If there’s anything that we’ve all learned through the Covid pandemic – and the ensuing pivot to new ways of working – it’s that we need to communicate effectively with employees. It sounds simple, but the reality can be messy when you’re trying to predict human behaviour. And it gets harder and harder as your organisation grows, changes and becomes increasingly dispersed.
At the most basic level, you have to communicate well at the right time so employees know what’s expected of them and what’s happening in the organisation. At a deeper level, for employees to feel engaged with your brand, give their best and become your strongest advocates, they have to see that you care about their views and they need to understand how and why their role contributes towards overall business objectives.
Building your brand internally – and using your positioning as the driving force for that – can lead to measurable success in many ways.
HSBC Marketplace: Sharing New Technology
Having launched a massive digital transformation across the business, HSBC’s digital teams and relationship managers across 64 countries/territories struggled to find information about new digital product solutions.
Marketplace was born – an internal knowledge sharing tool where colleagues can get the digital product solutions information they need, whenever and wherever they want it.
YoY data versus the beta version was nothing short of spectacular, with triple digit increases in unique visitors, total visits, page views and showcased products. And with 38% of all content provided proactively, it’s clear that Marketplace has engaged internal audiences around the world as an invaluable one stop source/knowledge sharing tool for HSBC’s digital product information.
Serco: Safety First Film Series
Serco specialise in the delivery of essential public services, with over 50,000 people working in defence, transport, justice, immigration, healthcare and other citizen services around the world. They wanted to promote the idea that safety at work is everyone’s responsibility and worked with Big Button to develop a campaign, introducing simple behaviours that could achieve a significant reduction in accidents and incidents at work.
Serco charted an equivalent cost savings of £150,000 – achieving the goal to unite behavioural change with bottom line efficacy.
The primary tool to achieve this was a series of films. The evaluation of the impact the videos had on the internal audience not only proved the campaign’s success, but resulted in a reduction in health and safety incidents. By encouraging employees to embrace change in the way they approached workplace health and safety, Serco charted an equivalent cost savings of £150,000 – achieving the goal to unite behavioural change with bottom line efficacy.
GSK Consumer Healthcare: Office Redesign
Office design can be a huge factor in internal brand building. When GSK Consumer Healthcare’s Global and European businesses moved into a new office several years ago, the work environment was purposefully designed to bring the GSK Consumer Healthcare vision, values and brands to life. This was one aspect of a wider programme that saw the entire Consumer Healthcare division rebranded to dovetail into the business strategy.
To measure the success of the new space, a pre-move staff survey was conducted and redone two months post-move, with some remarkable results.
• Overall performance score more than doubled
• More than 80% of staff said they’re aware of the GSK CH vision – a one third increase
• More than four-fold increase in awareness of GSK CH brands
• 27% increase in awareness of GSK CH values
• Business performance awareness doubles
• Staff pride in workplace almost doubled to 78%, and people were almost five times prouder to bring visitors to the new environment
• 41% increase in the view that the GSK CH identity reflected by the workplace design
Plus the new environment exceeded industry benchmarks across all dimensions – especially noteworthy since pre-redesign GSK CH scored below benchmarks in almost all areas.
Eversheds Sutherland: Internal App
At the onset of the Covid-19 crisis, law firm Eversheds Sutherland’s typically office-based international employees were sequestered at home. Instead of simply disseminating leadership messaging or encouraging better work from home practices, Eversheds used a swiftly developed internal app to support its corporate wellbeing programme.
The app took on a life of its own, with employees the world over engaging with the content, developing their own content, and interacting with their colleagues and with the organisation
It used chat rooms, clubs, content for kids and fun ‘water cooler’ type content to create a collaborative working fabric, despite the limitations of the pandemic. The app took on a life of its own, with employees the world over engaging with the content, developing their own content, and interacting with their colleagues and with the organisation. Competitions, open house format, and a rewards scheme also helped integrate the Eversheds culture into the new normal, with longevity of app use proving its value.
In conclusion…
Most internal communicators know their audiences, but without real data they risk becoming ‘just another person with an opinion’. Measurement and benchmarking provide that real information, to prove the impact and value of internal communications. Do that to assess employee engagement and unlock budgets for internal initiatives like those cited, to bring people together and share knowledge through the use of technology, to encourage behavioural change through film, and to attest to the importance of the working environment, whether at home or in the office
