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Creating and maintaining genuine engagement with staff in organisations going through large and continuous change is difficult. This new posts highlights the fundamentals needed for good engagement and examples of where it’s worked well.
by Caroline Roodhouse
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What’s the key to outstanding communications? Who better to ask than one of the best creative agencies around…
by Caroline Roodhouse
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The UnAwards15 were my highlight of 2015. Having the opportunity to see the passion, creativity and results from some of the brilliant work taking place across the UK and beyond was quite a privilege.
The UnAwards ceremony was a belter – well, I swear I heard someone say that on the day.
It was a unique event which placed an important spotlight on our industry and in a way which was accessible to everyone regardless of budget or grade.
After the event, many of you asked for the chance to see and hear more about the winning work.
So, with just one shake of a billy goat’s tail, we have organised an UnAwards Winners Masterclass.
Actually, that’s a lie. We have organised three. This gives us the chance to take the Masterclasses around the country with regional events taking place in Leeds, Birmingham and London.
The periodic table was created in 1869 to bring together all the known chemical elements under one roof enabling them to be studied, discussed and understood. Russian chemist Dimitri Mendeleev also predicted the discovery of other elements, and he purposely left spaces open for them.
We’ve recently worked with Chuck Gose, Corporate Communications VP, speaker & host of the internal comms podcast, ICology to replicate this original idea for internal communicators. And with hundreds of downloads from comms pros worldwide, it’s already proving to be very popular…
The Idea
The idea was to create a table of terms that would bring together all the elements of internal communication under one roof. We split the table across seven categories: Strategy, Objectives, Themes, Audiences, Formats, Channels and Metrics and populated each category with a number of common comms terms. From there, we’ve built the Periodic Table of Internal Communication, which you can download here.
A cracking response
The feedback so far has been fantastic. We’ve been overwhelmed with the positive responses…
BEAT THE ZOMBIES is back!
There’s been some spine tingly spooky goings-on down at Alive HQ as we’ve gathered together the latest stats, advice and best practice on all things employee engagement, and put it all together in this up-to-the-minute zombie tribute.
Peculiar irregularities…
According to widespread survey results across a stack of organisations, employee engagement rates are regularly coming in at 70% and above. That’s not to be sniffed at. BUT, the CIPD 2015 Employee Outlook Survey indicated that the employee engagement index within the UK is at just 39%. That’s quite a disparity. So what’s the score? Can we rely on survey results alone? The smart organisations are exploring alternative metrics, examining other areas of the business and considering the potential pitfalls when it comes to engagement surveys. And they’re well aware of what’s causing the problems too.
What makes creativity tick in the field of internal comms? Fab agency Alive With Ideas decided to ask a few questions to see. They produced a survey and there's a stack of learning in it. The survey results have been collated and there’s a nice juicy report available for your enjoyment.
Not that many moons ago, we sent our global survey out into the stratosphere, to investigate the levels of creativity in the big wide world of internal comms. With over 160 respondents offering their unique insight into creativity in their organisation, we gathered a magnitude of constructive comments to share with you.
As well as private sector and multinational organisations, we received responses from internal communicators in local government, government departments, NHS, police, fire and housing. Seasoned comms pros, sharing their thoughts, opinions and advice about how they see creativity in the workplace and how they would like it to be encouraged.
No beards or stubble!
No hats! (…even in the winter)
Drink only from tiny little cups!
A blanket ban on biscuits ☹
We were intrigued by this recent article from The Telegraph all about weird workplace rules. And it seems there really is no shortage of examples!
We’ve started to get quite concerned that, whilst being so utterly bonkers they had us in stitches, these ridiculous rules could actually be stifling creativity at work. You see, unnecessary bureaucracy and redundant red tape cause major frustration for employees.
There's not long left now until entries to our inaugural UnAwards close. But who should win the tasty Lifetime Achievement award?
When we sat down and came up with a long list of potential UnAward categories we felt that a ‘Lifetime Achievement’ award category should be in there somewhere. And when we whittled it down from our long list of 372, down to our final list of 14, we still felt it should be in there.
It’s maybe a slightly funny-sounding award title, and if you think about BAFTAs, OSCARs and such like they seem to go to people who have been around for hundreds of years.
We've all been there. The awkward moment when you're in a room full of strangers trying to think of new names for a pen as an icebreaker. But it needn't be like this. In fact, call them what you like creative brainstorming sessions can spark brilliant ideas. Here's how...
by GUEST EDITOR Alan Oram 
As a creative ideas agency, we’re on a mission to bust some creativity myths – we also happen to be big fans of the good old-fashioned brainstorming session, which remains a highly effective weapon in the internal communicator’s toolkit – approached in the right way, of course.
