Talk Internal Communication

This video by INVOLVE is based on statistics from the Harvard Business Review. It  summaries the importance of employee engagement and the impact it has on an organisation's bottom line.  I like it. 

Inspired by Suzanne Salvo at the EMELI European Leadership Institute in Paris recently I took this photo before returning home. Suzanne a multi-award winning photographer believes that quantity has won out over quality when it comes to photography and video production. She explained that, 'any image that can be had cheap and that vaguely resembles the who, what or why of a story - no matter how badly exposed, haphazardly composed, no matter how poorly lit - is being published.'  After showing us a sample of these 'poor' photos (many of which looked uncomfortably familiar to me) she provided us all with some useful tips on achieving more interesting photos.  Look at your subject from a more interesting perspective  Tell a story with your photos Inspired but not confident, I decided to start with inanimate objects in my quest to take more interesting photos! I'll let you know how I get on when I progress to humans.  Suzanne and her husband ...

I am delighted to be able to give you details about a text book on internal communications to which I have contributed, entitled Exploring Internal Communication. Chapter 5 entitled 'Auditing internal communication: four quadrants of internal communication success', is based on my PhD research and provides readers with a powerful tool to measure and improve internal communication quality. The tool helps build successful communication in a business. Edited by Kevin Ruck the book is both a companion for UK's Chartered Institute of Public Relations qualifications in internal communication and a general introduction to the fast developing fields of internal communication and employee engagement. It is relevant to people currently working in these areas, from either a corporate communication or human resources background, and also to operational managers seeking a better understanding of internal communication. The book is available on amazon.co.uk at  Exploring Internal Co...

Remember Gallup’s landmark research on the drivers of organizational success. Two of the twelve most powerful drivers were: My supervisor, or someone at work, seems to care about me as a person. At work, my opinions seem to count. Caring about what your employees have to say has a huge bottom line impact. Successful communication in a business a essential key to delivering bottom line results.  However, a word of warning, you must take action on the feedback you receive. People often ask me, do employees not get tired of being asked for their opinion and their feedback? The answer is no, not if their views are listened to and acted upon. If action is taken, asking for employee feedback is the easiest way of building employee engagement and morale.  Here's an interesting article from David Lee on this very topic  http://www.humannatureatwork.com/articles/employee_morale/Employee-Feedback.htm

Have you ever struggled to explain the difference between leadership and management when it comes to your role. In this You Tube video Tom Peters explains it in a very clear and simple manner.

I really liked this article I read recently by Paul Hebert from Bloomberg. The recession is no time to worry about employee engagement. Sure, go ahead and worry about employee engagement. After all, you’re in this fix because of a lack of engagement, right? The lack of sales, lack of new product and service innovation, and the high cost to build, produce, sell, and service are all engagement issues. If only you had engaged employees, all those problems would disappear. “Damn those employees. They should be engaged, and they’re not. We have to engage our employees to survive (cue dramatic fist pound on mahogany table in senior executive conference room.)” Everyone is focusing on the employee engagement problem. But in reality, now is not the time to worry about finding ways to engage employees. Now is the time to be reflective and address the real issues in business today. Let’s take a cue from the late Michael Jackson: I’m starting with the man in the mirror I’m asking hi...

I have been absent from my blog over the past few months as I was working night and day on getting the final stage of my PhD over the line. I am delighted to say that it is now complete and has received the official seal of approval - much to my relief! So starting today I hope to be able to continue to post thought provoking articles for internal communication professionals.

It’s that time of year. Edelman have just published their 2012 Trust Barometer. Unsurprisingly, trust in government has massively dropped. But what’s the score for businesses and the implications for internal communication? There are a few significant findings: 1. There has been a dramatic increase in trust in social media – it is now at almost the same level as corporate information sources. This is a important consideration for internal communications as employees now have ready access to information about the company from external social media sources. 2. There has also been a massive drop in trust in CEOs, the most trusted resource within an organization is the average employee (60 percent). This highlights the importance of face-to-face communication as well as employee "communication champions". 3. The average person needs to hear a story three to five times from different sources before they believe it. This reinforces the fact that our internal messages have to...

On average, however, usage is fast outpacing effectiveness. While the use of social media has expanded over the last 12 months for all, highly effective communicators are more than twice as likely as the least-effective group of companies to have expanded their use of social media. This online article highlights results from Watson Wyatt on the use of social media in organisational communication.