How do you engage talent?
30 July 2009
Could you please help me with some search for the reality behind the theory?
In today's tough job market, where there is strong competition among employers for talented people, most employers understand that the training and development they extend to all their employees will not only make employees more able and more valuable to but will also act as a powerful incentive for them to stay.
Of course, organisations are always at risk that their staff will leave anyway, taking their new skills with them. Yet employees of organisations that do not develop their staff have little motivation to stay.
This is a paradox that has in my opinion one simple solution: accept that employees are more likely to leave if they are not
developed and find ways to make people want to keep working at your organisation. Engage the talent. But how?
Money is not the only motivator. Among the most important non-financial motivators research from the likes of Gallup, Melcrum and CIPD often list:
- Advancement
- Autonomy
- Being challenged
- Being trusted
- Civilised treatment
- Employer commitment
- Exposure to senior people
- Praise or regocnition when appropriate
- Support is available
- Working environment
- Working for a ethical and reliable organisation
- Working on useful assignments for the client, the organisation and themselves
- Work/life balance is respected
What are the most important three in terms of retaining talent in your opinion and experience?
And what anecdotes describe why?
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Everything new replaces something
28 July 2009
Scenario:
The top management has just finished the meeting, the decision has been taken: A new set of core values shall from this moment permeate the whole organisation...
Here is the real challenge:
How do all employees get to know, understand and live our new core values in their daily life at work? To think and live and conduct themselves according to the values, in every meeting with the customers or with colleagues, enabling us in a few years time to measure if our customers’ picture of the company is exactly like the one we want them to have – and most importantly is our image genuine?
Everything new replaces something old
It is rare to find a vacuum. To implement the chosen core values means that the old ones will have to be removed, be these formal or informal. Environmental policy, ethical rules, customer policy, leadership behaviours, organisational culture and strategic goals, are all part of the daily life at work even if they are not formally formulated.
In large organisations you will often find "hostility” between departments, sometimes openly; departments within organisations who have their own set of values in parallel or even instead of the official ones. Nearly all types of implementation projects are a form of change management. To replace entrenched mindsets, ingrained behaviours and long established ways of conducting business, all require a change in the way people think and invite them to dare to see things in new ways; this is the big challenge in implementing a key message.
One important topic to consider is ~ Simplicity...
Is the message simple enough, or is the ambition too high? All too often there is a tendency to want to include too much in the message that is supposed to be embraced by everyone in the organisation. The disadvantage with this, among other things, is that the receivers of the message get less of a chance to internalise the message by considering their own point of view and this in turn easily makes people feel less involved. As a consequence people use a range of different defence mechanisms to protect themselves and not get involved in the change at all.
A simple, clear message that gives the receiver a chance to gather information in order to fully understand and accept the message increases the chances for success.
When considering your next internal communication initiative consider;
- Is your message simple enough?
- Does your message have walls?
What is your top tip for the principles or concepts that help shape great internal comms..?
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A fuzzy nicety or an organisation's life blood
23 July 2009
For many, internal communication falls into the fuzzy realm of Marketing, Advertising or PR which are generally addressing an external audience.
Over the last 10 years or so however, it has become commonly accepted that Internal Communication is as important as External Communication. After all, if your own employees don’t believe what is written or said about your organisation then why should your customers?
FEIEA (the Federation of Business Communicator Associations in Europe) has announced the headline results of its latest survey among nearly 5,000 practising workplace communicators. Internal communication was reported as a key success factor for 79% of the organisations.
When Deloitte and Touche Human Capital conducted a survey among American CEOs who were asked which HR issues are very important to the success of the organisation, 95 percent of them said “effective internal communication.” Simultaneously, only 22 percent agreed that they thought it was being delivered effectively…
Internal communication isn't some warm and fuzzy optional nicety it is the lifeblood of any organisation. If blood of the right quality doesn’t circulate at just the right pressure and speed to all parts of the human body, those parts slow down and could stop working altogether. The body could then become sick and die…
An organisation where communication doesn't flow freely is no different.
Internal communication isn’t limited to vision and mission statements from the top; its not just news releases publicising financial results or new product announcements; it is not just internal or client newsletters, annual reports or video streamed messages to the troops. These are all important, but they form just a fraction of the communication and miscommunication that takes place every day in the workplace.
Internal communication is written, spoken and non-verbal interaction among people in the organisation that get things done, for instance;
- It takes co-operation to create a product or a new service.
- It takes collaboration to open up a new market.
- It takes teamwork to implement a strategy.
It takes effective internal communication to oil and run the machinery of any organisation. And when that machinery breaks down, as it often will, a great deal of profit can be lost.
What is the impact of poor internal communication?
How much would poor communication cost an organisation over a twelve months period? Most organisations would have no idea, and it is highly likely that it would be more than they can afford.
Financial statements from an organisation at the years end or even monthly budget versus actual departmental reports rarely indicate such things as;
- Lost productivity due to poorly run meetings,
- Missed business opportunities through poor cross functional understanding, or
- 35% employee turn over because we say one thing and do another
Do the arithmetic on poorly run meetings
Regardless of its purpose, a meeting is an exercise in communication: you speak, you listen, and you interact. It is rare to find anyone in business who has not complained about meetings at some time: too many, too long, and too boring. You could add to that: too expensive.
Consider meetings that are supposed to last an hour but somehow expand to use up most of the afternoon. Calculate the hourly cost of total participant time and multiply by the length of the meeting. Keep in mind that the more senior the participants the more expensive the time. The result may not sound too alarming, until you consider how many of those meetings take place in your organisation every day, every week, every year. Work it out for yourself.
What is the cost of unproductive meeting time across your organisation?
Consider the cost of correspondence
Letters, reports, memos, and now the wonder of e-mail: Written communication is an integral part of doing business and the volume of communication is increasing, most people tell us.
Unfortunately, studies demonstrate that employees spend too much time writing it, and do not write clearly and concisely, so that those on the receiving end spend too much time reading it…
If an employee spends just two hours a day reading, writing and managing e-mail, that equates to a cost of 20 to 25% of their total remuneration. What is your total wages bill?
What is the cost of creating and reading poor communication across your organisation?
Let’s take recruitment as an example
The actual cost of recruiting and training a single new hire can be between three to seven times salary when you factor in the cost of recruitment, induction, training and the lost productivity from having a new member of the team. The higher the staff turnover the more this also de-stabilizes the corporate culture.
Effective internal communication plays a valuable role in both retention and professional development.
Some research suggests money comes second as a reason why employees opt to be part of an organisation. A high percentage of the time the primary reason was found to be a sense of direction clearly communicated by the top management. Explanatory comments suggested this was because of a desire to belong to the team and a felling of responsibility for the future of the company.
Successful organisations build this loyalty through effective internal communication
What about the cost of lost opportunities?
Day after day in the workplace, millions of people go through the motions of talking with their colleagues in person and on the phone, constantly connected through technology, and yet never truly communicating with one another. Every one of them is an opportunity for your organisation to learn, to improve and to generate profit.
Study after study tells us that respect and trust are more important than authority in getting things done, and one of the best ways to show people they are valued is to listen to them. The sages from the ages from Socrates through Carnegie to Steven Covey have said “Listen first you’ll understand better and increase you chances of being understood” Sadly, listening is probably the most underused of all the communication skills.
Typcial impact of poor internal communication
Long-term impact
- Spread of misinformation.
- Misinformed employees can make wrong decisions.
- Erosion of employee trust and confidence.
- Conflicts between employees and management.
- Internal brand image suffers.
Short-term impact
- Lack of coherent and shared vision.
- Low employee morale results in lower productivity.Dissatisfaction among employees leads to higher attrition.
- Impact on company share price.
- External brand value suffers.
What are the benefits of effective internal communication?
Whether an organisation has two or 200,000 employees, its ability to achieve its business objectives depends on how well it engages, aligns, and motivates its employees.
Depending what research you buy in to, somewhere between 30% and 80% of all corporate change initiatives fail to achieve their objectives. Whatever body of research you read one of the principal reasons will be poor communication within the team and or the enterprise at large.
Effective internal communication helps the organisation to meet its objectives. It is the vital link that encourages everyone to deliver on their responsibilities.
Communication is not just the language; it involves trust, relationships, control and delegation. It can be used to create transparency within the organisation and through this help in raising the morale and motivation of employees which tends to increases productivity. Internal communication also helps stimulate much-needed feedback from employees to top management. Some benefits could be listed as;
- It provides information and encourages sharing by driving and supporting the organisation’s short-term and long-term goals and objectives.
- It ensures that these initiatives are implemented and followed at a local level.
- It ensures that knowledge sharing and communication processes are part of the daily workflow across all functions of the business.
- It helps drive ownership and shared engagement.
The ability of a company to carry on an effective dialogue with its employees directly affects the bottom line performance, driving such objectives as productivity, quality, safety, customer loyalty, and employee retention.
Most experts on organisations, management and leadership, assert that effective internal communications is a key factor in the effectiveness of any type of organisation.
Most CEO, HR professionals and consultants agree. How about you?
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Consultancy is purely holding a mirror
21 July 2009
Consultancy is purely about holding a mirror
I came across this view of consultancy and wonder what you think about it.
"You can't change organisations. You can only reveal them to themselves. And they either like what they see. Or not..."
If they choose to follow the "Or not" path, you can offer suggestions as to the alternatives that fit for them, and for what they believe.
If they haven't evolved to the point of knowing what they believe, you start there and the rest reveals itself...
It is really that simple. The rest consists of removing the dead skin from the years of self-deception."
I do find myself challenged by this suggestion and certainly do not want to discount it completely but there are times when I've made a stand for what I think, even though it put the relationship at risk, in an attempt to act as a catalyst for change.
What are your thoughts?
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Logistics or Semiotics?
17 July 2009
If you want effective internal communication that results in high levels of employee engagement you need to consider the methods and system used to facilitiate the exploration of meaning of a clear robust message and how those methods and systems enable feedback.
Two important theories related to this internal communication challenge are;
- Process ~ Show me the Road
- Semiotics ~ Reading the Signs
The Process School concentrates on the accurate transmission of messages and the robustness of the methods and systems chosen for moving the messages around. On the premise is that the message is properly encoded or stated and the system of
transfer is without interference that the message should be received as sent.
If you take a purely linear approach to this then you’d believe it possible to inject a message (via a Hypodermic Needle & Syringe) into a recipient who would passively accept the message without argument or distortion…
Now you might want to concede that the recipient may want to bring his or her own thought processes to bear on the contents of the message and even give a response or some feedback…
We can still hear some of the language from the earlier linear model in Advertising, Marketing and Sales today. Targeting an audience for instance
More sensitive terms used recently include; making a connection or creating a dialogue.
Semiotics of Internal Communication ~ Reading the signs
The Semiotics School is concerned with the production of the “signs” (text, images, artefacts) and exchange of meaning. It uses very different terms to express how symbols and meanings are created and exchanged. The Semiotic School captures elements not included in the process school, including how the written or spoken word is interpreted; the impact of gestures, attitude or emotion, or even something as general as the clothes people are wearing at the time!
To coin a word, such that it refers to a thing, the community must agree on that simple meaning within their language. But that word can transmit that meaning only within the language's grammatical structures and codes. Such structures and codes also represent the values of the community’s culture and are able to add new shades of connotation to every aspect of life.
To explain the relationship between the Semiotics and Process Schools; consider that communication is defined as the process
of transferring data from a source to a receiver as efficiently and effectively as possible. Hence, communication theorists construct models based on:
1. codes, meanings, contexts and
2. mechanics, systems and media, involved.
Both schools also recognise that the technical process cannot be separated from the fact that the receiver must decode the data, i.e. be able to distinguish the data as salient and make meaning out of it.
Semiotics or Linguistics?
Semiotics should be distinguished from linguistics. Although both start from the same point, semiotics links linguistic facts to non-linguistic facts to give a broader empirical coverage and to offer conclusions that seem more plausible because, intuitively, humans understand that one can only interpret language in a social context.
Pure linguistics dismantles language into its components, analysing usage in slow-time, whereas, in the real world of human semiotic interaction there is an often chaotic blur of language and signal exchange which semiotics attempts to analyse and so identify the systemic rules accepted by all the participants.
If you can’t separate them ~ you might as well join them…
So it is most fruitful for internal communication and employee
engagement if you creatively consider both;
- The methods and systems you wish to communicate through and
- The meaning you and others might make of the signals you send.
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Test your message against reality
15 July 2009
An effective implementation gets everyone aboard; lets the organisation develop harmony, reduce friction, enhance respect and improve understanding through better communication and the demonstration of sustainable strong commitment. This leads to improved employee engagement and this in turns leads to more satisfied customers and better profit for the organisation.
So lets test that in an example case study...
Scenario:
The top management has just finished the meeting, the decision has been taken: as we need to demonstrate we have a Corporate Social Responsibility Policy to win the large contracts we desire… Everyone will now have additional responsibilities to the environment (that might save us some money) & the community (that might help us recruit). A new initiative shall from this moment permeate the whole organisation...
Here is the real challenge:
How do all employees get to know, understand and live out this new initiative in their daily life at work?
To think and live and conduct themselves according to the new objectives and change the way they think and operate, in every meeting with the customers or with colleagues, enabling us in a years time to measure an improvement in our “Carbon Footprint” and our “Community Fund Raising” score?
Test the Message with Reality:
People working in one reality have formulated the message but the receivers of the message could be living in several different realities.
Success lies in the ability to formulate and deliver the message in a way that enables the recipients to accept it based on their own reality. Sure, it is the same organisation but irrespective if one works in the Warehouse, in the Reception, in the IT Department or Management one needs to accept the message based on one’s own reality.
Perception is projection.
My cynical comments in brackets earlier on are a simple version of that. If the foundations of the project are flawed or the origins of the project are suspect you already have the resistance army in full swing. Add in silo mindsets and cultural differences into the global corporate melting pot and you are really up the creek without a paddle..?
We might know where we want people to end up in there thinking and behaviour, it is just a shame we have to start from where they currently are…
How are you taking the many realities in your organisation into consideration?
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Does internal communication support change
9 July 2009
It is often said the to make major organizational change work and become “permanent” ~ if such a thing exists ~ whether that is a new emphasis on health and safety in the rail industry, a new approach to quality of service or a merger of two old rivals, a big part of the mix is internal communication.
You must get your message through, secure their support and cooperation or all forms of chaos will ensue…
But how does this support change..?
How can you access and utilise communication across an organisation to shift attitude and behaviour; because that is what we are talking about. Not just about setting up an information flow and creating a dialogue, as a business if change has to be implemented then people get new jobs, different responsibilities, different systems, a change of clothes or labels. If people return to their “new jobs” after they have been “told or informed” and carry on as before nothing changes.
Internal communication isn't some warm and fuzzy optional nicety it is the lifeblood of any organisation. If blood of the right quality doesn’t circulate at just the right pressure and speed to all parts of the human body, those parts slow down and could stop working altogether. The body could then become sick and die…
Internal communication isn’t limited to vision and mission statements from the top; its not just news releases publicising financial results or new product announcements; it is not just internal or client newsletters, annual reports or video streamed messages to the troops. These are all important, but they form just a fraction of the communication and miscommunication that takes place every day in the workplace.
Internal communication is written, spoken and non-verbal nteraction among people in the organisation that get things done. It takes effective internal communication to oil and run the machinery of any organisation. And when that machinery breaks down, as it often will, a great deal of profit can be lost.
People that know better, generally do better. Communication is only effective when people have understood the essence of the message and change their attitude or performance as a result. If the outcome of the communication is resistance or reluctance then it has not been effective communication. Yes we want to keep people informed, motivated and feeling like they are part of a greater whole but… If people return to their “new jobs” after they
have been “told or informed” and carry on as before nothing changes. And our great change initiative fails.
Aristotle wrote something like this in 350-ish BC. “if communication is to change behaviour, it has to be based on the desires and interests of the receivers”
So we tune into their way length and demonstrate through our communication the connection between what we want and what they want and something is born inside the heart and minds
of most. Our ambition gets a new meaning and a new life… with them
Since the days of Coch and French, who in 1948 wrote an article “Overcoming Resistance to Change” it has been known that there is a highly beneficial impact of involving people in changes that affect them.
So we use internal communication as a means to involve people not just tell them.
In face to face communication, as apposed to written text, or PowerPoint presentations, the tendency is to use narrative or story telling to get our points across. Story telling has been central to communication throughout history. Stories or narratives are not fables or fairy tales they are the “case studies” of the conversation that enable the listener to experience and therefore understand. The exchange and calibration of meaning is essential with internal communication and employee engagement. If this is done within the confines of a relationship built on trust, with colleagues, with direct supervisors and managers. The believe/trust factor increases the likelihood of internalisation and subsequent behaviour change.
So we use team briefings, coffee machine 121’s, development sessions, MBWA and promotional initiatives like Notice Boards, Newsletters, Web Video Streams to feed the grapevine. But
most importantly we can not rely on the trickle down effect from starting at the top. Just because the CEO stood up at the Kick Off and said his or her piece does not unlike a Star Trek Captain make it so…
So use internal communication to engage front line supervisors to leverage the value of trusted relationships nearest to the bulk of the workforce.
Effective internal communication helps the organisation to meet its objectives. It is the vital link that encourages everyone to deliver on their responsibilities. Communication is not just the language; it involves trust, relationships, control and delegation. It can be used to create transparency within the organisation and through this help in raising the morale and motivation of employees which tends to increases productivity.
What ambitions do you have that would benefit from being born inside the hearts and minds of your members or employees?
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Are Branding and Positioning inter-changeable?
6 July 2009
A recent suggestion by a colleague that Positioning and Branding were interchangeable interested me, as someone who does get involved with internal branding of corporates, so I looked through the thesaurus in search of other alternate words to Branding. It was pretty enlightening. Compare the associations with the following two words:
Brand: Classification, badge, identification, signature, symbol, emblem, stamp, label
Self: Being, essence, personality, substance, texture, distinctiveness, singularity, essential nature
Brand is associated with external 'label' words, whereas self digs deeper into essence. And essence is the true heart of a brand.
Self is used as a modifier and also has many other meanings: self-important, self-confident, self-respect, self-control, self-centred, selfish. It's a great reminder that brand (self) can have positive or negative connotations, and that self-perception may be completely different from how others perceive you.
"What is your branding ~ or positioning ~ or self?" A potentially provocative question!
Then on further reflection I wonder if semantics is actually the real problem. Each term may well mean different things to different people and in any conversation, brief or proposal, you can never be sure that everyone means the same thing when they use words like "Brand" and "Positioning"
What do they each mean to you?
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Cracking the Knowledge Management Code
2 July 2009
It goes without saying the technology has transformed internal communication in recent years. Getting to grips with Email, Ezine, Blogging let alone the rigours of HTML can swallow whole weeks without much attention on the real job at hand.
Such progress in the IT aspects of internal communication has been Knowledge Management (KM). Capturing the corporate capability by persuading all staff to share their knowledge and
make it freely available to all their colleagues sounds like the Holy Grail. No longer does knowledge workout at 5:30pm along with employees’ goodwill. Now we start each day and each job a little bit further ahead than ever before because the organisation can learn
along with the individuals…
Without an effective IT system you have an unmanageable mass of
data. Data in an uncontrollable format does not become information and so can not become useful as knowledge But cracking the IT code is not the only issue. I was talking with a KM expert only today who said
“The fact is that many companies either do not see the necessity
to leverage on the knowledge that is already in their company or do not see the value in making it accessible to everybody. Many consider KM is about installing software. Get the right software and everything will just turn out fine. It is easy to the Board to forget the need to change peoples approach to the whole retaining and sharing knowledge game. If they purely go down the software route it will not work and the business will get nothing back and then KM gets the blame…”
The software is just one small piece of the KM jigsaw in my opinion. What is yours?
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