Smoking is politically correct when you’re at a barbecue of course! Not the puff puff kind but that tantalizing cloud of smoke that wafts from the grill and not only permeates your nostrils, but your clothes, hair and skin. Such was the case at our monthly luncheon last Thursday. Rockin’ Ronnie Shewchuk, ABC, presented his Employee Communications Cookout at the Armadillo Palace. The food was great. Check out the menu–grilled asparagus, quesadillas with smoked gouda, Monterrey Jack, Granny Smith apples and fresh rosemary, salmon, lamb, brisket and grilled pears.
And the information was abundant and timely. A few of the nuggets I recall:
Establish a set of communications values. Just as your company has a written set of values that drive its mission, you should have guidelines that you follow that help you remain true to good communications.
According to Towers Perrin, only 21% of employees are fully engaged at their companies. That means there a lot of employees out there just going through the motions to get their paychecks and not really being an advocate or ambassador for their employers.
The Values Shift, a book by Charles Izzo and Pam Withers, details six expectations that employees have: 1. work/life balance; 2. work as a noble cause; 3. personal growth and development; 4. partnership in a collapsed heirarchy; 5. community at work; and 6. trust.
As communicators, we can do the following to embrace these shifting values. Tell meaningful stories. Recognize employee accomplishments. Put a human face on your organization. Don’t wait until it’s perfect before you talk about it. Show, don’t tell.
Web 2.0 tools such as intranets, blogs, wikis, podcasts and social networks are slowly being adopted by companies. A McKinsey study showed that about 1/3 of the companies surveyed are using blogs, RSS, wikis, podcasts and social networks. Only 1/4 of employees are using Web 2.0 tools, but at companies that are satisfied with them, more than half of all employees are using them.
Only 67 of Fortune 500 companies have blogs.
Corporations are using social media for:
Internal use: managing knowledge, fostering collaboration, training, product development, internal recruiting.
Interfacing with customers: improving customer service, acquiring new customers, getting customer participation in product development, letting customers interact.
Interfacing with partners/suppliers: achieving better integration, tapping network of experts, lowering purchasing costs, getting supplier participation.
Social media in the workplace can encourage dialogue, increase collaboration and information sharing, improve productivity, enhance training, create communities and strengthen relationships, reward leadership, bring issues to the front and provide useful feedback, and preserve institutional memory.
So how can we jump on the bandwidth? Ron suggests:
Nail down a social media policy.
Take baby steps and learn by doing. Remember how we all had to learn the new world wide web frontier?
Start with your business goals and look for natural fits such as using the tools for recruitment, retention, engagement and change management.
Consider allowing employee access to external social networks.
Don’t lose sight of the tried and true like face to face communication and print.
Rethink your role.
For more information on employee communications or some great tips on barbecuing, contact Ron at rshewchuk@longviewcomms.ca.
