Employee Communications and Engagement

Experts have defined engagement as a persistent state of work fulfillment. This fulfillment translates into enthusiasm and passion, higher than average levels of concentration and focus, and an irresistible boost of energy. Indeed, passion, focus, and energy are key components of engagement. Take away any of these factors and engagement suffers.

The potential positive impact of engagement on the organization’s bottom line is substantial. In 2002, the Journal of Applied Psychology released a meta-analysis of 7,939 business units in 36 companies that related engagement to improvements in customer satisfaction, productivity, profits, turnover, and safety records. More recently, a 2006 study in the Journal of Managerial Psychology connected engagement to employee satisfaction and commitment.

Moderation governs employees’ energy. Simply put, workers cannot feel exhausted and be engaged at the same time. Interestingly, the 2003 study “Recovery, Work Engagement, and Proactive Behaviour” in the Journal of Applied Psychology connected regular repose and engagement. Moderation reminds us that people need to recharge their batteries.

Manager represents empowerment. Employees seem more engaged when they have some decision-making power and a greater sense of control over their jobs.

Moon symbolizes learning. In general, people are more engaged when activities tax their energy and intellect. This factor feeds employees’ confidence and sense of accomplishment, adding meaning to the job.

Read about the other eight M’s in this article in Training & Development,  Jan 2008 

Sometimes it’s darkest just before the light.  Here are 11 great articles to assess the times we’re in, and plan for better days.  

Five C’s for Communicating in this Crunch

We’ve developed a gut-check list of “Five C’s” to help guide communications on dire economic subjects, from news releases to corporate Web sites to internal communications.

10 Tips for a Challenging Economic Environment

9. Communicate authentically. Strong leaders acknowledge the challenges they struggle with and, by doing so, build trust among followers. Rather than being a sign of weakness, it’s a sign of strength.

Marketing and PR tactics, budgets likely to change during recession

What companies don’t realize is their marketing budget will go a lot further and create much more buzz in a down market. As your competition pulls back, you should become much more aggressive. When you do, you will achieve top-of-mind status and grab market share as the economy stabilizes and will be able to remain on top during the next upswing in the economy.

Are You a Media Savvy Leader? How Agency Heads Can Boost Results in a Tight Economy

I think the inability of the PR business to really comprehend what Web 2.0 is about is shocking. So, real leaders get in there and they take a look at the trends in media and online and get active there. For example, if you’re going to offer a CEO blog, you have to be prepared to spend an hour a day doing it—not every other day. Also important is understanding and respecting the online world’s mindset of sharing—it’s all about developing conversations with constituents.

Your website can thrive in a recession

It is 14 times cheaper to allow a customer to complete a task on a website than to have the customer complete the same task over the phone. The Web is 35 times cheaper for completing such a task than a face-to-face interaction. Isn’t that a compelling business case for a website during a recession?

Leading through uncertainty

The range of possible futures confronting business is great. Companies that nurture flexibility, awareness, and resiliency are more likely to survive the crisis, and even to prosper.

Time to Reboot: What to Expect in Politics, Policy and PR in 2009

For those in consumer PR, this will be a tough year as product-side clients retrench. But if you are engaged in advocacy PR, public affairs or crisis communications, 2009 may be a robust year for your business, especially if you can hitch things to the “change” agenda in Washington and on Wall Street.

Social Media Begins Forcing the Totally Transparent Layoff

The combination of social media technology such as Twitter—where people post updates about themselves online at Twitter.com—and a cultural shift toward greater personal disclosure means more and more employees will document details of their dismissal, said Jennifer Benz, a communications consultant based in San Francisco.

Give Data a Human Touch to Weather the Economic Storm

The key, say many experts, is to use customer data and analytics for its original purpose: forging stronger customer relationships.

Market Smarter in 2009: Make the Right Choices

Remember two words: frequency, consistency. Even with finite resources, it’s vital to maintain a level of frequency and consistency. It is crucial to stay in front of your customers and prospects. You should never disappear for stretches at a time. If that means you need to focus marketing efforts on a few of your strongest market sectors, do it.

5 Lessons on Marketing for the Recession

Lesson: Keep hiring channels open and be pickier than ever. For anyone who hasn’t read Hard Times or any of the Studs Terkel interview compilations, they are an incredible insight into people’s attitudes and behaviors throughout history. I highly recommend 

INTEL

Always pause and think before posting. That said, reply to comments in a timely manner, when a response is appropriate. But if it gives you pause, pause. If you’re about to publish something that makes you even the slightest bit uncomfortable, don’t shrug it off and hit ‘send.’ Take a minute to review these guidelines and try to figure out what’s bothering you, then fix it. If you’re still unsure, you might want to discuss it with your manager or legal representative. Ultimately, what you publish is yours – as is the responsibility. So be sure.

Perception is reality. In online social networks, the lines between public and private, personal and professional are blurred. Just by identifying yourself as an Intel employee, you are creating perceptions about your expertise and about Intel by our shareholders, customers, and the general public-and perceptions about you by your colleagues and managers. Do us all proud. Be sure that all content associated with you is consistent with your work and with Intel’s values and professional standards.

It’s a conversation. Talk to your readers like you would talk to real people in professional situations. In other words, avoid overly pedantic or “composed” language. Don’t be afraid to bring in your own personality and say what’s on your mind. Consider content that’s open-ended and invites response. Encourage comments. You can also broaden the conversation by citing others who are blogging about the same topic and allowing your content to be shared or syndicated.

How should employees behave as company representatives on social media platforms?

1. Transparency. Should employees acting as company agents identify themselves? Should they use their own names? Should they list their job title? Should there be specific rules that apply their use of photographs or avatars?
2. Confidentiality. What information are employees allowed to disclose? Is this information already public? If not, does it require specific approvals? Who gives permission for release of non-public information? Is the information of competitive value?
3. Financials. How should employees discuss corporate results or financial situation? This is particularly important for publically traded companies where regulatory agencies are involved.
4. Copyright. How are intellectual property (aka IP) issues to be handled? What are the internal procedures? To whom should employees address their questions?
5. Competitors. Since social media forums tend to be open to the public, how should employees treat competitors and their representatives? Are there specific procedures that they should follow?

You must decide – as an organization and as an individual team leader – what spirit you intend to convey with the participation of your employees in social media.

If your intention is for them to be simply mechanical amplification vehicles for a very carefully crafted marketing message, that can work. You’ll likely see some results in terms of absolute reach and volume of short-term message resonance. You will sacrifice a degree of credibility on behalf of your individual representatives and personality and genuineness on behalf of your brand in favor of a consistent, safe(-r) message. You will also likely sacrifice culturally, since your employees will realize they’re part of a marketing machine, not someone who is entrusted to help build and shape a brand.

If your intention is for employees to become individual voices for your organization and unique representatives of your company’s values, personality and diversity, that can work too. You’ll likely see results in terms of trust and affinity for your brand as well as better identification of your advocates, both internal and external. You will sacrifice a certain amount of stability and potential consistency of message in favor of communications that are more unique and individual. You’ll also sacrifice some predictability around outcomes and need to rely on strong education and culture initiatives to guide your teams and hone their own sense of good judgment.

The bottom line: governance and guidance is important. But it’s a means to more scalable social media, not the end.

We’ve said many times here — and will continue to — that social business transformation is far more cultural than it is operational. Getting your employees involved is no different, and your policies and guidelines need to consider not just what you don’t want to happen, but instead what values, vision and intent you want your teams’ social media participation to convey.

Read full article via sideraworks.com

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.

A lot of organizations think they know what information employees want. Unfortunately, many seem to get the answers wrong.  When employees don’t get what they need to know, they don’t buy-in. They don’t feel a sense of connection with the organization, and they don’t understand the business.

That’s interesting on a lot of levels, not the least because employees want to know many of the same things that senior managers want to know.  According to our research representing more than 500,000 employees, here’s some inside information about what employees really want to know about their companies:

1. The business direction.

Where is the organization heading?  This is essential to an employee’s career self-analysis. Organizations that have strong values and a compelling vision are more appealing than those which do not. High performing employees understand the business direction and how they fit in to the whole.

2. What is changing, when it will change and what needs to change.

Change may not be constant, but it is frequent.  It’s critical that employees think in terms of what changes and improvements they need to make in their own work. To do so, they must understand the changes occurring or planned within the world around them.

3. The reasons behind decisions.

Organizations leave the reasons out of their communication far too frequently. When employees doesn’t know the reasons, they speculate ­ and often assume a far more negative reason than reality.  Understanding reasons leads to buy-in and commitment. Plus, sharing the reasons behind decisions demonstrates trust, which is in increasingly short supply these days.

4. An open, two-way environment.

No one aspires to a closed, one-way environment. But the best and brightest take openness for granted. It’s a given that they will be able to freely share their input throughout the organization.  For many managers, that’s threatening, and they respond by shutting off the flow of information.  Organizations still struggling with open dialogue will be challenged to retain their top employees.

5. How changes will affect them and their colleagues. 

At the very least, employees need to know that someone is considering the effect on them and those close to them. Managers sometimes leave out the effects because they are “negative.” But employees can handle bad news; what they cannot handle is not knowing. Also, determining the effect doesn’t have to be left to the manager ­ he or she can engage the employee in dialogue about the potential effect.  That increases the perception that the organization cares about the employee.

These five things can contribute to better manager-employee relationships, to the work environment and to retention. It’s our job as communicators to help our management understand these five items so that every time they speak with employees, this is what comes out of their mouths.

And then after they mention these items, the next best thing for management to do is shut up and listen to what employees have to say.

But that’s for another article.

Joe Williams

Having worked in internal communication in a variety of organizations since 1997, I’ve seen and heard a lot of myths and aphorisms about “good communication” which, alas, are either untrue or deeply overstated.

Here are eight of the real doozies—I’m sure there are others; if you know of any, pile into the comments below:

Social Media is new

This one is an absolute classic—the idea that employees talk with each other informally and that those informal conversations are important is one that is as old as any organization.  The only thing that’s new about social media is the technology—and how it makes this process easier.  Word of mouth is timeless.

Treat employees like customers

One of the true “doh” ideas on employee communication, even if it did spawn the “internal marketing” industry in the ‘90s.

Workplace relationships are far richer than the ones employees have with their cereals and even their cars.  Workplaces are where employees hold most of their personal relationships, exert much of their personal efforts and energies, and are where they derive most of the resources for the other aspects of their lives.

Employees are much more like citizens than like customers.
Good communication is free

I remember seeing this howler recently on some HR blog somewhere.  It somehow places no value on the time involved with preparing, delivering and understanding any message—assuming that employees don’t work for free either.  And some good communication really does cost money too.

Employees can’t say no

One of the big myths of internal communication is the assumption that, at the end of the day, the employee is not free to disagree with or resist the messages he or she is being given.  I’ve found this particularly prevalent in American companies, who take a directive tone in their communication much more frequently than do European companies.  The downside of presenting something as fact to staff who disagree is that can act as a charter for sabotage or at least reinforce resistance. And, despite the best efforts of corporations, resistance has hardly been eliminated from corporate cultures.

Use the disembodied “we”

Nothing smells of bad communication—not to mention resistance to individual accountability—like the use of the disembodied “we” to communicate an organization’s policies, stances,  or changes in official behavior.  Such use of the “royal ‘We’” can also be highly disempowering  and even feed resentment among those who don’t see themselves as part of that “we”.  My core writing principle—no quote, no story.

Good communication is all about recognition
Recognition is important—sometimes even critical to employee retention and morale.  But that doesn’t necessarily mean that every bit of employee communication needs to be larded up with 25-year service awards for staff at far-away cafeterias.  An over-emphasis on recognition in internal communication can get in the way of urgent and strategic messaging.  Where possible, keep the recognition machine ring-fenced from more pressing communication activities.

It’s all about the bosses
One online conversation I saw recently discussed the extent to which an over-emphasis on quoting CEOs and senior executives was driving down readership for a certain tool—to the point where the editors stopped quoting senior management entirely.  I personally think there needs to be a balance—CEOs and senior executives are effective at setting parameters and policies, but stories from the field are far better at bringing those things to life.

Line Management Cascades are the best form of communication

To many in corporations, the only “real” form of internal communication is the line management cascade—the formal presentation of authorized corporate information by the line manager to his/her staff, to be repeated step by step until the presentation reaches the shop floor unscathed.

But while cascades do an excellent job of reminding people “who’s the boss”, cascades fail on many other grounds.  For one thing, they move with bovine velocity, with long gaps between delivery by a boss and by his/her direct reports, magnified over geography and hierarchy.

Secondly, the further they move, the more corrupted their tone and content become—particular when managers omit sections for time reasons (or perhaps, darker motives), or when they add in inappropriate inflections or gestures (air quotes for a new bit of terminology, for instance).  Third—while less prevalent perhaps most damning—they inevitably omit information or smooth over gaps or rationales, which then prompt a surge of back-channel communication to get clarifications or seek to clarify through the distribution of rumors.

While, as my colleague Liam Fitzpatrick would say, “internal communication is not rocket science”, I would also argue that it’s neither voodoo nor witchcraft either.  Being able to take on clients and bosses who seek to play “communication strategist” and overspecify tools and tactics is one way to help ensure your own effectiveness in these interesting times.

by Mike Klein—The Intersection, Brussels

It’s rare these days to find a rational manager who doesn’t have at least a modest appreciation for the value of effective employee engagement.  It’s more a question of degree.  How much of it do you want … how much do you appreciate its impact on business outcomes … how far will you go to get it?

One company, OTTO, has set a standard that’s hard to beat.  What’s more, they’ve proven the kind of results it can produce on the bottom line.  Based in Carpentersville, Illinois, near Chicago, OTTO is a highly successful manufacturer of high-precision electrical controls and communication components.

Just how far has OTTO gone to engage people – inside and outside the company – to create that success?

Beginning with Basics
For starters, they offer employees an array of development opportunities including instruction in blueprint reading, math skills, GED preparation, English-as-a-second-language courses and more. They’ve also created a culture of idea generation among employees that produces a constant flow of product innovations.  For a lot progressive companies like OTTO, though, that’s just table stakes.

Investing with Vision
Several years ago, the company did something extraordinary that raises engagement to a whole new level.  President, Tom Roeser, decided to invest in the housing and commercial real estate market – not as a speculator, but as a visionary.  His goal was to produce a three-pronged benefit for the business, for employees and for the community at large.  He saw an opportunity with the flood of foreclosures on the market, and the company purchased 80 homes and town houses.  Then they gut-renovated the houses and put them up for sale – many for their own employees.  Making it even easier for people, they also provide short-term financing, working with Kane County which provides interest-free loans up to $20,000 to help new homeowners get started.

Committing to Community
Aside from making housing affordable for employees and others in the community, the initiative has stabilized neighborhoods and eliminated gangs that were squatting in abandoned houses.  But there’s more. Roeser also led an extensive effort to renovate the historic buildings where the company houses its manufacturing operations.  He made that decision even though he could’ve torn them down and put up a new factory for half the money. Then he took it a step further and renovated other historic structures near the downtown district.

Benefiting Business
Just a nice guy with a big heart bent on making people happy? Maybe a little.  But the main reason he does it is because it’s good business.  The company is marking its 50^th anniversary this year, and they’ve got plenty to celebrate.  With a workforce of 530 employees, company sales this year will be near $100 million. What’s more, they’ve been profitable 49 of their 50 years in business.  The future looks just as bright as their storied past with longtime blue-chip customers lined up like Deere, Motorola, Caterpillar, the Secret Service and others.

Call it a coincidence, but to me it all adds up to one clear conclusion.  If you want people inside and outside the company to go the extra mile for your business, you need to take the lead by doing extraordinary things for them.  Or to put it another way, what goes around comes around – usually many times over.

Les Landes, Landes & Associates

Buy Les’s webinar replay: Getting to the Heart of Employee Engagement

Most leaders agree that effective collaboration is more important than ever in today’s turbulent business environment. In a “do-more-with-less” reality, it takes ongoing teamwork to produce innovative, cost effective and targeted products and services. In fact, a company’s very survival may depend on how well it can combine the potential of its people and the quality of the information they possess with their ability (and willingness) to share that knowledge throughout the organization.

But here’s the problem . . .

The collaboration that is so critical to organizations is being blocked by knowledge-hoarding silo structures and the accompanying “silo mentality” that has become synonymous with power struggles, lack of cooperation, and loss of productivity.

So what’s to be done? Here, from A to Z, are my most successful strategies, based on 25 years of helping clients around the world tear down silos, reduce conflicts, and increase collaboration.

A. Find ways to ACKNOWLEDGE collaborative contributors. Recognize and promote people who learn, teach and share. And penalize those who do not. In all best-practices companies, those hoarding knowledge and failing to build on ideas of others face visible and serious career consequences. In those top companies, employees who share knowledge, teach, mentor, and work across departmental boundaries are recognized and rewarded.

B. Watch your BODY LANGUAGE. All leaders express enthusiasm, warmth, and confidence — as well as arrogance, indifference, and displeasure through their expressions, gestures, touch, and use of space. If leaders want to be perceived as credible and collaborative, they need to make sure that their verbal messages are supported (not sabotaged) by their nonverbal signals.

C. Focus on the CUSTOMER. Nothing is more important in an organization – whether it’s a for-profit company or a non-profit group – than staying close to the end user of the service or product you offer and encouraging feedback and 2-way dialogue. When you build collaborative relationships with your customers, you give them power and investment in your organization’s success.

D. DIVERSITY is crucial to harnessing the full power of collaboration. Experiments at the University of Michigan found that, when challenged with a difficult problem, groups composed of highly adept members performed worse than groups whose members had varying levels of skill and knowledge. The reason for this seemingly odd outcome has to do with the power of diverse thinking. Group members who think alike or are trained in similar disciplines with similar knowledge bases run the risk of becoming insular in their ideas. Instead of exploring alternatives, a confirmation bias takes over and members tend to reinforce one another’s predisposition. Diversity causes people to consider perspectives and possibilities that would otherwise be ignored.

E. ELIMINATE the barriers to a free flow of ideas. Everyone has knowledge that is important to someone else, and you never know whose input is going to become an essential part of the solution. When insights and opinions are ridiculed, criticized or ignored, people feel threatened and “punished” for contributing. They typically react by withdrawing from the conversation. Conversely, when people are free to ask “dumb” questions, challenge the status quo, and offer novel–even bizarre–suggestions, then sharing knowledge becomes a collaborative process of blending diverse opinion, expertise and perspectives.

F. To enhance collaboration, analyze and learn from FAILURE. Leading innovators like Apple see their failures as being as insightful as their successes. The goal is not to eliminate all errors, but to analyze mistakes in order to create systems that more quickly detect and correct mistakes before they become fatal.

G. Collaboration takes GUIDANCE by managers who know how to harness the energies and talents of others while keeping their own egos in check. Successful organizations require leaders at all levels who manage through positive influence and inclusion rather than by position.

H. Eliminate HOARDING by challenging the “knowledge is power” attitude. Knowledge is no longer a commodity like gold, which holds (or increases) it’s worth over time. It’s more like milk – fluid, evolving, and stamped with an expiration date. And, by the way, there is nothing less powerful than hanging on to knowledge whose time has expired.

I. Focus on INNOVATION. Creativity is triggered by a cross-pollination of ideas. It is in the combination and collision of ideas that creative breakthroughs most often occur. When an organization focuses on innovation, it does so by bringing together people with different backgrounds, perspectives, and expertise – breaking down barriers and silos in the process.

J. JOIN the social media revolution and utilize Web 2.0 technologies – tools and processes that allow people to share opinions, insights, experiences, and perspectives in order to collaborate and to self-organize.

K. Realize that there are two kinds of KNOWLEDGE in your organization: Explicit knowledge can be transferred in a document or entered in a database. Tacit knowledge needs a conversation, a story, a relationship. Make sure you are developing strategies to capture both.

L. LEADERS at all levels of an organization can nurture collaboration within their own work group or staff. And the most successful of these leaders do so by taking the time and effort necessary to make people feel safe and valued. They emphasize people’s strengths while encouraging the sharing of mistakes and lessons learned. They set clear expectations for outcomes and clarify individual roles. They help all members recognize what each of them brings to the team. They model openness, vulnerability and honesty. They tell stories of group successes and personal challenges. And most of all, they encourage and respect everyone’s contribution.

M. MIX it up by rotating personnel in various jobs and departments around the organization, by creating cross-functional teams, and by inviting managers from other areas of the organization to attend (or lead) your team meetings.

N. Employees with multiple NETWORKS throughout the organization facilitate collaboration. You can accelerate the flow of knowledge and information across boundaries by encouraging workplace relationships and communities. Use a tool like Social Network Analysis (SNA) to create a visual model of current networks so you can reinforce the connections and help fill the gaps.

O. Insist on OPEN and transparent communication. In an organization, the way information is handled determines whether it becomes an obstacle to or an enabler of collaboration. Employees today need access to information at any time. From any place.

P. Collaboration is a PARTNERSHIP. As one savvy leader put it, “To make collaboration work, you’ve got to treat people the way you want to be treated. It’s pretty simple, really. Treat all employees as your partners. Because they are.”

Q. Ask the right QUESTIONS. At the beginning of a project, ask: What information/knowledge do we need? Who are the experts? Who in the organization has done this before – do we have this on a database? Who else will need to know what we learn? How do we plan to share/hand off what we learn?

R. The success of any organization or team – its creativity, productivity, and effectiveness – hinges on the strength of the RELATIONSHIPS of its members. Collaboration is enhanced when employees get to know one another as individuals. So when you hold offsite retreats, organization-wide celebrations, or workplace events, be sure to provide opportunities for “social” time and personal relationships. Taking time to build this “social capital” at the beginning of a project will also increase the effectiveness of a team later on.

S. Collaboration is communicated best through STORIES – of successes, failures, opportunities, challenges, and knowledge accumulated through experience. Find those stories throughout your organization. Record them. Share them.

T. TRUST is the foundation for collaboration. It is the conduit through which knowledge flows. Without trust, an organization loses its emotional “glue.” In a culture of suspicion people withhold information, hide behind psychological walls, and withdraw from participation. If you want to create a networked organization, the first and most crucial step is to build a culture of trust.

U. Combating silo mentality requires UNIFYING goals.  Business unit leaders must understand the overarching goals of the total organization and the importance of working in concert with other areas to achieve those crucial strategic objectives.

V.  The incentive to collaborate is the VALUE of the exchange to both the organization and the individual. When the assets and benefits of productive collaboration are made visible, silos begin to break down.

W. Your WORKPLACE layout encourages or impedes the way the organization communicates. To facilitate knowledge sharing, you need to create environments that stimulate both arranged and chance encounters. Attractive break-out areas, coffee bars, comfortable cafeteria chairs, even wide landings on staircases – all of these increase the likelihood that employees will meet and linger to talk.

X. Take a tip from XEROX. It discovered that real learning doesn’t take place in the classroom – or in any formal setting. In fact, people were found to learn more from comparing experiences in the hallways than from reading the company’s official manuals, going online to a knowledge repository, or attending training sessions.

Y. Collaboration is crucial for YOUR success. We’re witnessing the death of “The Lone Ranger” leadership model, where one person comes in with all the answers to save the day. We now know that no leader, regardless of how brilliant and talented, is smarter than the collective genius of the workforce.

Z. Forget about reaching the ZENITH. Collaborative cultures are learning cultures – and knowledge sharing is an ongoing process, not an end point.

Carol Kinsey Goman, Ph.D. is the author of nine books including CREATIVITY IN BUSINESS and  “THIS ISN’T THE COMPANY I JOINED” — How to Lead in a Business Turned Upside Down. She delivers keynote speeches and seminars to association and business audiences around the world. For more information or to book Carol as a speaker at one of your events, please call: 510-526-1727, email: CGoman@CKG.com, or visit her website: http://www.CKG.com.

On April 1, a remarkable story in automotive history will come to an end. Well, not the story itself – it’s too good – but the 26-year-old “experiment” that created it will be a thing of the past.

It all began in 1984, when General Motors and Toyota decided to scratch one another’s proverbial backs with a joint venture called New United Motor Manufacturing, Inc. (NUMMI). The primary motivation for Toyota was to get a foothold for manufacturing automobiles in the U.S. – mainly to stem the public outcry over U.S. auto jobs going to Japan. As for GM, they wanted to learn how to make high-quality small cars that were profitable – which the Japanese proved they could do. As a bonus, GM would also learn how to apply Toyota techniques in other plants throughout their operations.

From Worst to First
Most companies taking on that kind of venture would try it in a plant where they had a strong foundation to build on. Instead, they picked the worst plant in the GM system – in Fremont, California. It was so bad that GM had to shut it down completely two years earlier. Relations between labor and management were incessantly contentious and hostile. Some say they spent more time filing and fighting grievances than making automobiles. What’s more, the product quality was laughable. Cars wound up with the wrong bumpers, steering wheels missing, scratches and dents everywhere. Then they had another crew at the end of the line to repair all the defects.

So when NUMMI was announced, few people thought it would succeed. Not only did they reopen the problem plant – they hired back the same people, believing as Deming always said, problems aren’t about the people, but the system. Before they started operating, though, a sizeable contingent of workers went to Japan to learn the legendary “Toyota way,” working side-by-side with their Japanese “brothers.” It was a landmark event that transformed people’s lives.

You can learn about the details from many sources, including a recent story that ran on National Public Radio.  But at the end of their time together in Japan, a lot of grizzled, hard-bitten workers were literally in tears during the celebration they held before heading back to launch the Fremont operation. They had been given something few of them had known before – a sense of pride and purpose – and the impact on employee engagement proved to be profound.

Marketing is More about What You Do than What You Say
When production started, results were meteoric. Almost immediately, quality and productivity reached levels that paralleled other Toyota plants. Everyone noticed … many cheered … but for reasons that are hard to believe yet easy to understand, little changed for many years elsewhere at the U.S. automaker – despite considerable effort from numerous people within GM. By the time quality became the rule rather than the exception throughout the company a few years ago, it was too late. Even aggressive marketing efforts that touted improved quality initially failed to convince potential customers – too many years of exaggerated claims and poor performance.  Then just when GM started to recover, the economy collapsed, and they had to ask for bailout money to stay afloat.

Fremont is shutting down this week for two main reasons: GM pulled out of the venture in 2009, and Toyota decided it can handle U.S. production in other plants across the country. Although many are sad to see the plant close, its legacy continues. Perhaps the simplest and biggest lesson from NUMMI is that employee engagement and cooperative systems aren’t just nice things to have. They’re the cornerstone of business success – and the most compelling force for effective marketing a company can pursue.

Les Landes, Landes & Associates

Buy Les’s webinar replay: Getting to the Heart of Employee Engagement

An employee describes what led to leaving a job they loved, in an organization they respected, and people whom they enjoyed working with.

“Why did I leave? Good question. I was tired. Not like you might think, although I was physically tired sometimes.  It might sound funny, but was tired in spirit and tired of feeling that way. 

 “I had been at the company for about eight years when I left.  I really wanted that job and was excited when I got it. It was someplace I really wanted to be. For the first five years I was as engaged as they come. I felt like it was my company.

“When I started management said they wanted employees to make the company better, to make a difference. Sign me up! Even with the long hours and bad take out food those were great times. I was always looking for things that might improve or scuttle a project or decision and talking to others about what was going on. I made a difference, learned all the time and helped the organization achieve its goals.  It doesn’t get much better than that, does it?

“Back then I knew I was appreciated too. Management would comment on my work and seek me out to participate in all kinds of  projects. And although my co-workers and I didn’t always agree, we always listened to each other. That was the really great part. The respect everyone had for each other. Those project meetings and even the casual hallway conversations built trust across the organization and gave us a deep understanding of the business. We knew we could count on each other and we were doing important work.

“About two years ago things started to change.  First we were growing and couldn’t keep up; everyone was spread so thin we were lucky to just keep things together. Then the market shifted and management decided to cut staff. It was the first time they didn’t ask for our involvement. Those of us who were left had to absorb additional work. There had always been pressure to meet short-term goals, but this was different. Suddenly speed trumped thinking and understanding.  Questions weren’t appreciated. I was seen as resistant to change, a troublemaker. It’s not true; I know speed is important, but we kept missing important information just when we needed to really be on our game.

“Eventually I stopped trying. I just did what I was told. I know I had insights that could have helped us, but it didn’t matter. No one was listening. While I still liked and respected my co-workers, even those I disagreed with, I eventually realized I didn’t know as much about the business and its problems as I had. Neither did they. We had stopped learning. Decisions weren’t as sharp. Relationships weakened. When we needed to pull together, not only was the ‘can do’ spirit missing, so was the real knowledge.

“Like I said, coming to work used to be fun. When it became just a job I finally admitted to myself it didn’t matter if I was there. I got tired of not having fun, so I left.”

Things to think about:

U.S.  job satisfaction continues to fall

Employee attitudes and expectations about work have changed

Employees are more confident about finding a job

The clock is ticking. How much fun are people having in your organization?

Roger D’Prix, author of  The Face-to-Face Communication Toolkit, admits face-to-face communication by first-line managers strikes many as anachronistic in our technological age.

John Gerstner, Communitelligence CEO, interviewed Roger for the Communitelligence webinar, Back to Face-to-Face: How to Re-ignite Your Manager Communication Program and would like to get a sense of how organizations are treating face-to-face these days.

Are you putting more or less emphasis on manager communication? What questions you would ask Roger, undoubtedly the most passionate and articulate advocate of face-to-face communication programs in the world?

You’re invited to join the conversation. Purchase the replay: Back to Face-to-Face: How to Re-ignite Your Manager Communication Program.

Employees are smart, aren’t we? We know a lot about our jobs, the people we work for and with, and have ideas about how things can be done differently or better.

We’re also really powerful: Our neighbors are asking us what our companies are like. We’re sharing information on our Facebook pages. According to the Edelman Trust Barometer, ‘people like us’ are more respected than CEOs and VPs of communications.

In these difficult economic times, making our workplaces more efficient, cutting costs, and innovating can be keys to survival.

It all starts with LISTENING. What are employees saying? Have you asked them how they think you can save costs, or how they think things should be done differently?

• Build into every employee communication a means for employees to give input and share their views. Don’t judge — be appreciative of what they have to say. Respond appropriately. If there is difficulty with an idea, say so and ask them how it might be addressed.
• If you hear a great idea and decide to implement it, reward the person(s) who suggested it. Celebrate it!
• Get out and talk with your people more. We’re too digital these days, but we’re hard-wired as a species to look each other in the eye and communicate. Great — and better — ideas come from discussing.

A place to start listening is with an employee survey. We work with the Great Place to Work Institute, which does the FORTUNE 100 Best Companies to Work For list and a small and mid-sized company list as well. The FORTUNE nominations are free (and due March 31, 2009) at greatplacetowork-100best.com. It’s a great tool to hear what your employees think of your workplace, and you get to see how you compare to the 100 Best Companies.

Best of all, you’ll have an opportunity to RESPOND. To make changes to improve your workplace and business.

Lee Weinstein

A recent Wall Street Journal article validated many of the tenets upon which I founded our firm nearly nine years ago. The article was entitled, “M&A Blind Spot. When negotiating a merger, leave a seat at the table for a marketing expert.” Unfortunately, this rarely happens.

The article talked about the integral role of marketing in securing and consummating a deal through internal acceptance by the organization. It reminded me of a statistic I heard nine years ago to explain M&A failures. Dr. Michael Hammer said “that 80% of mergers and acquisitions fail and that 50% of the reasons that they fail are due to personality and culture clashes between the companies and their leadership.” This is just as true today as it was a decade ago.

In my opinion, marketing and branding are lynchpins of a successful merger and acquisition. All too often, however, marketing is just an afterthought. Bankers, lawyers, and accountants have a place at the M&A table to ensure that the deal lives up to its potential in regards to risk minimization, asset evaluation, and legal due diligence. But where are the marketing experts? They should be at the table as well to ensure that the organization embraces the merger, positioning it with positive benefits inside and outside the company. Effective communications and messaging can win over all the critical stakeholders and ensure success.

Find me a lawyer, accountant, or banker who can manage all this:

1. Vision and direction
The company must have a clear sense of direction and vision after the M&A plan is laid out. The vision should be in simple language (with examples) so employees can relate to it and understand the benefits for themselves and their company. Marketing departments and their leadership are trained and experienced at creating this kind of messaging.
Creating a new, combined vision is clearly the role of marketing. Imposing one company’s vision on two merged entities often alienates half of the people the instant the merger is launched.

1. Overcoming uncertainty through employee engagement
   Without doubt, uncertainty is the number one issue after announcing a merger or acquisition. Overcome it by enrolling the staff through relevant messages and experiential communications programs.
   Marketing professionals understand consumer insights and motivations that translate into actionable tactics and communications. With knowledge and understanding, employees gain motivation. After internalizing the merger value proposition, they finally gain inspiration. They will be engaged and enrolled.

2. Understanding where your employees stand on issues
   Companies should segment their employee audience the same way they segment and analyze their external audiences to measure their acceptance of change and learn the best ways to communicate with them.
   These are the types of questions that marketing will answer:

– What motivates employees?
– What inspires them?
– What are their opinions of management and the corporation?
– How do employees relate to management and management communications?
– What forms of communication do the employees prefer?

Marketing professionals are analytical. They are in constant search of insights and buyer values that can be deployed toward an internal employee audience as well as an external one.

1. Experiential communications
   Particularly in an M&A situation, old forms of internal communications are no longer relevant or successful alone. New and more creative methods, with involving and entertaining communications, are more appropriate for adult learning.
   Media should vary by audience: video games, gadgets, viral campaigns, role playing, one-on-one meetings with senior folks, skits, outings, company-wide challenges, events, internal trade shows, a staff radio station, a webcast-whatever draws them in. The key idea is to engage the employees to participate in the exchange and learning.

2. Developing the message
   Like any other marketing campaign, internal branding starts by understanding the change readiness of the organization, followed by developing messages that are relevant and meaningful at all levels-corporate, team and department, and individual. The company needs a clear positioning and sense of what it aspires to be.
   The messages should be presented by the leaders of the organization who know their business and the marketplace best.

3. Establishing brand ambassadors
   Seek out the critical internal stakeholders and opinion leaders for their support and help first, then build consensus within the organization.
   Involve the full spectrum of employees. Ask for their input into the program-they know the customers and the business from all angles.

4. Project management, not ad hoc effort
   Treat the plan like a program-management launch. Assign a great program manager and allocate the proper monetary and HR resources for the effort to succeed.
   Reinforcement is critical. Your employees need to see the message all the time, in lots of different media via different channels. You can emblazon it on a lapel pin, a parking-lot sign, a redesigned uniform, or a lunchroom banner. Or anywhere else that it makes sense to remind people.

5. Measurement and Feedback
   Take measurements and make adjustments. The campaign will need fine tuning as it gains momentum. Gauge how the organization’s culture is receiving the message and reacting to it. Then modify your emphasis as needed.
   Budget for post-campaign analysis and an audit of effectiveness. Conduct before-and-after employee surveys to measure business literacy, brand awareness, and awareness of M&A messages and corporate initiatives.
   In the end, what matters is an educated and aligned workforce motivated to get behind the sale, acquisition, or merger. You want your people to be inspired to work for your firm. They should be proud of what it stands for and what they do. If they care about being part of the process, they will spread the word to your clients and to each other. By enrolling your employees, you will accelerate the changes you have planned and get down to business faster, with fewer internal squabbles, and with a steady stream of re-energizing successes that will sustain itself over time.

Is your company facing a merger or acquisition, or just going through major changes such as ERP implementation or reengineering? Don’t forget to reserve a place at the table for professional marketing counsel. With marketing present as an equal partner with the lawyers, bankers, and accountants, you will ensure success of the merger and win over your employees, who are ultimately responsible for making it all happen. 

Hurricane Katrina is a distant memory for most people.  For others, the effects of that horrific event continue to be felt, and compelling stories continue to be told – some actually so wonderful that they take your breath away.  Just the other day, I saw a great story about the extraordinary response by Hancock Bank after the mega-storm had passed.  It came from a blog posting on the website of Realized Worth, a firm with considerable passion for corporate social responsibility.

Aside from the heroic proportions of how Hancock dived in head-first to help people cope with the crisis, the story is all the more remarkable for the impact it had on the bank’s long term business.  Even though the events took place nearly seven years ago now, the story has a timeless message that is well worth retelling for people like me who somehow missed it the first time around.

Here’s a slightly edited version of what appeared on the Realized Worth website.  

The Crazy Things Hancock Bank Did Following Katrina
Hancock Bank was hit hard by Hurricane Katrina. Approximately 90 of the bank’s 103 branches along the Gulf Coast near New Orleans and along the Mississippi River suffered some damage. Electricity and phones were out in the area for weeks, and many of the bank’s branches lost connections to the main data center. People had no access to their money, and they were desperate for cash for simple things like ice and gasoline. What happened next was quite extraordinary.

Laundering Cash for Good
The day after the storm, Hancock Bank set up stations with whatever was available. Sometimes it was just card tables and chairs.  And they went about getting cash into the hands of the people. They kept the cash flow going by using money from ATM’s, vaults, and night deposits. Hancock employees were literally “laundering” the money, putting it in a washing machine to clean it from the sewage that had flooded the area. Bank employees, many of whom were also affected by Katrina, worked extended hours to accommodate everyone. Busloads of employees made 250 mile round trips daily in order to keep the Bank running.

Risk and Reward
All of this was quite admirable, but not completely shocking for a bank or any business during a crisis. However, Hancock  Bank went far beyond what the community might have expected. They loaned out millions of dollars during the days immediately after Katrina. Without electricity or other modern technology, they went old school, tracking loans with post it notes. And they didn’t just give the money to bank customers. They gave out cash to anyone who needed it, and trusted that it would be paid back, including $3.5 million to people who were not even customers.

The gamble paid off, and all but $300,000 was paid back. In the words of George Schloegel, Bank Chairman at the time, “Basically, people are honest and want to do the right thing and they’ll stand by you if you do the right thing by them.” The best part of the story is how people stood by the bank after their initial support efforts. In the four months following Katrina, Hancock grew by $1.6 billion, more than they had grown in their previous 95 years. Thousands of new customers opened up accounts with the bank, and George Schoegel was rewarded for his trust by being elected Mayor of Gulfport, Mississippi in 2009 with nearly 90% of the vote.

The insights for business success from this story could fill a book.  In a nutshell, it offers striking testimony for the cycle of success a company can generate when its top priority is the common interests of everyone touched by the organization inside and out. When that is done well and selflessly, you’re well on your way to creating a great organization where people love to work and customers love doing business.

Les Landes, Landes & Associates

Buy Les’s webinar replay: Getting to the Heart of Employee Engagement

Employees should always be your number one focus in both good times and in bad. Here is an article by Dave Hogan, a PR professional in Texas that showcases two good examples of where innovative internal programs had great results for their companies — MasterCard and Timberland.

Here is the article. 

Julie Baron, COMMUNICATION WORKS

Two recent news items shed light on how employee communication continues to be redefined and the sticky issues surrounding it.

A recent survey by a California-based business software company found that more than 43 percent of large U.S. corporations employ people to monitor outbound e-mail. A story last Wednesday in the Richmond Times-Dispatch said the area’s largest employers routinely check e-mails sent by employees to make sure they’re not leaking sensitive information.

A story published by Reuters on Saturday tells about the latest mainstream technology to be adapted by some corporations. Web logs – shortened to “blogs” – essentially are online journals written by everyday people for public consumption. One indication that blogs are picking up steam is that some bloggers received press credentials so they could write about the Democratic National Convention in July.

Now corporations are looking at the potential for blogs to be used as tools to enhance knowledge sharing and communication among employees. Not surprisingly, Microsoft and IBM are two leaders in the effort to introduce blogs to corporate America. The idea is to allow employees to post blogs on the company intranet – or perhaps even the public Web site, depending on the target audience – so they can share information more quickly and efficiently.

I work with companies to help them figure out the best ways to facilitate communication – from business leaders to employees, from employees to management, and laterally among employees. The flow of information is essential to any organization’s success and the less painful the communication, the better. Anyone who works in an organization with more than one employee knows exactly what I’m talking about.

Electronic media can greatly enhance communication. It’s difficult to imagine what we ever did before e-mail was introduced to the workplace. (Some might wish it never was as they spend hours a day creating and responding to e-mail.) Intranets, which are Web sites for employees, also can make communication and the flow of information easier. It looks like blogs might be the next big thing to find its way into our work lives – just as some companies also use message boards, chat rooms and desktop video.

The problem is that while many companies embrace the new technology, they also worry that it might be fraught with security problems. E-mail and Web-based technology offer just another way for proprietary information to leak to competitors, customers, the news media, and perhaps even criminals. This is true, but nothing kept employees from carrying sensitive documents out of the building with them in the days before e-mail. Nothing keeps employees from having one too many at the neighborhood block party and blurting out the name of the new product.

There simply are no perfect safeguards. The best business leaders can do is to set clear expectations of employee behavior, put as many safeguards in place as possible and – hold onto your seats – trust employees to do the right thing.

Just as open communication in our personal lives depends on a certain level of trust, the same is true in our work lives. I am not suggesting that companies should open the gates and throw caution to the wind for the sake of open communication. That would be foolish. However, there comes a point at which organizations must treat employees as responsible adults.

Routinely monitoring e-mails might be necessary in this day and age, but is it really necessary to completely restrict employees’ use of communication media? Such a hard line sends a bad message to employees, who then become increasingly distrustful and suspicious of management.

I expect blogs won’t become as ubiquitous as e-mail in American companies. I don’t believe there are many companies that trust their employees enough to give them that kind of freedom of expression. On the other hand, it’s interesting to think about the possibility of free-flowing information from one responsible employee to another.

 Robert Holland