The Inside Voice

Welcome to "The Inside Voice"

The Inside Voice brings fresh thinking, concrete strategies and inspiration to HR professionals who want to more effectively reach employees, get them to take action on the communications ... and overall better engage these employees. Visit, share your successes, vent your frustrations, let us know what you need!

Company Success News Can Help Fuel Employee Engagement

We're experiencing more cautious optimism about the economy these days. Positive indicators continue to surface, the market is on the upswing and the number of first-time unemployment claims dropped to the lowest level since January. I'll bet your company is experiencing some positive indicators as well. Have you shared the good news with your employees?

To better engage your employees, make sure they know of the company successes. Employees always appreciate getting the "inside scoop," and it makes them feel more a part of the company team. 

Gathering The News

Where do you start? First, identify the type of news you have to share. Here are some ideas to get you started:

• Sales. Does your company have a new noteworthy or significant client, or maybe one you've been pitching for a long time? Have your sales numbers started to climb? Are you making progress toward closing a new client, such as being included in the finals of your company's ideal client? 
• New lines of business. Are you introducing a new line of business or changing an existing one that is noteworthy?
• Significant cost savings. Are you implementing a new process or program that will reduce costs and help the company's bottom line? 
• PR and awards. Has your company been in the news? Have you received an industry or civic award?

There will also be other success areas that are specific to your business that are important to your employees. Include those on your success news list as well.

Communicating The News

Once you have determined the type of news you want to share with employees, what is the right vehicle to use to tell the story? Some guidelines:

• Intranet. This should be the go-to place for all of your company's internal communications and news. If your senior management has a regular column on the intranet, include the news in that column or article. If it's a really big deal, do an additional article to trumpet the news.
• Internal blog. For companies with a blog, this is a great place to tell the news, and then listen to employee feedback. This is a great way to get employees to join the conversation and feel more a part of the company. It also allows you to monitor the level of employee excitement.
• Twitter or Yammer. If your company is already using social media for internal communications, Twitter or Yammer is a great way to blast a big news announcement. Be sure to include a link to your blog or intranet article as well so they can get the whole story.
• Staff meetings. For departments that have regular staff meetings, pointing out successes from other departments can be very effective. It allows one department to discuss what steps they need to implement to support this change. Are more staffing or realigned resources required? Getting more departments engaged in the success can help the positive progress continue.
• Email. Email is a great way to communicate, but it is often overused. To effectively use email for success announcements, don't do an email for each success, unless it's a really big success. Instead, consider doing a weekly or monthly email with several updates in it. This will help employees realize the value of each email, increasing your open rate.

As you continue to tout the success the company is having to your employees, you are engaging them in being a part of the success. And don't be surprised employees begin to provide you with new suggestions to include in your success news. 

What success news do you communicate to engage your employees in a recovering economy? Have you already implemented a renewed approach to engaging your employees now that the economy is returning? Click on the comment box below and add your thoughts. We’d love to hear from you.

Communicate to Help Employees Make Smart Medical Plan Decisions

Last week, we blogged about the importance of using your benefits communications to more effectively engage employees. Today, guest blogger Elizabeth Borton, president of Write On Target, a benefits communications firm, provides practical tips you can use in communicating your healthcare options to employees. 

TIPS TO HELP YOUR EMPLOYEES MAKE SMART MEDICAL PLAN DECISIONS

Guest Blogger: Elizabeth Borton, President, Write On Target

As benefits specialists, you understand the differences between the various medical options offered through your organization. However, those differences are not so obvious to your employees. In fact, MetLife 2008 Employee Benefits Survey found that 55% of employees felt that they didn't get the resources they needed to make informed decisions and felt either confused (25%) or frustrated (24%) while selecting their benefits.

So how can you design annual enrollment materials that truly assist employees in the decision-making process?

The following are tips which have worked well in past enrollments:

• In addition to providing side-by-side comparisons of plan designs, use real-life scenarios to illustrate the different types of medical users and the plans that best fit their situation (e.g. - a single person versus a family versus an empty nester). In this way, your employees can easily identify which plan might best fit their needs, based on their medical usage.
• Mail targeted post cards to homes that compare plan costs, side-by-side (segment your mailing data based on the plans and cost paid by various groups within your organization.)
• Illustrate possible cost savings through easy-to-understand examples. (For example, a section entitled "Are you paying too much for coverage?" could show the difference between the cost to buy versus the cost to use.)

Many health care providers provide a similar tool on their websites, which you should promote in your enrollment materials. Employees enter certain information (such as an estimate for the number of times they went to the doctor the year before, types of services they needed, etc.) and the tool compares the cost of being in "Plan A" versus "Plan B."

• A Flexible Spending Account (FSA) can help offset costs if moving to a higher deductible plan, but you have to provide quality education about what an FSA is and how it works before employees will take advantage of the plan.
• Employee meetings work well. If you have a small population and are making big changes, you may require attendance. Or you could pass out the enrollment packages ONLY at the meeting to encourage attendance.
• Don't forget to send materials home, and if necessary, hold webinars! In general, research shows that families make up 60 to 70 percent of healthcare costs and are often making the benefits decisions. Do not overlook these important decision makers. They can heavily influence the decisions make at annual enrollment. 

What communications have you used to more effectively get benefits information out to your employees and help them make more informed choices? Share your insight with us by clicking on the comments section below and adding your ideas.

Engage Your Employees Using Your Annual Benefits Enrollment Communications

One of the most visible employee communications within a company tends to be its annual benefits enrollment. This program takes many hours of your time mired in endless detail. Once you get the contracts are in place, more work hits: developing and delivering the communications, sending out the information, answering questions, employee follow-up, answering even more questions, and so on. Because this is such a large project focused on the end results of finding the right benefits and getting employees enrolled, companies sometimes miss the opportunity to use this as an effective employee engagement tool.

Here are a few tips to help you use your annual benefits communications to better engage your employees:

• Tell Your Corporate Message. This is a great opportunity to reinforce your corporate message - briefly highlighting the company beliefs and the employees' roles in it. Include this message in your various benefits communications: the information packets you send, the reminder communications, as well as any other tools you use as a part of your campaign.
• Appreciate Your Employees. Let the employees know how much you appreciate them and the work they do. Studies consistently show that employees want to feel appreciated in their jobs. Your benefits package is one way the company shows its appreciation. Remind employees of this "thank you present" with heartfelt message of appreciation.
• Add the WIIFM. To boost your enrollment response, remind employees of the WIIFM: "What's In It For Me." Although benefits are something that your company offers the employees, letting them know the reasons they should enroll may help boost your response.

As with all effective HR communications, be sure to incorporate the fundamentals:

• Know Your Audience. If there are different benefits for full- and part-time employees, can you send them only the information that is appropriate to them?
• Select the Right Tools. Use the tools that your audience prefers. Are they more adept at online communications or print? Providing the tools in a format they are comfortable using will be more effective in getting across your message.
• Tell Them, Then Tell Them Again. Use more than one communication channel to help ensure that your employees received the message. Even if you send them a printed packet, is the information also available online? Briefly discussed in a staff meeting?
• Be Clear. Make sure that your message is crystal clear. The benefits selection affects employees as well as their families. They really need to understand the details.
• Call to Action. Let employees know the actions they need to take and by what date. Highlight it, repeat it, whatever it takes. But make sure it's clear when they must respond.

This huge annual communication is a great tool to engage your employees and reinforce your company message. Use it wisely.  

Have you had success in using your annual benefits communications to better engage your employees? We'd love to hear your story. Click on "comments" below and share your successes.

Next week, we'll feature an article on Tips to Help Your Employees Make Smart Medical Plan Decisions by guest blogger Elizabeth Borton of Write On Target. 

With the Economy Rebounding, Are You Engaging Your Employees So They’ll Stay?

Many articles over the past few weeks are citing indicators that the economy is on the upswing. Positive news at last!

When the economy begins to recover and the job market shows signs of improvement, what will your employees do? Many employees have been hunkering down for many months trying to avoid being downsized. But with a renewed economy and job prospects appearing, employees may begin to feel comfortable looking for a new job.

Have you engaged your employees enough to make them want to stay?

You’ve spent your time the past few months cutting costs, focusing on doing more with less money and resources. And that can lead HR departments to spend less time building employee engagement. In a down economy, these “left behind” employees weren’t going to leave. But if they’re not engaged once the market starts to open new jobs, will they continue to stay at your company?

Here are some tools you could consider to engage your employees now before they start to look for new opportunities:

• Appreciate your employees. Studies through the years have shown that the top “perk” employees want most is to be appreciated for what they do.
• Let them know their worth. Make sure your employees know what they are making – not just in salary but in perks and benefits as well.
  
• Make sure they feel like part of the team. Communicate company progress – and the employees’ role in helping with the progress. 
  

These are just a short list of communications that may help engage your employees in a changing economy. 

What tools have you used to effectively communicate and engage your employees through the down economy? Have you taken a renewed approach to engaging your employees now that the economy is returning? Click on the comment box below and add your thoughts. We’d love to hear from you.

 

Should Employees Access Social Media at the Office?

According to new data from ScanSafe, a web filtering company, companies are cracking down even more on employee use of social media sites in the workplace. They indicate that 76% of companies now block social media sites, a 20% increase over the past six months, making social media sites the most blocked type of site within companies. ScanSafe says employers are linking the negative impact of productivity to the use of social networking, online banking and Webmail. 

Before blocking these sites, are companies thinking through how they could use social media to benefit the company? Using social media appropriately can be used to increase customer service, and can help boost employee engagement.

Other sources, such as Watson Wyatt Worldwide, suggest social media is the new frontier for companies to communicate, especially internally. They compare companies' productivity fear to the 1990s productivity fear, which was based on allowing the internet into the workplace. They recommend taking the same steps as in the 90s - establish clear acceptable usage guidelines while also adopting social media for internal purposes.

On the sales and marketing side of the business, companies are rapidly embracing Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and other social media sites to promote the company, build traffic to their website and retail locations, as well as buzz about their products and services. Effective HR communicators know that employees need to understand the role they play in your company marketing. Do your employees understand the company? Its products and services? Its goals? How you market your business - including on social media sites?

Of course, there may be some employees who abuse the privilege of having access to social media sites. But the other benefits to allowing employees to access these sites - higher employee engagement, better customer service, etc - can far exceed the downside. 

Establish some rules around usage - appropriate sites to visit on company time vs. over the lunch hour, limit the amount of time allowed on social media, posting to company sites, etc. Once your policy is in place, be sure to send your employees links to the company marketing social media sites, so they can understand what the company is doing, and become a more engaged part of the team.

How is your company handling social media with its employees? Have you blocked access to social media, or do you encourage employees to learn the technology? How have you used social media effectively for your employees? We'd love to hear your thoughts and ideas - click on the comments section below and let us know what's worked for you.

Nonprofits Engage Employees in the Conversation

Recently, I visited with two nonprofit organizations that shared their disturbing news with me – their funding was being cut. Substantially. These funding cuts meant reviewing already strapped budgets to see what other expenses they would have to eliminate. Services to its clients? Employees? Freeze or cut wages, or the few employee benefits they’ve been able to offer?

We discussed potential options. I was pleased to hear that the approach both organizations turned to first was communicating the news with their employees – appropriately, and at a high level. They talked WITH the employees (as opposed to talking “at” them) about funding issues and the economy. They brainstormed for ways to reduce expenses that were nice-to-have, but not necessary. In one organization, they held discussions with managers about ways to grow some of the services that could bring revenue into the organization.

Will these organizations still need to cut expenses, and maybe cut headcount? Sadly, they will most likely have to take these steps in the short-term. But by adding the conversations with the employees, they’ve taken some positive steps:

• Sent the message. The organizations let the employees know that costs had to be cut significantly. This isn't fun news to share. But when the cuts do happen, they will be less of a surprise to the employees.
• Engaged in a common goal. Conversations engaged their employees in working to be a part of the solution, which encourages positive conversations throughout the organization.
  
• Set the tone. The employees understand that the employers are actively doing their best to cut costs and save jobs. And ultimately, work more efficiently toward their established mission and purpose.
  

What other steps could an organization take to get the employees focused on helping be a part of the solution? Do you think that these were the appropriate steps for the nonprofit to take? What else would you suggest to organizations in this situation? 

Share your comments below by clicking on "comments." We'd love your feedback.

How WIIFM Can Boost Your Employee Response

The most important part of any communication is making sure that you have a clearly written message that includes the WIIFM targeted directly to your audience. What’s "WIIFM"? It’s the core message that you need to send to employees – it's simply what we're all looking for: “What’s In It For Me.”

Many internal communicators are focused on getting out their message and as a result, they focus primarily on the basics:

• Who needs to receive the message
• What you want to tell them
• When they need to respond
• Where they can find information
• Why they need to take action
• How to take the next step

But the other “W” – WIIFM – is the most important “W” you can use to help you get a response from your employees.  The WIIFM helps your employees understand the value of each message you send. The value that you, as an employer, place on having them as an employee. The value that you, the employer, want to add to their lives or their – through the benefit, service or whatever you are discussing in this communication.

By consistently adding the WIIFM in your employee communications and speaking to what’s important to them, you will encourage your employees to:

• Open more of your communications - you're talking to them, not at them.
• Understand your true message - they'll understand why this is important to them.
• Respond and take action - why wouldn't they? You've told them why they should care.

What are some examples of the WIIFM you've added to your employee communications? How was your response? We’d love to hear how this has worked for you. Click on the comment link below and tell us what's worked for you.

Getting Employees to Participate in the Conversation

In Marketing 101, every marketer learns the four “Ps”:  Product, Price, Place and Promotion. And they learn how putting together the right combination of these can yield optimum sales results. Recently, I read an article about how marketers can better engage customers using a fifth “P”:  Participation. The idea is that customers who participate in dialog with a company have more trust, better engagement, preference, word of mouth and brand loyalty to that company.

Can this same principle be applied to HR communications? Absolutely! This is about getting your employees engaged and interacting with the company to benefit BOTH the employee and the company.

Companies that get their employees to participate in “corporate conversations” are going to be more likely to have happier, more engaged and more productive employees than those who are not. There is a wide range of vehicles that allow for two-way conversation, including social media, meetings, events and other two-way communications.

Consider the possibilities:

• A benefits manager is frustrated by low response to a new healthcare alternative that the company thought would be popular. When the manager is researching options for the following year’s benefits, he brings together a small, inter-departmental focus group to help him understand why the employees didn’t enroll for the new benefit. With their input, the benefit is changed. The employees in the focus group spread the word on how this new addition will benefit employees. As a result, the enrollment for the newly-changed benefit is widely embraced and used by employees.

• A company lost a major account. Rumors are circulating. Employees are worried that layoffs are eminent. Productivity declines. Employees are spending increasing amounts of time speculating what could happen to their jobs and the company. To counteract this, the management team takes two steps: Senior management attends department meetings and apprises them of the situation – a need for increased productivity and cost cutting measures, and asks employees to submit ideas. The company starts an internal blog, giving updates on key successes and progress against goals. Suggestions are submitted and the company adopts the ones that make sense. Productivity returns. Hallway conversations are now generating new ideas.

Introducing a "conversation" with your employees can bring some welcome results. What have you tried to get your employees to participate in the conversation? What were your results? Share some ideas that have worked for you.

Engaging Employees in a Slow Economy

Most companies have been hit by the economy, causing employee downsizing, making many employees worry about job security. Morale sinks as a result. Companies need to keep employees focused on their day jobs instead of the effect on the economy on workforce. Workforce.com did an insightful article recently dedicated to ways that companies can help keep morale during these times.

Here are suggested communication tips and tools to help boost morale during these times:

-          Manage the message. Employees will be asking questions, so let them know what’s going on with the company. Address the questions.

o   Be clear. Be straightforward and clear in what you say.

o   Tell both sides of the story. Communicate good news with the not-so-good news. Make announcements when sales, launches and customer retention are going better than expected in addition to when things aren’t going as well.

o   Provide opportunities to help. Every communication should tell employees how they can do their part, whether it is cutting expenses, increased attention to quality control, talking up the product, etc. Let them be a part of the solution.

-          Be visible. This is not the time to have your leadership team tied up in long, closed-door meetings. They should walk the halls, interact with the employees and attend as many of the usual meetings as possible.

-          Choose the right tools. Tool selection is key  for communicating with your employees during these times:

o   Email. This is a great communication vehicle, but don’t overuse it. This is good for periodic updates from your CEO, but too many of these will dilute the message you are trying to send.

o   Online tools. A blog or intranet posting on a regular basis is a good way to let people know what’s happening. And if it’s updated on a regular basis, employees will know it’s a good source of information, and will look for the news.

o   Meetings. Having conversations with your employees is crucial. Depending on your situation, occasional hands-on all-staff meetings may be appropriate. Or for larger companies, attending department meetings or holding brown bag lunches may be more feasible.

Communication with your employees is crucial during these times. Make sure your message and tools are the most effective they can be to help boost your employees’ morale.

What tools have you tried to boost morale recently? Which ones have worked best for you?

 

Using Social Media to Improve Employee Engagement

Last week, The Inside Voice focused on how to introduce social media to your employees. A few years ago, using social media to communicate with employees was new and unproven. Even today, in my conversations with HR teams, many still feel that social media is something that is used for consumers, and rarely for internal communications.

Recently, Talent Management did an article that disputes this mindset. It shows that social media is becoming an increasingly important tool that HR departments use to keep employees engaged. This is based on a recent Employee Engagement Survey completed by the International Association of Business Communicators (IABC) and Buck Consultants.

The results surprised me. The number one communication method that companies in the survey used to engage employees and increase productivity was social media, with 79% of the respondents using this tactic. Other, more traditional internal communications were less popular on the survey rankings: email (75%), intranet (72%), face-to-face meetings (50%), website (36%), and employee newsletters (28%).

Blogs are the social media of choice for companies, with 47% of companies currently using blogs. Which social media are companies planning to use in the future? Discussion boards (33%), Wikis (31%), Yammer (29%) and podcasts (28%) top the list.

What are some ways your company can leverage social media to communicate with employees? Here are some ideas to get you started:

-          Internal blogs. A regular blog posting from the president or management team providing insight into new product launches, sales trends, and new market opportunities can help employees feel more a part of the company, and help them understand how their role affects  the company. This communication is not a PR piece, but provides an appropriate level of information can be especially valuable in times when sales are down, or when there may be bad news on the forefront.

-          Wikis and Yammer. Both of these are great tools to boost productivity, especially for project teams.  Wikis allow multiple employees to make changes on one master document, so employees don’t spend time looking for the most recent version of a document – they make changes online that go live immediately. Yammer allows project teams to touch base internally in a Twitter-like communication, just to the people that need to receive the updates, or who have the answers to pressing project question.

-          Podcasts. Training and education are the perfect opportunities to use podcasting. Simply record the training program, and employees can listen online, or download longer programs to their MP3 player so they can listen at their convenience. This is a great medium for product training, sales tips, new benefit introductions, and topics that people may want to hear multiple times.

What social media does your company use to boost employee engagement? What successes have you had? We’d love to hear your thoughts.