Workplace Communication

Once again, I will be moderating a panel at Digital Signage Expo on digital signage for corporate communication. We've got a slightly new structure for this year's session based on feedback from last year's attendees. 

At industry event like this one, internal signage doesn't have the same "sex appeal" as signage for retail and other external means. But I know we are grateful that the DSE organizers continue to give us a platform to highlight these "hidden" networks. 

If you're attending this year's Expo out in Vegas, I'd love to see you come to our session titled, "Content strategies for workplace digital signage." It's Thursday morning (March 8) at 9am.

On the panel this year we have Frank Kenna (President, The Marlin Co.), Chris Bias (Communications Consultant, Eli Lily and Co.) and Brian Wood (Arizona Director of Operations, Waste Management). Chris is a customer of ours but it will be nice to have perspective of others on this year's panel.  

If there are questions you'd like for the panel to address, leave them in the comments section below. 

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This post originally appeared on Paul Barton's "Just My Type" blog and we received full permission to re-run the content on this blog. 

Over the years, Paul Barton has become a great friend of mine. We originally "met" via Twitter, but have since reconnected several times at IABC World Conferences.

In this post, he pulled together 20 objectives for employee communicators that I thought were simply brilliant. I'd like to see if anybody can put up an argument against any of them. Check out Paul's 20 guiding principles for employee communications. 

1. Strategic communications help a business achieve its objectives. That is their purpose.
2. Effective communications are those that produce measurable results and they can be a competitive differentiator.
   
3. There are costs associated with communicating, but there can be costs associated with not communicating as well. Internal communications seek cost-effective and creative solutions to solve complex communications challenges.
4. Employees are drowning in information, but starving for understanding. Our job is to make the important interesting.
5. Credibility is the foundation upon which effective communication is built. Unless it is believed, a message has no worth.
6. Face-to-face communication is the most desirable form of communication because it is immediate, personal and interactive. Most employees say their immediate supervisor is their preferred and most credible source of information about the business.
7. Communication is, by definition, a two-way process. Feedback mechanisms must be part of every employee communication.
8. Communication is a management responsibility. Internal Communications supports leaders by serving as consultants, facilitators and resource partners.
9. As in any effective strategy, form should follow function. The medium is the message.
10. Employees should learn of important events affecting them and their company from an internal source rather than an external source. Well-informed employees can serve as informal ambassadors of the company.
11. The more important the information is personally to the receiver, the fewer exposures are needed to make an impression. Make your communications relevant.
12. True effectiveness in communication is the ability to influence and change behavior. Changing behaviors is a long, slow process and therefore measurement of effective communications must be taken over time.
13. The case for change should be found in the marketplace. For change to occur, employees must move through these stages: awareness, understanding, acceptance and commitment. You cannot skip a step. Formal communications (particularly written communications) are most effective in promoting awareness and understanding. Informal communications (leader behaviors, unwritten rules, management decisions, openness, risk-taking tolerance, etc.) are necessary to reach full commitment.
14. External sources are defacto employee communications and therefore external messaging should be aligned with internal strategies. Likewise, employees are informal ambassadors of an organization and therefore internal messaging should be aligned with external strategies. Every internal communication should be written as if it will be read by the news media.
15. Rumors are created to fill communications voids. Fill those voids with valid information. A phrase like “Unfortunately, we have more questions than answers right now but we’re aware of the problem, we’re working on it and we’ll keep you updated with any news” goes a long ways to keep the rumor mill from grinding out of control.
16. Well-defined communication processes and procedures are the foundation for creativity. Key message libraries, templates, crisis plans, etc. free up time for creativity and continuous improvement.
17. The overall tone of employee communications directly reflects the relationship an organization has with its employees. The best tone for strategic communications is the Voice of the Brand, which is primarily what the company is but also what the company is striving to be.
18. With better information, better business decisions can be made. Employees need to understand the “what” and the “why” to be fully engaged.
19. Well-informed employees are more satisfied, more creative, more productive and more committed.
    
20. A common trait among successful companies is open and honest communications with all their key audiences, especially their employees.

Pretty great, eh? Truth be told, each of these principles could be its own blog post. And maybe I'll do just that.

If you'd like to learn more about Paul, you can follow him on Twitter (@PaulBartonABC) or connect with him on LinkedIn. He is a proud Iowa St. Cyclone, but more importantly has tremendous experience with internal communication, having worked at Hawaiian Airlines, PetSmart and America West Airlines in his career. 

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We put a lot of work into our blog (and I hope those that read it find our posts helpful). I thought I'd go back and find the top eight most-read blog posts from the past year. Why eight? Because it was a crazy year. 

I hope you enjoy. 

1. If you're in employee communications, watch this video now
   
   
2. The top holiday gift ideas for internal communicators
   
   
3. What impact did Twitter have on the IABC World Conference? 
   
   
4. Digital signage and the Powerpoint problem
   
   
5. Repetition is key to successful internal communication
   
   
6. Another incredible milestone for the digital signage community
   
   
7. Digital signage gets its own Twitter parody
   
   
8. When redundant communication is effective communication

And for those who question the value of blogging, we had two posts that were written back in 2009 that were part of our most read. 

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Rather than bother everybody's Twitter stream with updates, I thought it would be better to provide presentation thoughts here (and serves as good note-taking for me).

Tom Walter, Tasty Catering: "Engage or Entangle? How to Link Communications Objectives That Result in Employee Entanglement"

• Tasty Catering has a unique approach from other companies with regards to hiring. They bring people in to train them on the culture at a young age (high school and college). 
• 2010 Gallup Poll said that the average company has 49% not engaged and 19% actively disengaged. Those numbers total 33% for "world class" companies.
• "Collegiate" employees are engaged versus "Olympic" employees are entangled. 
• Engaged employees use transactional relationships, higher ROI and remain stable. 
• Entangled employees use transformational relationships, drive the organization, are peer leaders and have a high emotional intelligence. 
• Tom realized that the "command & control" approach to management was no longer working and HE needed to change. 
• The key to employee entanglement is discretionary thinking. It goes on beyond the workplace. The human mind processes 60,000 thoughts. A company only gets 8% of those. 
• Discretionary thinking is a result of an antecedent causing a consequence. Leadership + Culture + Human Capital + Systems/Processes + Recognition = Organizational Success. 
• Systems and processes are for companies. Recognition and rewards are for employees. 
• Every company has a river of culture, some are healthy. Others are toxic. 
• If employees are always moral and ethic AND treat others with respect, you can throw out the employee handbook. 
• Internal communications are employee centric, generating from employee TO employee. Also includes personal notes. 
• Really impressed by their newsletter. Not only is it simple to read, but clearly effective at getting employees engaged in employee communication. Big part of the newsletter's function is to help educate employees on the company's financial success. 
• The "Green Team" promotes environmental responsibility. But as a result, not only is the company saving money but Tasty Catering is generating new clients. 

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Corporate social responsibility is one of those that often falls on the plates of corporate communication pros. And while it used to be a bit of an afterthought, this article from PRWeek, corporate social responsibility is becoming more of a differentiator for companies. 

In the competitive environment that we're in, it's imperative that companies communicate their philanthropic efforts to ALL stakeholders, including employees. Here are four tips the author provides on how to create better overall engagement with CSR:

1. Develop clear and concise messages that demonstrate the benefit to the philanthropic cause, the value it brings to the company's corporate reputation, and the impact on the employee as an individual
2. Deliver the message consistently year-round and not just once a year during a charitably campaign (it has to become part of the company's DNA)
3. Create a means to measure the campaign's impact and communicate results to all stakeholders
4. Encourage feedback from employees to ensure a sense of ownership and a deeper connection to the overall CSR strategy.

We've seen many of our clients successfully use digital signage to communicate their CSR strategies and successes and has become a bigger part of overall workplace communication. 

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A friend of mine Steven Crescenzo recently wrote a blog post called "The danger of communicating too much." It's about experiences he had with United Airlines and their insistence on playing the same video at the start of every flight. And while I'm sure his experience was just as annoying as he details, there's a new study out that discusses the importance of repeating communication. 

The study evaluated communication styles from managers with power and managers without power and determined the methods that were most effective. In corporate communications, managers are communicating to an entire workforce so they would definitely fit into the "without power" category (and I'm sure they would agree). 

Like most employee communication practices, managers without power were most effective when they spread their message over multiple vehicles and also repeat these messages several times. Furthermore, the study revealed that those managers who were redundant with their messaging were also more effective. 

Let's mention that again. Managers who are redundant with their message are also more effective. 

And this is the power that digital signage brings to internal communication. This study proves that there is nothing wrong with repeating communication. And in fact, it actually makes your internal messages more effective. 

What was also equally surprising about the study is that redundancy ranked more important than clarity. This surprised even me. One would think (like I did) that the more clear the message is, the more effective it is. Not true. 

The more redundant a message is, the more effective it is.
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Photo by Mene Tekel

I recently spoke with with an organization undergoing a facelift, to the tune of almost $1B in construction. Exciting times for them, as they are using the new facilities as a platform to streamline their workplace communication processes!

While they recognize that digital signage would help them, they admittedly are not experts in understanding what the specs of a digital signage project may look like, even down to budget sourcing and who has ownership for which parts of the program.

Some of the questions that came up during my conversation include:

• How are you communicating now to your employees and how are you measuring its effectiveness?
• How are your employees reacting to the messaging you are currently sending out? 
• What would the perfect communications network look like for you, regardless of budget and resource constraints?

We had a fantastic chat about how MediaTile may fit into their scenario and look forward to many more discussions in the coming weeks!

A constant challenge of corporate communicators is determining if the messages they're sending out are making a difference. Often they aren't. Often times they are. Marketers have various data points they can point to but employee communications is a challenge. 

It's not operated in a vacuum and many variables come into play. This is one of the reasons I'm not a fanboy for employee engagement surveys. Many companies will point to these surveys as a barometer of success for internal communications activities. The surveys are a necessary evil but the resulting data should be handled with caution. 

Many times, communicators are dropping these messages into their workplace seeing what ripples or waves they make. Where we've seen success with digital signage is when companies focus content on specific initiatives or key performance indicators that are measurable. Continental Airlines is an example of this. 

Their digital signage network is geared towards employees without easy access to communications and the content focuses on health and safety information and tips. The performance improvement was documents, validated and astounding. Download the case study (PDF) to learn more. 

So not only did health and safety performance data improve, but, most importantly, their employees were safer on the job. Anybody who is responsible for companies with health and safety issues, you know how huge this is. 

If you have the challenge of isolating the impact of your communications, try to estimate the percentage of influence your messages have over other efforts. As I said previously, there are always going to be variables, but so many organizations are data driven and you'll need data on your side. 

What ripples are your messages making?

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Photo credit, Walter-Wilhelm

Corporate communicators know this. Determining ROI in employee communications is a tricky calculation. Whether you're investing in new technology like digital signage or launching a brand new intranet, some people will always ask, "What's the ROI?"

Now here's your answer.  Just this month, Watson Wyatt released their 2009/10 communication ROI study. You might be wondering who took part in the survey. Well, 328 companies from around the world representing nearly 5 million workers. Pretty impressive. Straight from the report:

• Effective employee communication is a leading indicator of financial performance and a driver of employee engagement. Companies that are highly effective communicators had 47% total higher returns to shareholders over the last five years compared with firms that are the least effective communicators.
   
• Measurement is critical. Companies that are less effective communicators are three times as likely as highly effective communicators to report having no formal measure of communication effectiveness.

Now these are just a few key findings but let's tackle first bullet. 47% total higher returns? That sounds great. But keep in mind that these numbers are in comparison to the LEAST effective. And if you are reading this blog and researching tools, you are not part of the LEAST. You might feel like it, but you aren't. However, this third-party report should help you build support for making investments in new employee comm tactics.

And to measurement, we've heard it all before. It's hard work to measure employee comms but clearly it's a key component to any effective corporate communication department's activity. This is where our ROM (Return on Message) approach can help measure the effectiveness of digital signage hardware and software for internal networks.

Themes running through the report are courage, innovation and discipline. I love seeing almost heroic terms applied to internal comms. Employees need companies to tell it like it is and make attempts to not just stick with status quo when it comes to workplace communication.

There is so much great information in this report I'll break it out into different blog posts over the next few weeks.

I'm going to take a side step from my usual digital signage discussion and focus on the most basic and primal of internal communication: the employee newsletter.

Sure we live in a digital world and employees are bombarded with messages in and out of the workplace. But I feel the people who say the employee publication is dead have actually never put one together themselves. It can be a huge pain in the ass, but it's also a labor of love.

Think about the value the employee publication provides. It is the one true mobile communication platform that is free of any technology constraints. Employees glance at it between meetings. They might throw it in their bag and take it home to show the family (if their name and picture are in it). And we know they take it to the bathroom, too.

Digital signage is great. Intranets are great. Town halls are great. And yes, employee newsletters are great. But each tool's greatness is dependent on the content and the creativity that goes into it.

Now maybe the problem is that newsletters may appear to be "old school" where as technology is shiny and glittery. And communicators aren't given the publications the necessary focus. But that's at the fault of the communicator, not the employees.

Many of the organizations I talk to ask me if digital signage will replace printed communication. It might replace some, but I hope it doesn't replace all. Eliminate posters? Yes. Banners? Yes. Flyers? I hope so. But employee publications? Never.

A well-written and designed employee publication delivers a tremendous amount of value to the organization. Don't kill it off just because it's not shiny and new.

Feels good to get that off of my chest.

For internal communicators, this is easier said than done. Due to time limitations or technology constraints, communicators tend to broadcast messages across the board through newsletters and emails. And many times, workplace communication should be broadcast across the board, so to speak, if the message hits everyone.

But there are times when you need to better define your message audience and even dictate when that message "appears." With MediaTile digital signage, you have the ability to broadcast to large groups of screens at once, create various sub-groups based on individual departments or various geographies, and even schedule directly down to a specific screen.

During a time when corporate communication departments need to maximize efficiency, time is a valuable resource. The better you can target your messages will not only improve efficiency but should also improve your ability to this the target. In this case, employees.

I'm out at MediaTile HQ in Scotts Valley, CA, this week so I'm a bit tied up in meetings. I thought it was a good time to pull together another list of my "clicks that click." These are a smattering of news items I've picked up over the last week or so that are related to communication in the workplace, social media AND/or digital signage.
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At last June's IABC World Conference, I was asked about the trends I was seeing in corporate communications and what did I see around the corner. My response was that eventually communications would switch into recovery mode and that companies would have to respond to keep employees around. With a nice Labor Day theme, Jeanette Paladino agrees that companies should be ratcheting up their communications. (She mentions intranets, newsletters and face-to-face, but not digital signage. I'm sure it's just oversight.) Jennifer Bull over at Good Company shares our sentiment.
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Global business communication is often a tough nut to crack, but Dave Meyer provides 10 tips for global communicators on his Communication Nation blog. All 10 are solid global communication tips, but I especially love #1 (get outside your fish bowl) and #6 (engage). I'm not sure if Dave did his graphics or not, but they are great.
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Though I'm headed to the circus this weekend, I'm not what you'd call a big fan of clowns. But allegedly you can use scary clowns to improve employee engagement. Go figure. I'd put up the photo but I'm going to stick with the fish.
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Has the employee-employer relationship permanently changed? Yes.
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Apparently, more and more companies and organizations are looking at Twitter to help during crisis communication. Communicating to employees during a crisis has long been a challenge. Digital signage can help on site, but Twitter could become a huge resource for those employees who are off-site or remote. All they'd have to do is follow the corporate account.

I've been writing posts for this blog for more than a year now, but I've hardly seen anybody else writing about digital signage for employee communications. But there's hope out there.

Mark Allen, like me, is convinced that companies are scrambling to keep employees in the loop. In his post, Mark goes through a variety of helpful lists regarding content and hardware to make sure you're properly evaluating a solution.

So many digital signage products out there have one main server that "pushes" content to the screens. But what happens if this server goes down or is there an error? Black screens, yikes. Mark recommends one media player per screen. This is precisely what our Digital Sign in a Box provides.

He goes on to support the use of a variety of networking options (LAN, Wi-Fi, etc.), but specifically points out the importance of cellular. THAT'S WHAT WE DO! And we're the first to do it. It's like this guy is writing an ad for MediaTile. Download our networking data sheet to learn more.

I hope to see others in the industry, like Mark and me, pop and support the use of digital signage for communication in the workplace.

Last month, I wrote about how Melcrum was looking to find out who "we" thought was the most influential internal communication expert today. Here's where the vote stands:


I'm not at all surprised the "Other" is leading the way. I know I've voted for a few who AREN'T on the list. If you want to add in your two cents, the voting is still open. I'm not sure when they plan on shutting it down.

It's certainly an interesting question to ask, but is prone to a lot of critical comments. I've seen some comments on Twitter indicating some confusion over creating such a list. But I don't think it's all bad. I believe they are also putting together a Top 50 list, which seems a bit more relevant to me.

Employee communication is often overlooked and I think it's great that Melcrum is sparking some debate over who the experts are. Now more than ever, inspiring communication in the workplace is so, so important.

I remember when I started this blog last year that I was excited the first weekend to see that a whole six people read the blog. Six! And that number could probably be attributed to my family.

Now several months and more than a 100+ posts later, I thought it would be interesting to see which posts were the most popular according to the readers.

Here's the Top 6 visited posts:

1. The cost of poor internal communications (March 3, 2009)
2. Security is important, with or without zombies (January 29, 2009)
3. Do you rely on line managers for employee communications (March 9, 2009)
4. Who is the "THE" in digital signage (January 27, 2009)
5. Download today's USA Today supplement on digital signage (March 20, 2009)
6. Fill in the workplace communication gap (March 27, 2009)

Looking at the dates, I must have been on a roll in March and January. In a future post, I'd like to highlight my favorite posts, which I'm hoping will at least differ slightly from the list above.

Happy Tuesday!

Attending last week's IABC World Conference provided a wealth of content. Here's the rundown...

Monday, June 8
Day 1 recap from the IABC World Conference
Day 1 is about to officially come to a close and it's been a strong first day. Though it shouldn't come as much of a surprise given that it is a world conference, much of the content and sessions is focused on communicating to a global audience. Global communication is a challenge for any organization with people scattered about time zones and geographies. Just when some employees are showing up to work, others are going to bed.

Tuesday, June 9
Discussing trends in employee communications
I'm really honored to take part in this morning's "expert" panel on employee communications at the 2009 IABC World Conference. Though I feel the expert label is a bit of a misnomer and widely overused, hence the quotation marks. I'm not expert (though others on the panel may be). I'm an enthusiast. I love everything involving employee communications.

Employee communications a hot topic at IABC
I feel like a lot of internal communicators get stuck in their own worlds sometimes. Our audiences are the people inside the four walls so sometimes we don't look outside for help, or maybe just don't realize where help is. At least I never did. We've heard we all need to be better story tellers, and sometimes are stories are the ones best told. I'd like to thank everyone for sharing their hard work.

Wednesday, June 10
ROM for Corporate Communications is a game-changer
It's quite timely that just as we wrap up a successful IABC World Conference, we've announced a special new version of our ROM (Return on Message) Methodology for corporate communications. In my biased opinion, this is a game-changer. The topic of measurement came up again and again at the IABC World Conference.

Friday, June 11
What role will communicators play during the recovery period?
For the employee communications expert panel at this week's IABC World Conference, I was asked to talk briefly about a communications trend I've seen recently. Aside from the obvious one (social media), the only thing I've seen is internal communicators getting beat up on a daily basis.

And here's a few others that peaked my interest...

• Talk your way to employee engagement
   
• Communicators split on digital implementation, impact
   
• The key to fast and effective communications

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Photo credit, bingbing

For the employee communications expert panel at this week's IABC World Conference, I was asked to talk briefly about a communications trend I've seen recently. Aside from the obvious one (social media), the only thing I've seen is internal communicators getting beat up on a daily basis. For the last six months they have been in crisis mode because announced layoffs, business cuts and other fun news.

So what I presented to the group was more a curiosity that I had. I'm really interested to see that as the economy moves from recession to recovery, what key role will communicators play?

One of the Canadian attendees provided some fantastic insight. She said what the US is going through now, several Canadian provinces went through in the mid 90s. In the down economy, employers held the balance of power. There were no jobs, so employees simply hunkered down. Once the economy rebounded, employees held the balance of power and could basically make demands of their job that they couldn't before. She said, for example, that Starbucks workers were making $16-20 an hour.

Though I doubt we'll see something that dramatic here in the US, it is possible that the power will shift to employees. I know of people who like to leave their job, but simply can't. And when the economy improves, they will have options.

So companies must engage the employees they want to keep, the good guys. It can be extremely damaging to a business to lose talented workers. So corporate communications professionals will play a vital role in adding this value and must continue to improve workplace communication. Proof that I'm not the only one thinking about this, I found this post from Melcrum this morning titled, "10 questions to ask leaders as businesses emerge from the recession."

It's a great read for those interested. One particular contributor cited the need for communicators to get out in front of the recovery period and begin communicating before it's too late.

In a future post, I'll talk about how and why communicators should begin now making plans as part of this recovery period, such as making investments in new tools (like digital signage) or updating existing vehicles.
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Photo credit, Doublep1

I'm really looking forward to heading out to San Francisco next week to attend the IABC 2009 World Conference. (For those of us not from the Bay Area, scenes like this one never get old.)

As an exhibitor, the show will give MediaTile a chance to show off what our digital signage technology can do for corporate communication professionals.

And out of my own selfishness, I can't wait to attend many of the sessions listed. I will without a doubt be Twittering from the show (how can I not?) so I'm working to embed my Twitter stream into this blog. In the meantime, you can follow much of the pre-conference conversations taking place through the hashtag #iabc09.

Shows like these are great because they attract communicators from nearly every market segment imaginable. I particularly like talking to the employee communications staff who are working inside a challenging environment. But then again, I guess most communication in the workplace is a challenge these days.

IABC shows tend to attract the cream of the crop and I'm looking forward to rubbing elbows with some of the best communicators in the world.
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Photo credit, David Paul Ohmer

Earlier this year, we officially launched our Return on Message (ROM) Methodology and it's now really starting to gain attraction based on the inquiries and interest we're hearing.

As the digital signage marketplace continues to mature, more and more are looking to establish return on the technology. ROM provides this. You can download the full report if you like but I wanted to highlight the 7 key vertices that make up ROM Methodology.

1. Content
2. Relevancy
3. Interaction
4. Schedule
5. Placement
6. Refresh
7. Attraction

Evaluating a network across all 7 provides a comprehensive viewpoint of a digital signage program and can recommend any necessary improvements.

But what I really like is that these 7 vertices can apply to practically any communication in the workplace. Take newsletters for example and go back through the 7. All apply.

ROM can be a great way to not only determine the success of an internal network but also how this network would play with other employee communication vehicles you are using.

"But that just sounds like one more thing I'll have to do."

Whether I'm meeting one on one with someone or with an entire group about digital signage, somebody inevitably says the previous statement. I should write it on a post card before the meeting and then reveal it as it's said -- sort of a sad attempt at a magic trick.

Employee communicators are constantly juggling the right tool for the right message. Corporate communications departments have newsletters, intranets, town halls, videos, social media sites all at their disposal to deliver messages to employees.

And for that inevitable someone, digital signage is just another tool. It's just one more vehicle they have to pay attention to. But typically for that someone, each new task or assignment is just one more. Like it's a chore.

But it's those who see the possibilities made available by using digital signage are the ones who get it. They see digital signage as "one more" but it's one more effective communications tool to deliver important messages to all employees no matter where they are or what access they have.
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Photo credit, jin.thai