see just how big a role Communications can play: Read More »

Today’s the day that CEC has been counting down to all year… No, it’s not the renewal date of your CEC membership – it’s our Christmas party (at least, it is in our European HQ, where I’m based). I must say, I’m looking forward to it, and most of the CEC crew assures me that they are as well. However, in speaking to several of my friends from other companies, I’ve been struck by their negativity, cynicism, and trepidation at the prospect of navigating an event that one of them described to me as “the most socially awkward of the year”.

Of course, for CEC’s audience of loquacious communicators, “social awkwardness” isn’t an issue – we’re good socially! But remember – not everyone else is. What happens at one of these parties when you’re stuck between the weird lady from the IT help desk who’s pushed past you at the coffee machine all year, the social recluse from Finance who prefers spreadsheets to his own family, and the spotty graduate whose name no one can remember, but is irritatingly keen to impress?

This, of course, leaves you with two options. One is to politely excuse yourself and head for the bathroom, the bar, or – if things have got really bad – home. The other is to use your skills as a communicator to enable some social interaction between your colleagues.

Building Social Connections

And funnily enough, this is something that CEC can really help with. One of the things we often get asked is how communicators can encourage peer sharing among employees. As companies become more complex, organizational barriers increasingly prevent employees from connecting, sharing and learning with each other. And, interestingly, the same principles that will help a couple of socially inept guys from IT to open up at a Christmas party will also apply to creating an organization in which peers open up and share their expertise with each other. Read More »

Each November, the parent entity of the CEC, the Corporate Executive Board, releases to our members a widely read Executive Guidance briefing outlining management imperatives for the coming year. This year’s document addresses one of the most common challenges raised by Communicators – the promise and perils of globalization. The opportunity is clear: between 2010 and 2030 the percentage of global GDP from emerging markets is expected to grow from 37% to 59%; however, most organizations focus on market-level investments and fail to address how corporate center functions such as Finance, IT, Legal, and of course, Communications need to adapt. The Corporate Executive Board has outlined six management disciplines critical for long-term success in emerging markets (and members will have upcoming opportunities to digest them all); however, one in particular struck me as a place for immediate impact from a high-functioning global Communications department: Accelerated Collaboration and Innovation.

While access to new markets and talent should offer opportunities for market shaping innovation, less than 40% of employees perceive effective collaboration – even in just one location. The results are troubling: innovation vitality (the percentage of sales from new products) is troublingly low to keep up with the necessary pace of growth in these new markets and less than a third of R&D staff in developed or emerging markets report high levels of trust with their global counterparts.

So how is this all a Communications problem (other than the fact that everything is a communications problem!)? Corporate Executive Board research shows that most organizations wrongly attribute these deficiencies to the innovation skills of geographically dispersed R&D centers; however, leading companies instead focus on increasing 1) the willingness of global employees to share and receive information and 2) the strength of connections to actually identify and apply new ideas – in other words, the effectiveness of the communications environment. Two lessons from our research into global intranet platforms suggest some immediate solutions. Read More »

Can leaders do anything right?  A lot of our work over the last few years – especially on Mobilizing the Workforce and Building a Change-Ready Organization – has challenged conventional wisdom around leadership communication:

• Be transparent?  Insufficient.
• Build buy-in?  Misses the mark in a high-change environment.
• Give clear direction?  May actually do more harm than good.

But this doesn’t mean that leaders don’t matter or can’t communicate in ways that motivate employees and boost their productivity.  It’s just that we need leaders to play a different role – to empower:

• Seek employee feedback and input.  I don’t mean a “suggestion box,” which puts the burden to act back onto the leader.  Empowering leaders ask employees questions that they can answer to take action within the scope of their day-to-day work.
• Coach, don’t tell.  Empowering leaders – when possible – guide staff to figure out what to do rather than tell them what to do.
• Provide opportunities to experiment. Empowering leaders point out learning opportunities and help staff seize them and other employees share in what is learned.
• Connect employees to helpful people and tools.  Empowering leaders’ broad reach within the organization lets them make staff more productive by making smarter connections.  Read More »