internal communication

Intranets are key to recovery in 2010, say surveys

/ Sharon O'Dea / Leave a comment

Each January, Jakob Neilsen’s annual intranet design annual is released. This showcases the top ten intranets of the year, and is a good indicator of trends in intranet design and usability.

This year’s Neilsen report found intranets are becoming a higher priority for organisations, intranet teams are growing in size, and increasing numbers feature mobile accessibility and social networking.

On the face of it, the improved functionality comes as no surprise. Mobile internet and social media has grown exponentially over the past few years. Our experience of using the web creates expectations of the kind of content and functionality we want at work too; as we rely on our iPhones to do everything for us when we’re out and about, we expect to be able to use our intranet on it too.

That intranet budgets and teams have continued to grow despite the long recession reflects a growing realisation that intranets can deliver real return on investment for organisations.

Significant and measurable returns can be made by making information easier to find – quite simply, less time spent searching for things is more time people can spend doing something worthwhile. Functionality like self-service HR can see sizable reductions in administration costs.

Less easy to measure, though, is the value of the intranet in improving engagement. Last year’s MacLeod Review on Employee Engagement (from the Department of Business, Innovation and Skills) found that more widespread adoption of employee engagement approaches could impact positively on UK competitiveness and performance, and meet the challenges of increased global competition.

Good intranets not only make life a little easier for colleagues, they improve communication, facilitate collaboration, enable people to connect and have their say, and help workers feel part of their organisation. This, in turn, encourages employees to say, stay, and strive.

Another study out this month, from communication research specialists Melcrum, would suggest organisations have heeded Macleod’s call for greater focus on engagement.

In the survey of 2,212 senior communicators, 40% said the business case for social media within internal communication was clear and that there is visible return on investment, while 53% of those who responded said they were planning to increase investment in their organisation’s intranet in 2010.

The results of this study show that not only are organisations investing in good intranet design, but also in functionality and content. When asked about channels used for internal communication, the intranet ranked as the most effective channel by 73% of senior communicators worldwide, with a clear majority believing webcasts and video would grow in importance in 2010.

Respondents highlighted a wide range of business benefits from investment in internal social media. These included improved levels of employee engagement (21%), better communication with remote workers (16%), knowledge management and collaboration (25%), improving employee feedback (20%) and making business leaders more visible and accessible (14%).

Both the Neilsen and Melcrum studies show intranets are maturing. Increasingly they’re moving away from being a simple repository of information and becoming instead a platform for communication, collaboration and engagement.

Victoria Mellor, CEO of Melcrum said: “There is a fundamental shift happening with how information flows inside an organization. Peer-to-peer online networks are enabling real-time feedback from employees to inform decision-making, not to mention facilitating collaboration between remote workers.”

With budgets tight, the pressure is on for organisations to demonstrate value for money. But with growing evidence of the business benefits of investment in intranets and internal social media, it’s clear they’ll play an even more important role in 2010.

Google Wave for Internal Communication

/ Sharon O'Dea / 4 Comments

After my first post about Google Wave, I asked if any other internal communicators would be interested in trying Wave to see what, if any, applications it could have in our field.

And so a couple of weeks back I was joined online by BlueBallRoom’s Jenni Wheller, and Mark Detre, who’s responsible for Google’s own internal communications across the EMEA region (good to see Google eating their own dogfood here).

The three of us began by having a simple play around with the features, adding maps and pictures to the discussion. Once we’d got the hang of it, we began to think about how we might be able to use it to improve internal communciation.

Jenni asked “‘I’m not sure what it adds to the mix – i understand that it integrates various platforms that we all use but do we like keeping them seperate? do we need them all together like this? I feel like i’m skyping!’

However, by combining the live aspect of chat with the option of playback (asynchronicity) of email, it beocmes useful for dispersed teams.   In my last job, working for global charity, we had people working in pretty much every time zone. A platform that allows for people to watch the discussion before adding to it themselves, could be a real benefit to small but global organisations.

We talked about the potential for organisations to use Wave for specific communications. It would work very well for something like a live online chat with the CEO, where people could post questions in advance of the live event, and join in at the time or play back afterwards.

However, even with just three of us talking at once the conversation can be happening at several different points in the Wave, so it’s easy to miss bits of it.

Similarly, it’s quite easy to ‘zone out’ while on Wave. Tab over to an email, or answer a call, and it’s hard to remember where you left off.

Jenni, Mark and I agreed a Wave discussion, like a face-to-face meeting, would work a lot better with a chair or facilitator keeping participants on track.

You need different tools for different jobs, and this one would appear to work well for specific projects, allowing people to chat, email and share documents all in one place.  Mark said:

‘The main draw for me is that it brings everything together; for example, I do most of my drafting in Google docs, and I guess there’s also an easy way to insert those; it looks like Wave is best for businesses that do most of their work online or in the cloud’.

Few organisations are yet at that stage, though; this is a little premature for the rest of us, and would almost certainly be difficult to sell to colleagues. The potential is there, but we need resources as well as attitudes to catch up.

There’s still a long way to go before social media tools become the norm in the workplace. And even when they are, our existing channels remain useful. As I spotted when I visited Google recently, even in a high-tech environment the printed poster still remains effective.

Will it change the world? No. But will it help internal communicators? Possibly. We all have to make a call on what helps our own organisations to talk, listen and collaborate, and this is certainly a useful tool to add to the mix. Nonetheless, becoming more collaborative requires cultural change.

And that means changing our behaviours, not our tools.

If you’d like to read and join in the Internal Comms Wave, drop me a line and I’ll invite you in.

Thoughts on Portsmouth’s Facebook ban

/ Sharon O'Dea / 9 Comments

Portsmouth Council announced this week they’ve decided to ban access to Facebook from its computers after it was revealed staff spent an average of 400 hours a month on the site.

Council bans on Facebook are hardly new; many have restrictions on access thanks to the requirements of Government Connect. But this story focussed on “waste”, noting 400 hours a month equates to between five and six minutes per month spent on the site by each of the 4,500 PC-based staff.

Firstly, the statistic isn’t a sound one; Portsmouth Council admit they can’t differentiate between business and personal use, nor between dwelling and active browsing, which means they don’t know how much of that 400 hours is clocked up by windows left open while the user does something else.

Second, the headline doesn’t reflect the real issue behind this story. Organisations have had this debate many times already, over the potential for employees to waste time if given a telephone, email, or access to the internet. In all of these cases, it’s a manager’s job to tackle any perceived timewasting, and so too it should be for Facebook. But instead of looking at the quality of performance management, Portsmouth Council are trying to solve the problem from the centre.

This strikes me as throwing the baby out with the bathwater. People are already talking about us on social networks. We can either choose to ignore those conversations, or we can listen to and learn from them.

As Carl Heggarty notes, would we consider a member of staff visiting a village hall and listening to community issues and communicating with them about councils services a waste of time, or would that be considered community engagement?

Employees listening out for the organisation on social networks gives us an extended network of “eyes and ears” able to highlight problems and bring them to our attention before they spiral out of control and become significant reputational risks.

By banning access, we prevent employees from listening on our behalf, identifying problems so they can be given attention by more conventional means. But heavy-handed bans also prevent employees from speaking for us. Employees can be powerful advocates for what we do, and are likely to speak highly of us in their social networks, both on and offline. By banning access we limit employees ability to advocate for us online.

By limiting the extent to which informed and engaged employees can advocate on its behalf, Portsmouth Council is failing to get the full value from its internal communications.

Finally, centrally-imposed bans on access could also be said to have a negative impact on employee engagement. Hertzberg argues that dissatisfaction with employment is primarily motivated by company policy, supervision, salary, interpersonal relations and working conditions (what he termed ‘Hygiene Factors’). Portsmouth’s policy of blocking social networking sites could be seen to create dissatisfaction among employees, as it could be seen to be heavy-handed centralised supervision, and limits their ability to manage their work-life balance and build working relationships.

The Work Foundation found access to new technology affects how people view their organisational culture: “People who have access to newer technologies are more likely to characterise their organisation as one that is loyal with mutual trust, that is committed to innovation and development or is focussed on achievement and not rule bound”.

The holy grail of employee engagement is discretionary effort. Engage your staff and they repay you by investing more time and effort into their work; fail to engage – or actively disengage – and employees are not motivated to contribute more than the bare minimum.

A more nuanced look at Portsmouth’s Facebook ban might reveal it has a negative impact both on employee engagement and on community engagement, resulting in far more “waste” than the five to six minutes a month currently spent on Facebook.

Podcasting for internal communication

/ Sharon O'Dea / 2 Comments

Tools like YouTube and AudioBoo mean we can produce and distribute audio and video more easily than ever. Abi Signorelli, Head of Internal Communications at Virgin Media, has been experimenting with AudioBoo for a few months. She’s been using it to record her thoughts, and for impromptu interviews with people she bumps into.

It’s certainly an interesting idea. Using real voices from real employees can really bring messages to life, and arguably help to break down organisational silos.

Video, too, is cheaper and easier to produce than ever. Where I work we’ve been using the cheap and ridiculously simple Flip Video to record and share interviews and footage from events. The proliferation of mobile phone cameras means people no longer expect well-produced, slick corporate video. The homemade quality of videos from Flip or mobile phones lends a shaky, grainy authenticity that viewers are now used to seeing on You Tube.

YouTube is now the second most popular search engine in the world – which just goes to show people are actively looking for multimedia content.

But are people looking for it at work? Recent research at a large telecoms company found less than 4% of employees are interested in watching online video from their employer, while actual hit rates on their corporate videos are even lower. Similarly, Abi’s Audioboo advertures have stimulated some interesting debate, but the recordings themselves attract comparatively tiny internal audiences within Virgin Media.

All of which suggests that hype surrounding pod- and vodcasting is overblown. But in my view that would be too simplistic.

History shows our media consumption habits at home create expectations of the media we consume at work. So as more of us access online video or podcasts regularly, it follows we’ll expect the same media rich content in our employee communications.

Short videos from our recent community festival had surprisingly high numbers of views, and some great feedback from colleagues who said they appreciated seeing some of the events going on across the borough.

But that’s not to say in a few years time we’ll all be scrapping our staff magazines in favour of audiovisual content.

First, audiences have to jump through quite a few hoops to access podcasts. Even simple steps like having to download the file to listen, or even plug in headphones, are reasons not to bother. In organisations like mine – with a high proportion of non-wired audiences – the barriers to access can be huge.

Even for desk-based audiences, video and audio is more difficult to access than traditional print and online communications. A recording, even if really well made, takes considerably longer to consume than the same amount of information in text form. So while they’re cheap to make, they cost more in staff time to consume.

Those who are likely to take the extra steps and extra time to consume video or podcasts are those who are already highly engaged. Those who aren’t will need some strong motivation to actively access information in video and postcasts.

So how do we do that? Simply: make it worthwhile for the end user.

We need to think why would someone take time out of their day to view/listen to this? Would you take ten minutes out of a busy day to listen to corporate news in audio form? Probably not.

But would you take some time out to watch a video of colleagues at a sports day? Or a preview of a new product? Possibly.

Its certainly not suitable for every kind of message; the disincentives to access mean it certainly can’t be relied on for business critical information.

But nor should we write off podcasting for internal comms just yet. Video and audio can bring colour and tone to communications that traditional channels can’t. With home consumption of online audio and video expected to continue to grow, as well as increasing numbers of people working remotely, audio and video look set to play an increasingly important role in the internal comms mix.

In the meantime, it’s good to experiment. You can listen to Abi’s AudioBoos here. Why not add your own?

Old school comms at Google

/ Sharon O'Dea / 2 Comments

I’m an internal comms geek. So when I went to Google’s London HQ this week I was really surprised that their internal comms people favour the old school poster-in-toilet approach.

Proof positive that even in the most tech-savvy of environments you still need traditional print and face-to-face internal comms channels.

But in the loo? Is that an appropriate environment to be advertising in? Internal communicators are pretty split on the issue.

More on GoogleLocalGov soon.

Falling trust in institutions: what does it mean for communicators?

/ Sharon O'Dea / Leave a comment

Each January PR and marketing giant Edelman publish an annual Trust Barometer. It’s useful reading for communicators in all disciplines, as a temperature check on who and what people trust.

2009’s Trust Barometer – the result of a survey conducted across 20 countries – found trust in institutions had fallen to an all-time low, with 62 per cent saying they trusted businesses less this year than last.

The Trust Barometer shows strong connections between trust in a brand and willingness to advocate it to others; 77 per cent said they’d criticise the products or services of a business they did not trust to friends or colleagues. This presents a real challenge for communicators, tasked with restoring the public’s faith and re-building trust.

After six months that have seen banking bail-outs, widespread job losses and the MPs expenses scandal, Edelman decided to break with tradition and conduct a mid-year survey to see how the picture has changed since the winter. Their mid-year trust report update, published today, shows some encouraging ‘green shoots’ in the picture across six of the countries surveyed last December – the USA, the UK, France, Germany, India and China.

What’s unusual is that trust in business and in government are both heading in the same direction. This is in direct contrast to earlier surveys, which have shows them moving in opposite direction – with trust in government high when trust in business is low, and vice versa.

However, while in five of the countries surveyed trust in government and in business is growing, the opposite is true in the UK. Here trust in government has fallen by 2% since January (unsurprisingly, given it was conducted at the height of the expenses scandal), with trust in business falling by the same amount.

Responses to the question ‘How much do you trust the following institutions to do what is right?’ were especially interesting. Here in the UK, 44% trust business, 38% trust the government, but just 28% trust the media to do what’s right.

That’s quite an alarming, but confusing, statistic. The media are posited as the fourth estate in our democratic system; their role, it is suggested, is to hold public institutions to account on behalf of the public. Yet less than a third of people believe they do the right thing. So it appears that the public simultaneously believe the media when it is critical while at the same time being cynical about the media itself.

Moving on, the survey looks at what actions a company could take to rebuild trust. Number one on the list is “treat employees well”, with 94% of respondents agreeing. Coming in at number 4, with 91% agreement, is “communicate frequently and honestly”. This reinforces the findings of the MacLeod Review published this month, which emphasised the role of employee engagement in helping to rebuild the economy.

However, as communicators we are not immune from falling trust in institutions, including our own. The changing trust landscape means that we communicators need to think about audiences’ faith in the information we provide. If faith in businesses and other organisations is falling, does it follow that faith in our corporately-provided information is falling too? It seems to me there’s a need for more research in this area, particularly on the impact of falling trust in institutions on internal audiences.

If trust in corporate internal communications channels is falling, then we need to identify and work with those sources our audiences do trust. For instance, Edelman’s more detailed annual barometer out in January found that people trust and are highly influenced by their peers. Internal communicators could respond to this by placing a renewed emphasis on peer-to-peer or ‘viral’ communication.

Although there are some green shoots of recovery in the housing market, many experts are predicting unemployment will continue to rise throughout 2009. The public sector in particular is likely to see increasingly squeezed budgets for many years to come, which has obvious implications for employee engagement, and new challenges for public sector communicators.

As ever, Edelman’s survey provides some useful insights for those of us working in communications and engagement. It’ll be interesting to see how much the picture has changed in January 2010.

Join the conversation about trust on Twitter at @Edelman_Trust and follow the conversation with the hashtag #edeltrust.