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WHITE PAPER

One Team. Same Page.How to Improve Your Organization’s Internal Communications

AN INXPO WHITE PAPER

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™The Power To ReachFor additional information: www.inxpo.com | 312.962.3708 | [email protected]

Introduction

As organizations race to meet their business goals, what’s one thing that can’t be neglected? Consistent and effective internal communications. Executives are required to act decisively and move quickly, which means that middle managers, along with the employees on the “front lines” may be unaware of certain decisions. And worse yet, they may be uninformed about why those decisions were made. In the absence of information, speculation and rumor abound, and inefficiencies take root.

Benefits of Effective Internal Communications

First, let’s consider the business benefits of effective internal communications.

Everyone on the Same Page

Your employees expect to be informed. Employees who are left in the dark speculate about the reasons behind business decisions or policy changes. Speculation leads to rumor, which leads to gossip. And when you think about it, the sum total of all that gossip and speculation is lost productivity. Instead, keeping everyone on the same page with effective communications means that rumor and speculation is minimized (if not eliminated), leaving your employees to focus on what matters most: advancing the business and achieving the organization’s objectives.

One Team. Same Page.How to Improve Your Organization’s Internal Communications

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Higher Employee Engagement

A consistent communications program provides regularly scheduled interactions with an organization’s leaders. Even better, when employees are provided the opportunity to “be heard,” they’re given the confidence of knowing that management is listening to them. And once they have this confidence and observe the interactions of their peers, they spring into action as well, providing valuable feedback to executives. Employee engagement feeds off itself, which means that the more engagement you facilitate, the faster it builds. The feedback received from employees can then be used to inform future internal communications topics, ensuring the initiative generates the most ROI.

Increased Productivity

In addition to higher employee engagement, properly deployed communications programs result in increased productivity. Organizations that effectively communicate and listen foster employees who know that their input has a direct impact. Employees who believe that their project makes a difference are far more motivated than those left wondering and everyone knows motivated employees are more productive.

Effective Internal Communication Yields Benefits Externally

Organizations that excel at communicating “inside” improve their employees’ ability to effectively communicate externally. Some of your most effective brand advocates reside within your organization. The better informed they are about business objectives and priorities, the more effective they are when communicating to prospects, customers, partners and the media. Employees who understand why you changed course on a major product line, for example, will have a unified, brand consistent message if informed properly.

Stronger Employee Retention

Effective internal communications can go a long way towards job satisfaction, as well. Consistent communications, along with the opportunity to be heard, gives employees the confidence that they know what’s going on – and that they’re directly responsible for an organization achieving its goals. The more satisfied employees are with your communications, the better they’ll appreciate their jobs. And the better they appreciate their jobs, the longer they’ll remain in the organization.



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Improving Internal Communications

We’ve developed the following five-step framework for improving your internal communications:

1. Perform an inventory and audit of existing initiatives.

2. Create a framework for new initiatives.

3. Develop and standardize on communications programs (formats).

4. Consider successful communications tactics (for online communications programs).

5. Bringing it all together.

Inventory and Audit Existing Initiatives

To provide an audit of your existing internal communications initiatives, provide answers to a basic set of questions:

1. Methods: What are the methods you’re currently using for internal communications?

2. Resources: Who is involved in your communications initiatives? Your answer should include the number of Full Time Equivalent (FTE) resources, along with the organizations or business units they represent.

3. Tools: What systems, programs and formats are you using in your existing internal communications initiatives?

4. Effectiveness: How are you measuring the effectiveness of your communications programs? And, based on the defined measurements, how effective are those programs?

5. Areas for Improvement: How can you improve your communications programs to make them more effective or better achieve your goals and objectives?

To provide a thorough and balanced assessment of your existing initiatives, distribute this questionnaire to a number of individuals, ranging from individual contributors to middle management to the executive ranks. Your final audit requires a complete and comprehensive picture of how your initiatives are perceived by all parts of the organization.



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Create a Framework for New Initiatives

Before diving into the particulars of your new communications initiatives, first consider the following:

Identify Objectives

Documenting your program’s objectives is important, because it enables you to gauge and measure the program’s success. You may choose to document high level objectives, more tactical objectives, or both. High level objectives may revolve around the internal communications benefits covered earlier in this paper.

Examples of tactical objectives include:

• Ensure all employees are familiar with the details and benefits of quarterly product launches.

• Educate employees on the finer details of federal regulations that impact the business.

• Opportunities for Q&A with executives or department heads.

• Educate the organization on new acquisitions and business partnerships that the company has made.

• Provide a forum for all employees to ask HR policy questions to HR leaders and executives.

Regardless of the approach you take with your objectives, the best practice is to hold quarterly review sessions to assess how well your internal communications initiatives are delivering on the objectives. Share your results with executive management, who can help publicize your successes within the wider organization.

Identify and Segment Your Audiences

It’s a basic tenet of communications: know who your audience is. For internal communications, your audience may differ based on the nature of the communication. For instance, for an “All Hands Meeting,” your audience is your entire company. Based on the geographic reach of your company, your meeting may be held on a single day and time – or, to address multiple time zones, may need to be repeated an additional one or two times.

For a global workforce, keep in mind that meetings broadcast to different regions of the world should not be “cookie cutter” repeats of one another. Your meeting should be tailored to the demographics of each audience. North American and Asia Pacific audiences, for instance, are unique in their expectations and participation in meetings.



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When planning internal communications for individual business units (or groups of business units), look to the leaders of those units for insights on the best-suited types and forms of communications. For instance, one business unit may prefer to hear a quarterly update from the CEO, while another business unit may want an interactive session in which they can share detailed input and suggestions.

Identify Success Metrics

It’s important to identify success metrics to gauge the effectiveness of your communications initiatives. Examples of success metrics include:

• Attendance and engagement statistics from your communications programs.

• Scores from employee satisfaction surveys.

• Pre and post-survey tactics to measure comprehension and retention.

• Year-over-year employee retention statistics.

Of course, not all effectiveness measures can be captured via a numeric value, which means that some of the evaluation process will be qualitative (e.g. how engaged were employees, what are they saying about the communication programs, etc.).

Develop and Standardize on Communications Programs

It is useful to break down internal communications programs into three categories:

1. Communicating down (i.e. from executives to employees).

2. Communicating up (i.e. from employees to executives).

3. Communicating across (i.e. peer interactions).

Internal communications should cover all of these categories and it’s up to you to determine which category to focus on in a particular month or quarter. Here are examples of program formats for each category.



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Communicating Down

Executives and business leaders often have a need to communicate news, announcements, policy changes and staffing changes to the wider organization. The following programs can be effective when communicating down:

• Monthly or quarterly “town hall style” meetings, broadcast from a studio.

• A monthly “Fireside Chat” program, featuring your CEO on webcam.

• Regular broadcasts featuring the leaders of each major business unit or department.

• An “HR Update,” broadcast quarterly, from your VP of Human Resources.

Communicating Up

A successful internal communications program needs to include bi-directional communications: executives need to communicate with employees, but it’s just as important to provide a back channel for employee-to-executive communications. The following programs are examples of communicating up:

• “CEO Chat,” a program featuring the CEO on webcam, including moderated Q&A with employees.

• An “Ask Me Anything” video broadcast, during which business leaders take questions (i.e. any question) from the audience.

• “Let’s Brainstorm,” an interactive program for business leaders to solicit product and service ideas from anyone in the organization.

• “The Water Cooler,” a regular program hosted by Human Resources, for employees to voice and share whatever is on their mind.

Communicating Across

Once you cover the first two directions, don’t forget to factor in this “third dimension”: employees interacting with one another. The following programs can be effective in communicating across:

• “Idea Storms,” regular sessions in which employees provide presentations on product ideas – and receive feedback from their peers.

• Group Discussions, in which a business leader poses a question or challenge and employees collaborate (in real-time) to develop solutions.

• “Social Walls,” which enable employees to exchange ideas in an asynchronous manner.



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Successful Internal Communications Tactics: Online Programs

Online platforms are well suited for internal communications. Participation occurs via the web, which means that presenters and viewers can avoid travel, lodging and “out of office” time. In addition, presenters can leverage an online platform’s interactive tools to engage with their audience (e.g. polls, Q&A, chat, etc.). They can view all submitted questions at once, rather than calling on someone with a raised hand and hoping for the best.

Here are tactics that have been successfully used in online internal communications programs.

Create a Regular Heartbeat

A consistent schedule forces you to communicate on a regular basis. In addition, it builds excitement and expectation from your audience. For instance, if you provide a Fireside Chat on the first Monday of every month, employees come to expect it as part of their monthly routine. This helps to build attendance and involvement within each scheduled program.

Better to Be Too Short, Than Too Long

The shorter the program, the better it is received. Some presenters note that thirty minutes is optimal, as employees may begin to lose focus beyond that period of time. Be sure to allocate enough time to Q&A, as employees find it valuable to have questions answered. Questions that are not answered serve as topics for future communications, as well.

Use Video

TV is not the most powerful communication and entertainment medium by accident. Video is personal and it’s engaging. Employees in remote offices can see executives’ facial expressions and body language. In addition, consider live video over pre-recorded video as it’s real and memorable. Webcasts are a great way to incorporate video in a way that scales across your organization.

Make It Interactive

Via chat messages, polling, Q&A and surveys, executives can glean insights from employees that they otherwise would have missed. The interactions cut both ways: the executives receive valuable feedback, while increasing the program’s enjoyment for the employees. A good webcasting platform will provide these tools.



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Make It Viewable on Mobile Devices

Your sales team may be travelling to close the next big deal, but they can still tune in to your communications programs from their iPad, iPhone or Android device. Also, if there are groups participating in one room, watching the video on a large screen, everyone can still be logged in via their mobile device, thereby allowing them to participate in the chat, moderated Q&A and polling individually.

Use Online Metrics to Inform Future Programming

Review the wealth of metrics provided by an online communications platform to inform your future programming. The metrics can help you determine the format and types of interactions to encourage in your next program. This analysis highlights topic areas that connected with your audience, along with those that fell short.

Host All Communications in a Single Destination

Create a destination (a “home,” if you will) for all of your internal communications. The destination becomes the place employees visit day in and day out, to get the latest updates about your business. Whether you communicate daily, weekly or monthly, give employees a single destination to visit.



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Bringing It All Together: A Solution for Internal Communications

Initiatives

Business TV (BTV) is a fantastic option for online internal communications. Your network is privately branded, secure and always available. Your programming will be used to effectively and quickly inform, motivate and teach, while connecting you with your employees. You can also start with a simple INXPO XPOCAST webcast or webinar, and then move “up” to Business TV once your presentations become more systematic.

Built on INXPO’s award-winning digital communications platform, both XPOCAST and Business TV enable you to deliver live and interactive communications programs, plus polls, moderated Q&A, live chat and social activity walls, to make sure you’re getting actionable audience feedback, and the audience knows they’re being heard.

Benefits

Business TV cost-effectively delivers extraordinary value to your business. Key benefits include the ability to:

• Consolidate all business communications in one secure destination.

• Repurpose existing video assets.

• Leverage the intuitive nature of TV to engage with your target audience in a much richer, more intimate fashion.

• Inform key audiences about your organization’s strategies and results more frequently.

• Motivate through regular programming and interaction with company leaders.

• Hear audience feedback, concerns and ideas.

• Enhance productivity with improved training, information sharing and collaboration programs.

• Capture key data to generate insights into target audience attitudes, performance, engagement, and effectiveness.



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Custom-branded Internal Communications Destination

• Available 24/7/365 on all PCs, Macs and mobile devices.

• Private access – you determine access and entitlement rights.

• Your network and content are fully SSL secured.

• Robust metrics delivered through easy to understand reports

Unlimited Programs

• Deliver as many programs as you like (we have suggestions for program types).

• Can be any combination of live,“simu-live”, or on demand programming.

• Robust functionality such as video, desktop sharing, interactive slides, social media, and multiple collaboration tools.

• Powerful rich media capabilities including multiple video and audio options and easy pass-the- microphone/video functionality for multiple presenters.

• Ability to make all of your existing digital assets and supporting materials available through your Business TV Network’s interface.


one team. same page. - inxpo · • attendance and engagement statistics from your communications...

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