Category: Engagement

Categories
Engagement Marketing

Why Employees Resist Marketing: The Dilemma

It’s both a blessing and a curse: everyone in an organization has an impact on marketing. Especially when you consider how many brand contact points (aka “moments of truth” when customers interact with a company) are outside marketing’s control. For example, the customer who calls with a billing question and gets transferred to the wrong department or is treated rudely.

The Challenge of Marketing’s Expanded Reach

Because marketing ultimately serves as the customer’s advocate, it has to find ways to ensure everyone in the organization is customer-focused.

I find most marketers are good at this. However, where they sometimes fall short is a lack of sensitivity to employees who consider their brand-ambassador role as “other duties as assigned” (i.e., low on their list of priorities). In this case, marketers may fail to recognize that marketing is perceived as creating extra work for employees.

Head for the hills, here comes Marketing!

Here’s an example from my early bank career. Whenever the bank would launch a new deposit promotion (offering gifts to customers for opening a new account or adding to an existing one), most of the branch people were less than receptive.

Who could blame them? They had to meet daily operational standards for processing transactions, cross-selling goals for growth, customer-friendly guidelines for serving customers, etc., AND THEN they had to display, process, distribute & control inventory of whatever promotional items the Marketing Department sent their way: blankets, watches, umbrellas, toasters, etc. (At one bank, we even gave away a new car!  But that’s another story.)

Eventually, we learned how to deal with this so employees didn’t bar the doors & windows when they saw Marketing coming. And I’ll tell you how in my next post.

Categories
Engagement

Internal Communicators’ Survey Says …

I’ve been posting a lot lately about internal communications, talking about the need for “air traffic controllers” and dealing with “beavers” who dam up the communications flow. And I’m not alone in my concerns.

Over 200 attendees at Melcrum’s recent Strategic Communication Management Conference in London were surveyed about their issues. When asked What is the biggest challenge you face?, the top two responses were “line manager communication” (32%) and “overcoming information overload” (25%). Two thirds of the attendees also cited middle management as the primary bottleneck in the flow of internal communications.

You can find more survey highlights in The Source, Melcrum’s free e-zine for internal communicators.

Categories
Engagement

Don’t Dam the Communications Flow

My last post addressed the internal communicator’s role as “air traffic controller” in managing the flow of information in an organization. Here’s another symbolic image – drawn from nature this time – for a particular communications situation. And I invite you to share your ideas on this one.

A common problem in organizations is the assumption when senior managers initiate top-down communication that the message reaches all who need to hear it. The reality is just because a message was sent doesn’t mean it was received, read/heard, and (ultimately) understood.

Scary stuff

I was talking with a senior management team about top-down communication and was astounded when one of the managers told me he doesn’t always share information with company staff unless they ask for it. He admitted it was just his nature, although he said it with a great deal of pride. (I understand this may be a control issue: knowledge is power and all that. But I don’t want to get into it here.)

His admission got me thinking about senior and middle-management’s role in enabling OR hampering the flow of top-down communication. I came away from that meeting thinking of him as a beaver whose job it is to build a dam.

Your turn …

How do you deal with the “beavers” on staff who dam up the information flow so that it only trickles downstream?  I’d love to hear your strategies and suggestions for coping with this.

Categories
Engagement

Navigating the Overcrowded Communications Skies

One of the gems I took away from Melcrum’s recent internal communications webinar was the picture of internal communications professionals as “air traffic controllers” – overseeing the flow of internal communications so middle managers are not overwhelmed with information. There’s simply a glut of information being carried by a fleet of media in an already overcrowded work-space. And we need to be sensitive to employee workloads and time constraints in being able to absorb it all.

If you’re in a position to better manage the flow of internal communications, where do you start? An employee survey will help (yikes! not another survey?!) …

In the meantime, consider this idea: sort your communications into “need to know” vs. “nice to know” categories and prioritize accordingly. What critical info do employees really need to know to do their jobs compared with info that is perhaps interesting or helpful but doesn’t have strategic impact.

Simplistic? Absolutely … but a useful first step in navigating the crowded skies of internal communications.

Categories
Engagement

Internal Communicators’ Expansive Role

I recently joined the 21st century by attending my first webinar. I’m a bit technophobic, so this was a big step for me.

My experience was positive due to the seamless technology (provided by iLinc Communications) and the informative content by presenter Victoria Mellor, CEO of Melcrum.

In “How to Build the Ultimate Business Case for Internal Communication,” Mellor shared key findings from Melcrum’s 10 years of research. There was the usual reinforcement of what most of us know about the critical role of senior managers and their influence on trust and employee engagement.

Check out this pie chart

But what really surprised me were the numbers (based on research by Towers Perrin) that sorted out primary communication sources and their impact on employee behavior:

  • 61% comes from an organization’s leadership (their messages, actions, etc.)
  • 32% from infrastructure (corporate culture, systems, policies, etc.)
  • 7% from formal media (memos, newsletters, meetings, etc.)

What is it that most communicators focus on? The tools that collectively only have 7% impact! That’s not to say their internal communications efforts are unimportant. On the contrary, we need these folks to help craft & deliver effective and consistent internal messages.

The “gotcha!” for me is that communications professionals have a much greater strategic role to play – beyond managing internal media -by working with their companies’ leaders.

Categories
Engagement Marketing

Internal Marketing Best Practice Study (continued)

Thanks to research conducted by Forum for People Performance Management & Measurement, we have a new definition for internal marketing and insight on the values shared by companies with effective internal marketing programs..

The 2006 Internal Marketing Best Practices study also identified the following six key characteristics of internal marketing success:

  • Senior management participation and buy-in is vital for any internal marketing initiative.
  • An integrated organizational structure is needed for internal marketing to “encompass all employees in a company.”
  • Internal marketing involves a deliberate strategic marketing approach similar to that used in external marketing.
  • Internal marketing calls for a partnership with Human Resources.
  • A focus on employee engagement helps create a “collaborative work environment where employees feel involved and motivated.”
  • Internal brand communication is needed to convey the brand promise to employees and motivate them to deliver on the promise.

I encourage you to check out the Forum’s research on internal marketing and its critical impact on business success and profitability.

Categories
Engagement Marketing

Internal Marketing Best Practice Study

As promised in my last post, here are some of the key findings from the Internal Marketing Best Practice Study sponsored by the Forum for People Performance Management & Measurement.

The study was based on understanding effective internal marketing initiatives in U.S. companies in a variety of industries.  These companies all recognize and reinforce the critical role employees play in achieving organizational success.  As such, they share the following values:

  • “People matter” – beyond the usual lip service, people really are important.  So these companies focus on creating a work environment “where people feel excited & rewarded” in their daily tasks.
  • “Internal Marketing drives performance” – recognizing employees are extensions of the brand, the companies focus on maximizing the employee-customer satisfaction link.
  • Anyone can make a difference – all employees count and should be recognized, not just senior management.
  • “Employee loyalty is critical” – companies who are “transparent” about their challenges and strategic direction can maintain employee loyalty in difficult times.
  • “Culture can be a competitive advantage” – internal marketing helps preserve a strong corporate culture.

I’ll share more of this internal marketing best practice study in my next post.

Categories
Engagement Marketing

Internal Marketing – New Definition

Internal marketing is a critical management concept that is difficult to explain, let alone define. Throughout my work in the field, I’ve defined internal marketing simply as “the application of marketing inside an organization to instill customer-focused values.”

But now there’s a new, more comprehensive definition – thanks to the Fall 2005 graduate class in internal marketing, part of Northwestern University’s Integrated Marketing Communications program.

“Internal Marketing is the ongoing process whereby an organization aligns, motivates and empowers employees at all functions and levels to consistently deliver a positive customer experience that helps achieve business objectives.”

What I love about this expanded definition is that it captures aspects of both internal marketing and internal branding. The new definition is a result of an Internal Marketing Best Practice Study funded by the Forum for People Performance Management & Measurement.

I’ll have more on this study in my next post.

Categories
Engagement Marketing

Internal Marketing – Not for Stepford Wives

Every once in a while I find myself getting defensive about internal marketing.

Some business folks, who begrudgingly acknowledge internal marketing’s premise (“take care of employees so they’ll take care of customers'”) chide me as they envision creating a cadre of plastic, smiling automatons going about their business happily serving customers.

But I am not advocating internal marketing as a “Stepford wives” approach.

I am advocating that employees be considered upfront, not an after-thought in business strategy and operations.  The best organizations proactively consider employee needs and concerns when developing new programs or improving existing ones.  Those who get it:

  • communicate the rationale behind management initiatives
  • get employee input on anticipated customer response to operational changes
  • provide whatever new or remedial staff training might be needed, etc.

What I’m talking about is effectively communicating with your employees: involve them, listen to them, and gain their buy-in in the process.  In other words, respect your employees by considering how they’ll be impacted by your business decisions.

This will get you genuine smiles, not plastic ones.

Categories
Engagement Training & Development

Ooops! Learning from Our Mistakes

“I’m never wrong. I thought I was once, but I was mistaken.”  -Lucy Van Pelt, Peanuts

Lucy’s perfectionism aside (heaven help those who work for people like Lucy!), here are some non-threatening and productive ways to institutionalize learning from our mistakes.

  • Mistake of the Month – Have people share their mistakes & corresponding “lessons learned” at staff meetings.  Then staff vote on which one taught them the most.
  • Favorite Lessons Learned– This is a variation of the above.  Allow time at staff meetings for people to share one or both of the following:
    • “Favorite Mistake Not to be Repeated”
    • “Favorite Catch of Stuff Done Right that We Hope to Do Again”
  • I don’t have a name for this, but I found it on Christopher Hannigan’s blog and loved it.  CarMax CEO Austin Ligon uses this as a meeting opener: “What are we doing that is stupid, unnecessary or doesn’t make sense?”  What a great way to break the ice on an uncomfortable topic.

Let’s face it, no one is perfect (not even Lucy).  So we need to find ways to collectively share in the learning from our mistakes to avoid making them again.