9 June 2008
Storytelling and engagement key themes of Sydney event
Delegates hear how to "trust employees with the edit button".
More than 80 communication professionals assembled in Sydney recently for the inaugural Melcrum Employee Engagement Conference 2008.
Representing a diverse range of industry sectors, from resources companies to financial services organizations, public sector and heavy industry, delegates heard from an equally diverse range of company representatives. Storytelling, transparency and common engagement drivers emerged as the event's key themes.
JCIntra offers full intranet publishing access to over 300 employees – no approval process, workflow or any other blockages.
Dialogue and 360° communication
Setting the tone for the conference was Rosemary Howard, executive director and conjoint professor at the Australian Graduate School of Management (AGSM).
Howard drew on 15 years of leadership experience as CEO of Telstra Clear )and previous roles within the New South Wales Government) to demonstrate the rapidly growing need for organizations to attract and retain high-performing employees and create cultures of 2-way dialogue to facilitate engagement.
Following Howard, Jonathan Champ, head of communication at insurance firm QBE, explained his team's work in partnering with other areas of the business in order to drive a successful engagement strategy. Internal branding initiatives including "Thank Q" and "Q Path" were used to simplify a mass of business messages and provide a "cohesive employee communication experience".
Scaring delegates with wikis
In a presentation entitled "Trusting employees with the edit button", Nathan Wallace, associate director, technology, at pharmaceuticals company Janssen-Cilag, impressed – and scared – delegates with his organization's wiki-intranet called "JCIntra".
Audio interviews with conference speakers
• Joanne Martin, senior manager learning & culture, ANZ, discusses the company's "BreakOut" program and sophisticated approach to measurement.
• Conference chair and Mercer Principal Consultant, Todd Montgomery, explores highlights and themes from the event including dialogue and 360° communication.
• Matthew Pritchard, internal communication manager customer service at AMP, says you'll inevitably see a dip in performance before engagement starts to improve.
JCIntra offers full intranet publishing access to more than 300 employees – no approval process, workflow issues or any other blockages. Using the business wiki software, Confluence, employees can publish news, documents, technical articles and more to the intranet with a simple "create and save".
Since launching the new intranet in 2006, over 70% of the organization has contributed and the initiative has saved an estimated 250,000 internal emails from being sent.
Narratives and storytelling
Perhaps the strongest theme throughout the event was the power of contextual storytelling and listening to employees as part of a continuous dialogue.
Sean Fernando, general manager of HR at Infosys Australia, gave a thought-provoking presentation on engaging across cultures, using stories and anecdotes to explain the cultural differences between Australian and Indian societies and how this determines different behaviors in the workplace.
Transparency and honesty from AMP
In a well-received presentation on "Skyrocketing engagement results at AMP", Matthew Pritchard, internal communication manager in the customer service division, discussed the engagement journey his organization has experienced over the past 7 years, as engagement levels rose from around 41% to over 80%.
Notably, engagement levels decreased upon first review as AMP sought to discover lower-performing areas and took a long-term approach to improvement.
One example of a renewed approach to engagement and linking communication to a wider business strategy came in the shape of replacing underperforming periodical employee consultation sessions with a permanent blog, allowing staff to comment on pertinent issues 24/365, with the site made visible to anyone in the organization.
Death to "Death by Powerpoint"
Pritchard's presentation also stood out for many due to its minimal but effective use of slides, with just one main image (see Figure 1, below) and small additions as the audience were led through the presentation, staving off any notions of "Death by Powerpoint".
Figure 1. AMP's roadmap to skyrocketing engagement results
Determining key engagement drivers
From the Child Support Agency Australia (CSA), Hub Member Beth Amos (pictured right) and her colleague Kylie Flannagan presented a case study of wholesale change in their organization. A multi-million-dollar reform directive from the federal government has meant significant upheaval in the CSA's committed but time-poor workforce.
Using a variety of approaches to communicate the change, Amos and her team of communicators saw improvement in engagement levels and provided several learning and action points for delegates including:
- Make the hard decisions – but make them with integrity always.
- Give them a model to emulate – lead by example in embracing change.
- Engage and Communicate, often and consistently.
- Organizational culture drives behavior!
- Organization climate drives the culture!
- Leadership is the link!
Next Australian event
Melcrum's next professional development event in Australia will be the Strategic Communication Management Summit 2008 in September. Book early and you could win 1 of 25 iPod shuffles.
Have your say
Did you attend Melcrum's Sydney Employee Engagement Conference 2008? What were your highlights?
Discuss these issues with other comms practitioners by joining the Internal Comms Hub members' group on the Communicators' Network.
Other recommendations:
Hub member profile: Beth Amos, Child Support Agency Australia
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