Get Ready for Healthcare Reform

All signs indicate that Congress will pass healthcare reform legislation before the end of this year.

While there have been vast differences of opinion about the reform legislation, I think we can all agree that — once the bill is signed into law – employers will need to inform their employees about the changes that will impact them and their benefits.

The good news is that most organizations are either in the process of, or have just completed, annual benefits enrollment.  So there should be some processes already in place for communicating benefits changes.

The bad news — we don’t know exactly what the law will mandate, and exactly how the law will change our company’s benefit offerings.  Unfortunately, our employees will expect to hear that information as soon as the media reports passage of the bill.  And they will get frustrated by our inability to provide specific details.

In this scenario, the best course of action is to start communicating now, start setting the expectation that the HR team is tracking the healthcare reform debate and working proactively with current benefits providers to ensure that information is communicated as soon as details are available.

I’d recommend equipping managers and executives with a holding statement, similar to the ones used in the early phases of a crisis, which reinforces both the organization’s preparations and the plans for ongoing information updates.

You should also be working now on FAQs.  It shouldn’t be hard to determine which questions should be addressed if you’ve been following the healthcare debate: 

• How will I (and my family) be impacted?
• Will I need to switch my coverage?
• How much more with this cost me?
• What are my options for getting insurance?

You might also want to prepare a presentation deck that can be used either by a department manager, or by the HR leader during an all-hands meeting or webinar.  You won’t have enough details to release it until after the bill becomes law, but at least you’ll have a head start.

Don’t delay.  Pull your communications team together and start working now on your plans for communicating what has the potential to be the biggest change facing your employees in the past few decades.

Susan

Employee Recognition on a Shoestring Budget

While chatting with fellow attendees at a SHRM meeting last night, I got the impression that many team managers and HR professionals are struggling these days to get the most out of an unmotivated workforce.

I can’t say that I blame the employees – most organizations have been in cutback mode for months, hours, salaries and jobs have been slashed, and raises and bonuses eliminated. 

After 18 or so very long months, it looks like the economy is slowly turning around.  But employees are having a tough time seeing the light at the end of the tunnel.  Clearly, something needs to be done to re-energize the team, and fast.

Now, I know what you are going to say.  “Susan, we don’t have the money to do a big rah-rah program.”  You’re right.  It would be a terrible idea to do one right now when people are still losing their jobs.

Instead, I have a few quick, low-cost/no-cost ideas that will spread recognition through the entire organization:

1. Thank you notes.  My mom works for a non-profit where a hand-written thank you note (not an email!) is a standard practice.  Managers are encouraged to find a reason to recognize new employees within a few weeks of their start date, and employees are encouraged to write notes to their peers when someone jumps in to lend a hand.
2. A silly department award.  I love to draw from pop culture, so I’m a big fan of using TV and movie characters as inspiration (e.g., “The MacGyver Award” for the most creative problem-solving).  Look for a way to recognize behaviors that model your company’s culture, and be sure to pass the award around.
3. One-on-one sessions.  Take time to schedule a coffee break with your employees and ask them to talk about their challenges and ideas.  Remember that this is a LISTENING exercise; don’t dominate the conversation, let the employee talk.
4. Professional development opportunities.  Most of us belong to a professional association or a local business networking group.  Over the next few months, take a few employees as your guest to these functions.  It’s a great opportunity for them to expand their horizons and network on behalf of your company. 
5. Pot luck luncheons.  Granted, this actually works best if some of your employees can cook… But if their culinary talents are limited to the supermarket salad bar, you can still pull this off.  Just do an afternoon snack break instead.  Anyone can buy chips and salsa, right?

At the end of the day, it’s all about creativity and fun.  Don’t be afraid to experiment a bit.  And don’t forget to get your employees involved.  They are the best sources of ideas to motivate the team.

Susan

The Importance of Listening

As communicators, we are constantly looking for new, more effective ways to broadcast information to our publics – employees, customers, the news media, etc.  We develop programs with eye-catching graphics and clever names, we write talking points and scripts, then we distribute our packaged information to carefully targeted recipients.

In these scenarios, we tend to forget that one of the most important tools in our toolkit is the ability to listen, to gather insights and hear concerns. 

In times of change, when communicators are focused on getting information out to their employees, listening is often forgotten entirely.

A few years ago, I was working with an organization that was undergoing a number of radical changes – wholesale changes at the executive level, a shift in the business model and a significant drop in revenues.  Employees were worried, and despite our best efforts at pushing out updates on what the company was doing to address the problems, there was still a general feeling that the executives were out of touch.

A typical response to this scenario would be to send out the executive team for a series of large-scale employee town hall meetings to review the business plan. 

Instead, we took a different approach.  We implemented something a former boss of mine called “listening opportunities.”

We set up a series of small group meetings with local employees and a senior executive from the main office.  To paraphrase one of Covey’s “Seven Principles”, the executive’s role was to listen and understand, then explain the company’s strategy and actions. 

The executive would open the floor with a set of questions, soliciting feedback and ideas from the employees.  No prepared remarks, no anonymous pre-submitted questions and no scripted talking points, just an open dialogue with employees. 

As a follow up to the sessions, the executives published quick recaps of their discussions on the company intranet, including the improvements offered by the participants.

I’m happy to report that, in addition to building support among the employee base, our approach helped humanize senior executives and even identified some great ideas to remove barriers that were preventing the company from moving forward. 

Sounds like a win to me.

Susan

Two-Way Communication Opens the Door to Innovation and Productivity

I heard an interesting news story yesterday about innovation at a Japanese car company. 

A group of their engineers is studying schools of fish to learn how the fish can move together at rapid speeds without bumping into each other.  The engineers are using their observations to design warning sensors that will reduce fender benders and other minor car collisions. 

Now, that’s thinking outside the box!

American companies are filled with creative thinkers, people who are always looking for ways to improve the company’s products, streamline processes and improve customer service.  Most of those great ideas come from people who are closest to the issue – workers on the production line, employees serving at the counter, staff in the back offices.

Unfortunately, innovative, creative ideas get trapped at the lowest level of the org chart and never make their way up to the level where decisions are made and budgets are developed.

Right now, most companies are struggling to get back on the road to growth and prosperity.  They are looking for the next great idea – the one that will spur on new growth and help differentiate them from their competitors. 
For years we have known that two-way communication is important in maintaining employee morale.  Most companies are familiar with, and some even have in place, an open door policy where employees are encouraged to bring problems and concerns to their managers.

But in this hyper-competitive market, two-way communications are more important than ever.

Front-line employees know where the company is wasting money, which processes are inefficient, and what the customers think about company policies and products.  Managers need to find ways to gather that feedback and reward those employees who have ideas for driving business, reducing costs and improving service.  In addition, they need to encourage employees to think creatively, to come up with new and innovative ways to approach the business.

Think about those Japanese auto engineers.  What likely began with an idle conversation between a group of employees on their lunch break may result in one of the most radical, game-changing design to hit the automotive industry since the invention of the airbag.  Without an environment of open, two-way communications, that idea would have remained in the break room, never to be heard by upper management.

Chances are, one of your employees has the next game-changing idea for your industry.  Make sure he or she has an opportunity to be heard.

Susan

Add Life to Your Employee Publication with Great Photos

I love photography.  Images of other places, other cultures, and other people are an endless source of fascination to me.

With the advent of digital point-and-shoot photography and photo sharing vehicles like Facebook and Flickr, I have the option of seeing the world from my computer monitor.

Of course there’s a downside:  not everyone knows how to take a good photo.

Don’t believe me?  Look through the latest issue of your college alumni magazine, or the newsletter from the charity you support.  What do you see?  Group shots of a dozen or so people gathered in front of a banner or sign; a photo of a speaker standing on a stage, behind a podium; a group of people holding a giant check or cutting a ribbon with a pair of Pee Wee Herman-sizedscissors.

Admit it; it’s the same photos, over and over.  And in many cases, the lighting is bad, the images are blurred, and without reading the caption, you have no idea what is taking place in the photo.

Now look at the photos on the front page of any national newspaper.  Those images tell a story, they draw you in and compel you to read the caption and accompanying article.

Most organizations can’t afford to have a crew of professional photographers on the payroll.  They rely on their internal staff or staff at remote locations to provide photographs for their publications.  As a result, the images in their employee publications or on intranet home pages are flat and lifeless.  Theses images add no value to the publication.

It’s highly unlikely that you have a future Pulitzer Prize-winning photographer on your payroll.  But there are a few tips that anyone can employ to ensure that their photos add visual interest:

1. Limit group photos to five people.  Most intranet standards have limits on image sizes, generally about 3” square.  Twenty people in a photo reduced to that size are impossible to identify.  You have a bit more flexibility when dealing with a printed publication, but you have to ask if the visual information contained in the photo will make up for the loss of text space.

2. Take multiple shots.  You can’t always tell whether the shot is in focus or if the lighting is correct by looking in your camera’s little LCD display.  So improve your odds by taking lots of photos.  If you are photographing people, let your subjects know that you will be taking five to 10 photos so they don’t disperse after the first flash.

3. Try to shoot from different angles and points of view.  For example, instead of shooting the stage head on, shoot from the stage, slightly behind and to one side of the presenter.  That way, you get the speaker and the audience in the image.

4. Crop, crop, crop.  The difference between a good photo and a great one is determined by the decisions the photographer makes, what he or she decides to leave in.  Try a few different options, trimming unnecessary backgrounds, to get your best image.

5. Edit ruthlessly!  If an image doesn’t add to the story, if it doesn’t catch the reader’s interest and draw them in, don’t run it.  It’s a waste of pixels and ink.

One more thought about photos in publications:  there’s lots of free and low-cost photos available online.  Most of them fall into a category that can be described as generic “employees gathered around the computer monitor” images.  You know the ones:  one woman, one African American, one vaguely Latino-looking professional, etc.

While fine for advertising and marketing, those images have no place in an employee newsletter or on an intranet site.  We have a nearly limitless source of employee images in our own organization.  So let’s use some real people instead.

Susan

Just Say No to Bad Employee Meetings

I admit it – I think most staff meetings are a total waste of time.

Think about it:  they generally start five to 10 minutes late, while people trail into the room (or dial in to the conference call line), then there’s another five to seven minutes of “How was your weekend?” and chitchat. 

Finally, when the meeting is called to order, it’s generally not much more than a report out of current projects and activities, with the unspoken assumption that the person who reports on the most “stuff” is the most valuable player on the team.  

Think about how much money is wasted every day on unproductive meetings. 

One hour, times six people, times their hourly rate plus benefits…that’s a lot of waste.

Hey, I was guilty of running a few of those meetings myself, back in the day.  And I’m sure that my staff would get every bit as frustrated with me.

Nowadays, my staff meetings are much shorter and much more effective.

Granted, there is little benefit in holding a staff meeting when one is a sole proprietor.  Instead, that block of time that would normally be spent on updating myself on my projects is instead devoted to information gathering, business development, strategic planning and creative thinking/brainstorming.

So what is the take-away for someone managing a team?

First, I’d recommend that the manager think about why these meetings are necessary.  If they are simply information sharing, there may be a different way to accomplish that – a shared workspace on the company intranet, a weekly team email, or even a low-tech oldie but goodie — a bulletin board.

Next, I’d encourage managers to regain control of the meeting, and establish a practice of having – and following – an agenda for every meeting, distributed in advance, with timeframes noted.

Finally, I’d suggest that managers restructure the meetings to focus on problem solving and brainstorming, tapping the creative energy and resources of the entire team.  Start small; focus on something tangible like an editorial calendar and work up to ideas to re-invigorate tired employee programs and contests.

Before you know it, you’ll be using these team meetings to craft your crisis communications plan and outline your team strategy for the coming year.

Susan

P.S. – My friend and fellow PR practicioner Robert Udowitz spotted this great Business Week article on ineffective presentations.  In the spirit of improving employee meetings, I’m happy to share this link for “How to Give a Lousy Presentation”.  Happy reading!

Leaders Behaving Badly

Maybe we should blame it on a full moon.

In the past two days, we’ve seen two high-profile examples of politicians whose words — and actions — have gotten them into hot water:  California Assemblyman Mike Duvall and South Carolina Representative Joe Wilson. 

You have to wonder what these two seemingly intelligent adults were thinking, what temporary insanity would lead them to misstep so badly.  Unfortunately, they are not alone.

The business landscape is littered with examples of executives who engaged in underhanded dealings or put their company at risk due to unethical business practices. 

When those egregious errors in judgment are made public, most Corporate Communications teams spring into crisis mode, issuing public statements and attempting to minimize the damage.  All too often, their focus is on managing the external message, and the employee population is treated as a secondary audience. 

The result is a sanitized internal statement, couched in legalize, and totally devoid of genuine concern for the team’s feelings of betrayal and uncertainty.

Face it, this is a crisis.  And whether you are dealing with a warehouse explosion, a massive hurricane or an executive caught with her hand in the cookie jar, the same rules apply:  respond quickly, get in front of the story, and give equal weight to communicating to internal and external audiences.

Employees have a stake in your business.  You tell them, over and over, that they are the key to your success.  In a crisis situation, they need to know what has happened, and how the company is addressing the problem.  And they need to know how to respond to questions from neighbors, friends and family.

Most importantly, they need to get that information directly from their company, not from the evening news.

Susan

This Fall, Tell Your Executive to Hit the Road

So, how was your summer?

In the face of one of the worst recessions in recent history, with job losses at record levels and a prevailing environment of fear and uncertainty, I’m guessing most American workers had a pretty tough summer.

After all, who is going to take a vacation when, each week, the possibility of getting a pink slip looms larger and larger?

Yes, I read the recent reports that most companies claimed a bump in “employee productivity” in the 2nd quarter despite slashing jobs and shrinking revenues.   I’m all in favor of removing deadwood, but I have a strong suspicion that the improved productivity is driven by employees doing the equivalent of the jobs held by two or three of their former coworkers.  And who is going to complain? 

Chances are, most employees are keeping their head down and praying that they survive the next round of layoffs.

It’s time to break this cycle of fear and negativity, time to re-energize the workforce and get them focused on their role getting the company back on track and into the black. 

It’s time to get your executive out of their corner office and onto the shop floor; time to rally the troops and re-energize them for the 4th quarter. 

I’m not talking about a video series or an executive blog – this is the time to jettison impersonal one-to-many technologies and go face-to-face with your workforce.

Granted, many executives aren’t passionate, engaging presenters.  And many of them dread speaking to large groups.  Your best bet is to build on your executive’s strong points.

If she is a dynamic platform speaker, treat these events like a political rally – a large meeting room, high energy music, bold, flashing graphics, and an old-fashioned “barn burner” of a speech.

If he’s a bit more reserved, and better in small groups, take the approach of a “listening tour” — set up a series of breakfast or luncheon roundtables in key cities and equip the executive with some open-ended questions to get the ball rolling.

Or, if your executive falls somewhere in between, you can take the talk show approach, with a local market leader playing the Oprah role and leading the executive through a series of questions for a scripted discussion.

At the end of the day, it really doesn’t matter which approach you and your executive take.  Just get out there and get in front of your people.  They need to see their leaders and hear, directly from the source, that the business is on track and ready to rebound as the economy improves.

Susan

Think About the “Whys”

Yesterday’s retrospectives on the life and legacy of Sen. Edward Kennedy reinforced his reputation as a passionate, eloquent speaker. 

Throughout the day, news stories showed clips of interviews with and platform speeches delivered by an articulate, charismatic champion of civil rights and equality.

Yet one clip from his failed Presidential campaign in 1980 stood apart from the others.

In this clip, a reporter asked the late Senator why he wanted to be President.  A fairly straightforward question for any candidate seeking that office, right?

The Senator’s response?  “Ummm……ahhhh….”

No wonder Kennedy failed to gather support for his campaign.  It’s hard to rally around a candidate who cannot tell you why you should vote for him.

Managing people is a lot like managing a political campaign – managers try to build support for their ideas and rally groups of people to accomplish a common goal.  And like politicians, managers often find themselves having to support or defend a decision or action made by someone else.

Their employees expect them to know the answers, to be able to provide context for the action or decision.  Unfortunately, in most cases managers are briefed on the “what”, but they don’t have the information they need to answer the “whys”.

So often when developing change communications plans, communications professionals overlook the role of the manager in reinforcing our messaging.  We fail to equip our managers with anything beyond the most superficial talking points.  As a result, we set our managers up for failure.

As any parent knows, “Because I said so” isn’t an effective answer.  Likewise, “Because the CEO says we should” won’t motivate employees to embrace change. 

Managers must be able to articulate, in plain terms, why the decision or change is a good one, what the consequences of inaction are, and what benefits the employees will see as a result.  If they are unable to do so, your elaborate change management communications campaign has little chance of succeeding.

My advice to communicators:  Don’t let your managers twist in the wind.  Give them the information they need to address those tricky “whys” and win the support of their employees.  In the end, everyone wins.

Susan

Dust Off Your Communications Strategy

It’s the same scenario every year.  You return to the office after a relaxing Labor Day weekend and what is waiting for you?  A memo from the boss informing you that the first drafts of budgets are due on Friday.  That’s right, in four days.

So you scramble to pull together something that reflects your goals for the coming year, and in doing so at warp speed, you neglect to build in funding for new programs or expansion of current ones.

And let’s not forget that this year will be even more challenging; with drastic cuts in program and personnel budgets, many communicators will be hard-pressed to justify maintaining current programs, let alone introducing any new expenditures.

You know it’s coming.  So why not take advantage of these next two weeks to start thinking about your communications strategy and do some preliminary work on your budget projections for the coming year?

My advice:  pull out that dusty file with your communications strategy and take a hard, unbiased look at the strategic direction – does it still support the company’s business strategy and goals?  Are you reaching all audiences? Are your programs effective?

Don’t forget to review any metrics that you have been collecting over the past year.  This is the time to cut programs that don’t bring a solid return on investment (and return on effort!) and re-direct those funds to more effective deliverables.

Next, gather your team for a working lunch.  Challenge your team to do some online benchmarking and come prepared with ideas to “steal shamelessly” and implement in your own organization.  Tap your team’s creativity and brainstorm ways to improve and expand your current deliverables in the coming year.  Discuss no cost/low cost ways to re-energize a tired vehicle, to make programs more cost-effective, to drive participation in events and meetings.

Once you’ve got your updated plan, along with budget projections, print it out and leave it on your boss’s desk when you head out the door on the Friday before Labor Day. 

Then go off and enjoy your three-day weekend, secure in the knowledge that you will be well ahead of the curve when you return to the office on Tuesday morning.

Susan