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How can it be that communications is still so misunderstood as a discipline? We must carry some of the blame. But poorly written, misinformed articles in magazines which should know better don’t help either. And exactly who has the job title ‘internal communications strategist’?
by Rachael Cousins
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The poor old intranet. It doesn’t have a great reputation does it. But, there is hope…
By Lindsay Narey
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The Intranet Now event is on the horizon. It's an excellent event that seeks to celebate and showcase some of the best work in the field. As one of its organisers says, user experience is of growing importance.
by Wedge Black and Brian Lamb
The clearest indicator of a successful intranet is that people can use it to get things done: finding a person; booking time off; checking a part number; reading the latest news. Can they do these things? How easily? What percentage of people trying to do them are successful? To discover these success indicators, you have to do some form of usability testing.
The ‘user experience’ is of growing importance as the workplace becomes more and more the digital workplace.
Staff: Our greatest asset? Don't tell us, show us.
By Darren Caveney
In a recent conversation about intranets and internal communications I fessed up on a theory I have developed.
Staff intranets, we know, are generally unengaging resources, crammed with slabs of info but offering very little in the way of interaction or honest, two-way conversation.
But my theory is that this has very little to do with the intranet sites themselves – they’re just a symptom of a much larger organisational and cultural problem which is that too many organisations – when push comes to shove – don’t truly value their staff. There, I've said it.
There really are some things that unite every comms person. In this post the chair of LGComms vents some spleen and raises a few things that will make more than a few nod in recognition.
by Cormac Smith
I love my work in local government. Both in my day job as a senior communications advisor and in my national role of chairman of LGcommunications I get to work with some fantastic people doing work that I hope makes a real difference.
Staff are our greatest asset. How many times have you heard that? But if they really, really are then good internal comms really matters. Here's some feedback
by Liz Copeland
I had the pleasure of attending a very interesting Melcrum member event last week, which aimed to explore how delegates could maximise the strategic impact of their internal communications with limited resource.
For me the main themes of the day centred on two words:
Involving – engaging staff with the business so they are motivated to go the extra mile and in turn become more productive.
You know that line about staff are your greatest asset? Wouldn't it be great if you actually listened to them when shaping your internal comms? Someone here has...
We all love a bit of value, right? At Redcar & Cleveland Borough Council, we love a bit of valuing, too.
The internal challenge was the most significant facing a new-look comms team installed in 2010.
We knew what we needed, that wasn’t rocket science – an army of well-informed and motivated advocates and ambassadors for an authority with plenty on its plate.
If you’ve not heard of us, we’re a borough of extraordinary contrasts up here on the North-East coast. We’re a genuine industrial powerhouse, from Europe’s deepest mine at Cleveland Potash to one of the largest deep sea ports in the UK, handling more than 40 million tonnes of cargo each year.
Internal comms can often be the Cinderella channel. But to get things right outside you need to get things right inside.
by Hannah Rees
When Cornwall Council was first formed three years ago, there were no real internal communications channels to speak of. An organisation going through major change, with seven councils merging, a total of 22,000 employees and a huge geographical spread, it needed some serious TLC.
We had several failing services, financial problems, a new Chief Executive, 123 new elected Members, a new political hue, Leader and Cabinet and a very strong new approach to our direction of travel.
This week I came across the phrase ‘corporate blancmange’ and it got me thinking. It was used by the Head of the BBC’s Olympic coverage, Roger Mosey, who was quoted in The Sun as saying he wanted to “try things” rather than let the opening ceremony “become some corporate blancmange that no one likes at all.”
That phrase set my mind whirring about the language we use within organisations and its effect on our audiences. I’m sure at some point we’ve all continued with something e.g. a newsletter or employee event simply because ‘it’s the way it’s always been.’
But when did you last stop to consider if it’s still adding value and is distinctly un-blancmange-like? Be honest. When did you last ask your audience what they think of what the Comms team is producing, and not just through the annual employee survey?
Yammer is an internal social networking site for business. It burns silos and allows people to connect. How does it work?
Why taking in a hedgehog won’t help with having to pay the bedroom tax and how having less control over internal communications can be a good thing ...
"At Northwards Housing something very strange is happening with internal communications and it’s all thanks to the recent implementation of Yammer – a social enterprise network for businesses, sometimes referred to as the twitter or facebook of the workplace.
