Hub member profile: Annabel Barbosa
After 7 years in PR, Annabel Barbosa was concerned that a straight communication role wouldn't provide enough stimulus. But her role as internal communications manager at one of New Zealand's Institutes of Technology, Wintec, hasn't left her unchallenged yet thanks to a mix of strategic and tactical objectives.
Please give a brief overview of your career so far
Since obtaining my Bachelor of Communication Studies, majoring in public relations and communication management, I've spent the last eight years working in public relations in Auckland and the Waikato, primarily in-house roles for the corporate, non-profit and public sectors.
I'm now in a specialist internal communication role for the Waikato's leading Institute of Technology, Wintec, which has more than 600 staff across 7 different campuses.
Recently, I started my Masters in organizational psychology, which is a natural interest of mine but I also believe it can be a tool for adding more credibility and weight to the role of internal communications in organizational success.
What does your role entail on a day-to-day basis?
When I first took on the role of internal communications manager, I was - quite naively - worried that a straight internal communications role wouldn't provide enough of a challenge after 7 years in PR...how wrong I was!
It's a cliché but no two days are the same in this role. My day is a mix of the strategic i.e. devising internal communication strategies to support the achievement of our organizational objectives, attending executive meetings and one-on-ones with the chief executive (CE); and the tactical e.g. coaching managers to become effective communicators, developing key messages and scripts to support change initiatives, managing channels including the intranet, desktop communication tools, and so on.
Your role as communicator is to bring about common understanding and ultimately, behaviors which support your organization's goals.
What competencies are particularly necessary to be a successful communicator?
Number one has to be a passion for helping people to better understand each other.
Communication can be incredibly complex but the crux of it is an awareness that people encode and decode messages differently. Your role as communicator is to bring about common understanding and ultimately, behaviors which support your organization's goals.
Of course you also need to be proficient in the basics like listening authentically and asking relevant questions, giving sincere and constructive feedback, asking for clarification and appropriate non-verbal communication.
Please describe a comms challenge that you were most proud to have overcome.
This reminds me of George Bernard Shaw's quote "the problem with communication is the illusion that it has been accomplished". There's always a new challenge to tackle and each time you add something new to your toolbox.
We've been struggling to get our staff to attend lunch-time forums so we surveyed them for their opinions and as a result we've reduced the number of forums held, limiting them to key events only and hosting them during lunch and late afternoons. We've also launched a new suite of desktop communication tools and started using web conferencing to give staff the opportunity to take part at a time and place that better suits them.
Please give an example of what great comms looks/sounds like in your organization.
My latest example of great communications within our organization is our new desktop communications channel – Snap. It has a suite of tools for communicating and engaging, including screensavers, alerts, RSS feeds, quizzes, blogs and forums – hosted in one location to make it easy for staff to access.
How do we know it’s working? One of our directors has just launched a blog, focusing on academic issues, and over 80 staff read it in the first few hours and a number of comments were posted immediately. This signals a huge improvement compared to email readership numbers and attendance at forums.
We also recently used it to gather some feedback from staff and got over 250 responses in just one day. Normally using email, we’d get less than 100 people responding over a 2-week period, so staff are definitely engaging with it.
Another example of what great comms looks like in our organization is to do with staff meetings. Throughout the year, each department 'hosts' our CE at one of their staff meetings. This is in addition to our larger, more formal forums and provides a relaxed opportunity for staff to chat to the CE as well as showcase their work in their own environment. They range from pancake morning teas to beer and snacks on a Friday afternoon. Staff really appreciate the chance to spend some time talking about the direction of the organization with the person at the helm!
What will you be working on over the next year?
This year I'm focusing on 3 key areas – managers as effective communicators, channels that engage not just inform, and measurement, particularly staff satisfaction levels with senior management, upward and change communication.
Managers as effective communicators
As well as on-going coaching for key staff, this will involve working closely with our HR and capability development team to ensure communication training is part of our management development program, job descriptions and performance measurements.
For me, engaging communications simply means those that not only increase understanding but also bring about desirable behavior change.
Engage not inform
We've already done a lot of work to move from reactive, information-focused communications to strategic, two-way communications. For me, engaging communications simply means those that not only increase understanding but also bring about desirable behavior change. Again, we'll work closely with HR to support their employee engagement strategy, in which internal communication is a significant factor.
Measurement
Despite all the benefits to measurement it can often be the thing that drops off the 'to-do' list. There's nothing more satisfying than making improvements to communications based on staff feedback or presenting concrete and tangible measures to your executive team to show you've achieved your objectives.
Do you use any 'informal' methods of communication to great effect – e.g., word of mouth or employee "champions"?
One of the most valuable and informal communication activities I use is employee vox pops. Every 3 to 4 weeks I wander around our campuses talking to around 30 to 40 staff to find out what the 'hot topic' of the moment is for them.
The benefits are three-fold really – you get to put faces to some of the 700 odd names; you glean useful information that can be used to provide an organizational temperature check for the CE; and we've also started videoing them recently to share with a wider staff group, which helps people realize that their concerns are shared and gives them a sense of being part of a work community.
How do you use humor or storytelling in your communications to provoke a positive employee response?
As an academic institution we've traditionally had a very formal organizational communication style so humour isn't something we've used a lot, although I can't see why we shouldn't start! Storytelling, however, is a common teaching method so many of our staff are comfortable with it and it'll be a technique we'll aim to use this year.
Given the redundancies hitting comms teams (and other parts of the business) have you any advice for engaging employees who survive 'the chop', in an uncertain business environment?
Unfortunately, even after a redundancy process, it's never as simple as being able to tell those who remain that their jobs are 'safe' because the environment is relatively unpredictable.
In this situation, even those who aren't involved with the finances in any way need to understand at a basic level the organization's financial position and the factors which influence and impact that position. This allows them to see their individual, as well as team, contribution to the organization in a financial sense, which in turn gives them some control over the situation.
The message, which needs to come from the CE and CFO, as well as being reinforced by each level of management, should be simple without being simplistic and realistic without being overly negative or positive. Our CE recently ran staff forums where he was able to say that our organization will avoid making any staff redundant this year, provided that the Government sticks to the same funding and that we reach our enrolment targets – both of which look likely. Staff said they felt reassured by this message and appreciated his transparency and honesty.
Have your say
How have your communication approaches changed in light of the recession? Have you started using more innovative and creative methods in order to beat the budget cuts? Aside from doing more with less, what are your key challenges for the rest of the year? As ever, we'd love to hear from you.
Recommended resources:
How to get the most out of storytelling
How Roche created a newsletter for senior managers
How to establish and build a relationship with your CEO
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