Employee communicators in engagement survey - one week to go

The survey monkey's still ticking over as more and more communicators complete the research questionnaire on the role of employee communicators in engagement. There's still a week to go if you want to add your voice which you can do here

To whet your appetite, here are a few of the trends at the half-way collection point:

• Almost half the organisations that have responded have no engagement strategy
• While the majority of organisations recognise the difference between communication and engagement, only 4% claim that recognition is total
• Almost 90% of communicators who have responded have some responsibility for their organisation's engagement agenda
• HR is the top 'owner' of engagement - drawing twice the response of 'everyone'
• HR is also the most common owner of the engagement strategy
• When it comes to tools, nine out of 10 communicators use email and the intranet
• Fewer than half still use printed newsletters/magazines
• Over 80% of respondents formally use social media in the comms mix, with blogs and internal social networks the most common uses
• Engagement varies widely among responding organisations. No organisation is fully engaged, though 30% claim a 7 out of 10 engagement score
• Asked what would make the greatest difference to engagement, the most popular response so far is a more joined up approach between functions.

That's a slice of the picture with a week still to go. Will it change? Your views could be vital.

In this only a Transatlantic issue?

Interesting: after an initial splurge of responses, the last couple of days has seen only a trickle of responses to my survey looking at the role of employee communications in engagement. In many ways, that's to be expected: those who are interested will respond immediately while others will either delete the message or put it on the 'nice to do' pile for some time never. Still, there are still 12 days left, and if I can double the current response over those 12 days I'll have something robustly statistically viable.

This is a learning experience for me, and one of the most noticeable features is the strong UK/US bias to responses. They're running fairly even; I have a few from Canada; a few from Scandinavia and ones and twos from other northern European countries. I didn't expect much from non-English speaking countries (or countries where English isn't the language of business), but hoped I'd pick up some response from Africa, Australia and New Zealand and, most of all, India. But as yet, it's radio silence.

I have a presentation to prepare this afternoon, but after that, I suspect I'll be pushing the survey out to those particular communication outposts.

Early days, early findings

Just one day into the survey mapping employee communicators' roles in engagement and there are already a gratifying number of responses from across the UK, Continental Europe and North America - it would be great to get some input from other parts of the world too.

Anyway, the number of responses is statistically interesting, but perhaps not get a truly viable sample - still there's a fortnight yet to go.

Some early findings - which may well change as the number of responses rises suggest:

• Almost half of all respondents have a role that includes employee communication - but has responsibility for other stakeholders as well.
• Almost half of all respondents state that their organisation has no employee engagement strategy.
• A third of respondents' organisations really don't differentiate between employee communication and engagement.
• Virtually all employee communicators are involved in engagement strategy or implementation, with a third of respondents stating their team 'owns' engagement in the organisation - though HR is the most common 'owner'.
• The intranet is the most widely used communication channel from our early respondents, closely followed by emails - with face-to-face channels very popular, but restricted by time and capacity, especially of leadership.
• More than three quarters of respondents to date use social media in their organisations, with blogs and internal social networks leading the way - though one respondent is also using virtual worlds.
• Engagement levels vary widely, and the 'must haves' to help employee communicators vary from a social media strategy to effective line management support and a joined-up approach across functions.

However, this is just a broad-brush round up 24 hours into the survey. It still has two weeks to run. If you haven't taken part yet, why not do so here?

The role of Employee Communications in Employee Engagement

While the debate continues around the correct terminology for employee engagement, there's an equal lack of understanding of the role the employee communication function plays in engagement within organisations.

I'm currently working on a report covering exactly this area, and would very much like to get a snap-shot of where exactly employee communication practitioners operate today within the engagement agenda.

It strikes me that too few organisations today differentiate properly between employee communication and employee engagement - but I'd like to apply some evidence to that hypothesis.

So, if you have a role in employee communication and perhaps play some part in engagement in your organisation, pleas complete this survey and help build a picture of what role the employee communication team plays in engagement - and how you're fulfilling that role.

The survey will be open until September 24th - and I'll post details of the final report once it's published.

The eternal triangle

I had a phone call yesterday afternoon asking for a price on a piece of work. The call went something like this:

Prospective client: I need a brochure written, what will it cost?

Me: Okay, let's step back a bit. Can I check what outcome you want to achieve? Who's your audience and what's their expectation. Actually, I've got quite a few of this kind of question, so can you run me through the story of what you're looking to do?

PC: Listen, I need a brochure - do you want the work?

Me: Okay. Let's focus on a brochure. Same questions: who's it for? What's its purpose? Are you thinking electronic, print or both? What other comms tools do you use and how will this fit in? Wh...

PC: FFS. Look we're a new independent financial services business and want to have a brochure to send to prospective clients and leave behind when we do face to face sales calls. We're launching next month. We've got the website and the logo and need the brochure as soon as possible.

Me: Okay.....So in effect, you want two pieces of communication - one to mail and then one for meetings.

PC: No, why would we want two?

Me: Err, won't people be getting the same piece of collateral twice?

Pause......

PC: That doesn't matter. Just tell me how much a brochure will cost.

Me: How long's a piece of string?

PC: What the f***? Are you taking the piss?

Me: No, but I suspect you may be. The cost of a brochure will depend on quite a few factors - the content, the design, imagery, the ease of getting hold of information and the time it takes me and a designer to come up with a draft. From draft stage there's time involved on both sides to get to a finished product. Then there'll be print costs, distribution costs etc. etc. At this stage with no kind of brief, I can't quote a price. I need far more information from you.

PC: Well, my mate Jeff reckoned an eight pager should cost no more than £2K - how does that sound?

Me: Meaningless - do you mean just the copy, just the design, just the printing or what? I think you need to sit down and come up with a rather more detailed spec before asking for prices.

PS: Listen mate. I know what I want. I want an eight page brochure to be delivered by the end of next week and I want it cheap. Comprendez?

Me: Okay mate: I can put all my other client work aside for the next few days, engage a design firm work with you to devise the copy, work with them to come up with a design concept and if you agree to it immediately, we can get a rush print job done next week....after the Bank Holiday. I'll charge a premium rate for my time as this is a rush job and you'll also pay a packet for the designer. We'll probably have to pay more for a rush job at the printers since nothing's yet booked in - and the job will probably suffer in quality for the lack of a proper brief and the fact that it'll all be rushed. And, if you suddenly decide to make changes at the 11th hour the budget and timescale could all go out the window.

I can do quick to the best of my ability but it'll cost you more.

I can do a very cost-efficient job at high quality if you give me the time to structure it properly.

All you'll get in your timescales for the kind of money Jeff's talking about is something quick and dirty. Is that how you really want to communicate your new business?

PC: Yea right. I'll call you back.

He hasn't.......

Fit for purpose costs, whether it's in time, money or both. Fast? High quality? Cheap? Perm two from three.

Grimond's vision of the future wasn't far off

Last month, when I was researching in the Eisenhower Presidential Library in Abilene, Kansas, I was struck by a White House Staff Note from October 1957. The short piece in the news round-up aimed at White House insiders chimed with significant resonance. Was there more than a touch of Nick Clegg's post electoral coalition dilemma?

The note recounts a conversation between Jo Grimond, the Liberal Party leader at the time and Jock Whitney, the US Ambassador to Britain. According to the White House record: "Grimond made an unusually frank admission to Ambassador Whitney that would shock his followers, namely he envisages no future for his party except by merging with the Tories or the Labor (sic) party, either of which he could contemplate........Grimond observed that the party's future might be in developing modern political ideas, selling them to one of the major parties, and then joining that party to ensure implementation and prevent backsliding to extreme policies."

It's worth noting that Grimond saw both rival parties as facing dilemmas in holding together the extremes of their support. But, tantalisingly, the report doesn't say which of the big beasts he preferred the Liberals to merge with.

Make the most of your line managers

I like this post from Melissa Dark over in Aus http://melissadark.com.au/?p=154. I've added a comment which I hope will be moderated soon!

Funny, I commented on a Melcrum posting recently on one of their hub articles - and it took about a week to be cleared!

Social Media - it's neither the replacement nor the panacea

I've had two conversations today that sum up for me the range of misconceptions people have about social media. The first was with a shared services director who wants a social media strategy created for her team. It was an odd request - even odder as it came to me via a design agency.

The oddest thing was that the team all work in the same building - in fact in a big open plan space on one floor. One wonders why they need a strategy for social media when they all meet in real life every day. The next thing on the odd scale was that they don't have a communications strategy. They have a few electronic communication tools - and in fact, a great director who's a powerful force for engagement.

Having got a sketchy brief this morning, I called her - and things began to fall into place. Her team's going through a big change: they actually want a communication framework aimed at supporting the delivery of their business goals - but her marketing colleagues had been pushing heavily the virtues of a facebook site, tweets and a blog. To my mind, that was a bit of overkill in a smallish team, one-room environment and with a person who sets a great example for face to face comms. There are virtues in using some social media - and there's definitely a role in the team for social learning. But a social media strategy? Her wider organisation doesn't have one yet and to my mind, she'll be much better served by building a comms framework and activity plan that allows for, and enables, social media tools to be part of the comms mix. Where she does need to get a handle on social media is with some rules for her team on what's acceptable or not in a work environment. Apparently it has been a free-for-all in the past - but now the upper management has taken a draconian attitude and the kind of social communication that's now an unstoppable part of everyday life is now verboten in that workplace. We talked about a happy medium: all part of creating a great place to work. But what emerged at the end of an hour's conversation was the need for a good old integrated communications plan with a mix of tools that will achieve the right outcomes. Will I get the project? I don't know. I'm sure there will be social media specialists offering something completely different from me. But will their offering be truly suitable? In this case, social media tools alone won't meet all the needs of this team.

However, I had a conversation this afternoon with a friend who works for small business that supports charities and is crying out for a social media solution. Working in the UK and three Continental mainland countries, this business communicates at present only by email, the phone and one annual get-together. Money's tight, but they were looking to set up a newsletter for staff and volunteers. Yet they really don't need the formality of this - but assumed 'that's what companies do'. As a result of our conversation, my friend is investigating some 'free' solutions - a facebook page; a twitter account and getting on one or two of the forums aimed specifically at organisations that deliver services to charities. I think she's already moved a long way down that road in her head, but assumed a professional approach to social media would be expensive. We simply talked about some common sense rules and about adopting the same professional standards of managing dialogue in the same way she would through other media. I came off the call feeling good: feeling I'd validated her thoughts.

It's time we stopped handling 'social media' in business as if it was another new world. It's a communication evolution that has a strong, but not overwhelming, role to play in organisational communication. My view is that communicators have a role to play in educating people around integrated organisational communication. In the end, it's about the right horses for the right courses. The skill is in tipping the most suitable beast.

Wisdom no more

Just over 24 hours ago, I had a wisdom tooth removed, ending - I hope - a saga that's involved a long period of discomfort - and certainly one that doesn't help a freelance lifestyle. It's amazing the disproportionate effect one partly-erupted tooth can cause, and I've had months of toothache and infected gums before finally biting the bullet and having the nasty third molar removed.

Yesterday was almost euphoric. Having been promised cutting and stitches, the tooth popped out far more easily than expected. Of course these days, teeth are 'elevated' not pulled! My head was frozen from my scalp to my lower jaw so I was certainly feeling no pain when I returned home. By midnight, the drugs and pain killers were just about wearing off but I was in good shape. By 4am, with the first birds tweeting, I was still awake with a horrible dull ache radiating from the now empty tooth socket to a point just over my right eye.

I've achieved a lot less than I'd hoped for today - I'm tired but can't sleep but the pain killers are making me drowsy. Still, it's a very temporary thing and I'm sure I'll be bouncing back tomorrow.

Capturing the authentic voice

Over the last few days I've been writing a number of statement pieces for particular characters within a couple of my clients. In each case, the person voicing the particular piece of communication has a distinctive style and particular way of communicating. Putting words in their mouth, so to speak, made me very aware of my need not to sanitise individuality ans to ensure that not only the content was authentic, but that the communication also captured the true voice of the speaker.

Years ago, I used to work for an Austrian lady who was well known for her ability to strangle the English language yet still get her points across in a vivid and memorable manner. Face to face, she was compelling. On paper, she was often hilarious but the point was made and the reader was always clear that this was a personal and passionate communication. However, she was promoted and gained the services of the organisation's external PR agency who started 'improving' her communications: cleaning up the English and applying the same bland urbane style that made so many of this organisation's public communications so un-memorable. Somehow, she lost some credibility and her pronouncements, which had been 'must read' just became part of the overall deluge of information swilling around the place.

Over the last few days, I've been working hard to try and capture the voice of those I'm helping - frankly with mixed success. In the end, it has to be the participant's communication and not mine, so where a couple of people have toned the edge down, I've had to acquiesce (though most of the authentic voice has been retained). But as I always say, I only draft the copy - those who have to deliver it must take my draft and personalise it. The more they can make it distinctively their own, the better it will be and the more credibility it will retain. A client has done precisely that this morning - building on my words but making them sound as though they genuinely come from her. It's much more her communication now than mine - and that's exactly how it should be.

As communicators, it's our job to give voice through the right channels to the people who really matter. There's no value in carefully crafting words if they lack authenticity - we simply won't make the right connections. Written communication should create a picture in the mind for the reader. That picture has to conjure up the speaker - not make the 'ghost writer' a visible presence.