Battery-powered employee engagement

Battery powered

Engaging and inspiring colleagues to improve performance

Little things matter

Growing global employee participation in an employee survey

Catalyst

Leadership competencies for 90,000 people

Leader in you

Launching a new intranet

Intranet rollout

Eight minutes from the Earth

Eight

Over the course of the pandemic, internal communications has come into its own &#8211; and has become relied upon by many organisations to help workforces through the crisis. We believe it has the power and opportunity to go further, and create and influence the employee experience in a whole heap of ways, from building trust with leaders, engaging colleagues in the purpose and mission (from onboarding and beyond), running wow events, creating connections across organisations and encouraging the kind of collaboration and innovation that powers the very best of organisations. We have worked with a wide range of ambitious brands, from Canon and Virgin through to Arriva and SGS, to provide research and strategy as well as award-winning creativity and digital execution.

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Are you a truly digital workplace?

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COP26 and the opportunity for organisations

Internal Communications

The leaves are turning, jumpers are out, and hot teas and coffees were essential at our latest IC Leaders’ Breakfast. Hosted at our offices in Southwark, we brought together internal communicators from across sector (and geographies!) to discuss the hot topics and pressing challenges in IC. Our theme was ‘Developing a culture for success’ – a topic that’s clearly front of mind for many as it sparked brilliant conversation and reflection in the group.
We were lucky enough to have the discussion led by Tor Goldfield from Expedia Group and Mary Jacobsen from Bird &amp; Bird. It was really interesting to hear how the needs of their respective organisations differed, and what function internal communications has in these different contexts.
For Tor, there was a need to streamline the values to their core essentials when their new CEO took over. By and large, the values stayed the same as under her predecessor, but Tor spoke of the sea change in investment and care for their values that motivated a lot more active participation from the workforce. This led to an uptick in overall employee satisfaction as, from their own metrics, team cooperation had reached 92% with a massive increase of overall engagement to a 3-year high.
In Mary Jacobsen’s case, at Bird &amp; Bird, they developed and grew these values in 2023 and have been working to embed them ever since. Scratch. Similarly to Tor, this was triggered by the entrance of a new CEO but combined with the launching of a new corporate brand, something that 106 was brought in to facilitate. This effort led to a multinational investigation into the shared sensibilities across continents. In an effort to avoid a London-centric narrative they were keen to move away from, a research project was launched to bring in as many different global points of view as possible to find what working for the firm meant to all their people.
These two case studies sparked an early discussion about recognising cultural differences when articulating global company values. In that same vein, how important are those values to organisations and how important should they be? Often, when companies expand and join collectives, culture can be lost as new stakeholders come in and new ways of working are developed. Henry, 106 Founder, made the point that this type of restructuring should be seen as a “stress test” for organisations; if you can’t uphold your values on your worst day then they shouldn’t be thought of as your values.
But it’s one thing to state values and another to live them. Discussion moved onto how embed values into everyday operations. Benchmarking is crucial to avoid negative interpretation of values but having clear focuses on what they looked like. As we talked further, we defined disengagement as when values aren’t truthful in how the company conducts itself, highlighting the importance of behaviour modelling.
Companies in general feel the need to be all things to all people but a good point was made about how companies can be tied by the markets they operate in. Given greater global insecurity in recent years, we came to discuss how to navigate complex issues in a truthful manner. One person shared their powerful move to offer an open forum for colleagues to discuss what the business was doing in relation to these external events or topics, in a safe internal space.
Conversation then turned to how to influence leaders and the concept of “authenticity” in communications. A great point was made that workforces don’t look for authentic leaders necessarily but more for credible leaders; they back up what they do with their actions. In light of this, the need to be a collaborative and “critical friend” when working with leaders was necessary to make real impact in communications. In the examples given, this meant that employees understood their role in the wider strategy and felt their concerns heard.
A final hot take with this great analogy that someone shared: employees think comms are like marriage while leaders think comms are like dating. Leaders want to put their best results forward and tell their people what’s great about working here whereas employees want more depth in their comms and greater honesty.
It was fantastic to have so many IC pros together, to hear about what’s going on in different organisations and share some common challenges. Thank you to everyone who came and contributed so openly, it was such an enriching morning.
Until next time!
Do you have a hankering for professional development and Ole &amp; Steen pastries? Come along to our next breakfast! Email <a href="mailto:daniel@106comms.com">daniel@106comms.com</a> with your interest, and we’ll invite you to our next event.

IC Leaders’ Breakfast: Developing a culture for success

Change management has been of the main issues of this year and something that all manner of organisations need to know how to navigate. No company goes through major change without its perennial challenges. Luckily, Poppulo took on the subject and shared a refreshing perspective with their webinar on EVP Misalignment on Change &amp; How To Get It Right.
Our two speakers were Joss Matthieson, Engagement Officer for Change Oasis, and Leona O’Sullivan, Employer Brand Manager for Deloitte Ireland. It was refreshing to see two industry professionals talk so comfortably and confidently on this subject, particularly when referencing their own experience in the sector.
They kicked things off with a quick poll to take the temperature of the call, finding out how much change participants were currently experiencing change at their organisations. Joss furnished this by citing that prior to the pandemic, the average company had 2 or 3 transformational programmes and now, post-pandemic, that number stands at 15 or more.
The solution lay in internal comms teams’ meticulous understanding of a company’s core values and how to position them in relation to specific decisions made in a change programme. For colleagues this creates an opportunity to join the dots and understand where they fit in the context of the wider strategy.
But the greater lessons came from Leona’s own experience of the leadership team at VMware, her former employer and a cloud computing tech company, that was acquired by Broadcom in her time there.
Naturally, as anyone who’s worked through a merger can speak to, there was a lot of anxiety and fear around job security and operations. In Leona’s own words, there was almost no time to catch a breath before they had to start looking at structures and roles within the company moving forward.
This increased vulnerability led them to default to management as new stakeholders increased. Even changes in intranet sign-ins were cause for concern, with many people fearing that a routine maintenance issue or administrative function might mean they were out of a job.
This is where increased leadership communication, even an “over-communication style”, became an essential asset in managing change. Even though much was out of their hands due to regulation and jurisdiction, leaders at VMware would still regularly gather to answer concerns when they could. Investing time, energy, and patience in their people worked to allay fears and reinfuse their culture with trust and understanding. When they had no other options, the best way to manage these anxieties was in this open-hearted manner to create psychological safety.
Obviously, it’s easy to be a human being when it feels like everything is on the line but how can we ensure that connection in our day-to-day? As Leona and Joss’ discussion continued, they talked about demonstrating self-awareness of what colleagues are experiencing and moving away from homogenous messaging was crucial. This culminated in what Joss called the SHIFT Framework:
<ul>
<li>Survey emotional culture.</li>
<li>Hone leaders’ emotional intelligence.</li>
<li>Integrate emotions into change strategy.</li>
<li>Foster emotional cultural habits and rituals.</li>
<li>Track and tweak your approach.</li>
</ul>
It was a great exploration, not just of how emotional intelligence can make all the difference for our colleagues but how it can be built into functional frameworks. Ultimately, it was proof to me about how much emotional interchanges occur in a business, even where you wouldn’t think it. There’s ample opportunity to flesh out culture and values and communicators shouldn’t limit themselves in what they can build when working strategically.

The Impact of EVP Misalignment on Change and How To Get It Right: Poppulo Webinar Write-Up

Borrowing from Frankie Goes To Hollywood, when two tribes go to war merge, it often turns into point scoring, resistance, obstruction and sometimes all-out war.
Leaders can be vying for power; managers may hunker down and keep themselves protected; colleagues can get anxious or take flight.
And if there’s a vacuum of communication or simply a lack of transparency, expect imaginations (and the grapevine) to be working overtime.
Having been through a couple of acquisitions and worked with several companies going through mergers and restructuring, here are a few insights into some of the challenges and some of the potential answers.
&nbsp;
Align to business strategy
Yeah, sounds like Change Management 101.  But a lot of talk following a merger can focus on a load of processes, changes, projects and engagement that can feel random or simply superfluous to current need.  Focus on what matters now, and is aligned to the strategy.
&nbsp;
Be as transparent as you can
Going through a merger or restructure has lots of change, understandably, a few known unknowns and, in the words of Donald Rumsfield, there will always be a few unknown unknowns.  Some things can’t be shared – whether publicly or people sensitive – but it’s that ability to be able to share what you can and explain why there are some things that can’t be shared right now.  Or some questions that leaders don’t have answers for.
&nbsp;
Make an effort to understand the resistors
It is easy to dismiss resistors as people who wouldn’t be happy with whatever is happening or just like to stir things up.  But their resistance comes from somewhere, and being able to have that cognitive empathy is critical.  Sometimes it’s simply a lack of knowledge or communications; sometimes pure fear; or they feel they have to pick sides – and they don’t want to go against a leader who’s clearly marking his or her territory.
&nbsp;
Make sure leaders stand up and be counted
Mergers, restructuring, change programmes – these are all major programmes that eat up a lot of leadership and managerial time, and that’s without everyone getting on with the day job.  But leaders need to make time to listen – and listen intently; be visible; and encourage colleagues to voice opinions, bring ideas and feel like they are shaping the organisation, at every level.
&nbsp;
Find the glue that brings you together
While company strategy provides a sense of direction, the glue for many is in the culture and sense of purpose.  Again, not at a macro level, but how can we collaborate?  What are the opportunities?  What is the culture we are creating here?  Values help to frame this, and show a commitment to its people, but also give voice and empowerment to teams and individuals in shaping that culture in the future.
&nbsp;
Be clear about the opportunity
Leaders can often speak in broad terms about the market opportunity for the new company; but the excitement of that can often appease quickly.  People want more granular detail – what does it mean for me?  There is always work to be done to be able to show to people at different levels in different departments, what the change means.  It could mean more opportunities, a chance to collaborate with new teams or develop new products, or simply it provides stability for the team.  It doesn’t need to be a moonshot message.
&nbsp;
There is no silver bullet for any merger or restructure.  You have to work in the context of your organisation &#8211; some mergers are much smoother than others, often when there&#8217;s little or no overlap of skills or territories.  And you have to work at it, full stop.

When two tribes go to merge

Ah, marketing. The art of persuasion melded with the science of analysis. It’s come a long way over the past century, with countless gurus finding new and innovative ways to communicate and sell a message, a brand, a product&#8230;
Wait – did I say communicate?
Marketers have mastered the art of grabbing attention, keeping people engaged, and making messages stick. Could taking on a marketing mindset support us internal communicators to develop a culture where employees actually want to read, share, and act on the information they receive?
Here’s why internal communicators should start thinking like marketers, and how it can make all the difference.
Employee Engagement is akin to Audience Engagement: Just like customers, employees need to feel connected to the message. In the marketing world, brands craft content that speaks directly to their audience’s needs, and internal communicators should do the same. Internal communicators who craft messages tailored to different teams—whether it&#8217;s sales, HR, or tech—will see much better results than one-size-fits-all announcements. Think about how marketers personalise content for their target audience. Internal comms can take a similar approach: segment your audience, create content that resonates, and watch as engagement levels rise.
Building a Strong Brand: Marketers know how to create a brand that resonates externally, but internal communicators play a vital role in building the brand internally. UK businesses have been ramping up their focus on employer branding to attract top talent. Internal communicators can play a key role in this by ensuring employees understand and believe in the company’s values, mission, and culture. When your team feels aligned with the brand, they become brand ambassadors—taking that consistent message out to clients and customers.
Tell Stories that Stick: Storytelling is the heart of marketing. Marketers don’t just throw facts at an audience; they create narratives that make an emotional connection. The same can work wonders for internal comms. Instead of bombarding employees with dry updates, create stories that show the human side of the business.
Take a cue from <a href="https://www.steptwo.com.au/award-winner/john-lewis-partnership-keeping-the-workforce-engaged-and-involved/">John Lewis &amp; Partners</a>, whose internal communications focus on celebrating employee contributions and sharing stories about the company&#8217;s impact. It’s not about fluffy content, but about making people feel seen and part of something bigger.
The Power of Data: Marketers are constantly measuring success—whether it&#8217;s click-through rates or social media engagement. In internal comms, data often gets overlooked, but it’s just as valuable. Are employees opening your emails? Are they attending the virtual town halls? Gathering and analysing this data can help you adjust your communication strategies and ensure they’re actually effective.
Multi-Channel Messaging: Just as marketers use multiple platforms to reach customers—whether it&#8217;s social media, email, or paid ads—internal communicators need to think about the best channels to reach their teams. Not everyone is going to read that 9 am email blast! Some might prefer a quick video update, a Slack message, or even a podcast-style briefing.
Driving Behavioural Change: At the end of the day, both marketers and internal communicators want to inspire action. Whether it&#8217;s buying a product or embracing a new way of working, the goal is to create a shift in behaviour. Marketers use creative campaigns and incentives to drive these changes. Similarly, internal communicators can adopt a more campaign-driven approach to inspire action—from encouraging the uptake of new tech tools to fostering collaboration between teams.
Gone are the days of internal communications being a box-ticking exercise. With a marketing mindset, internal communicators can become strategic partners in shaping organisational culture, driving engagement, and boosting productivity – making a lasting impact.

Should Internal Communicators think like marketers?

Last week, 106 were invited to Communicate Magazine’s Employer Brand Management Live event for 2024, bringing together the latest and greatest in the employer branding sector. We take any opportunity to see how people are moving the needle in creating vibrant company cultures and this event was no different. Hosted masterfully by Andrew Thomas, we heard from a range of talent across multiple sectors, all working tirelessly to improve the working lives of their colleagues and articulate clear values
The first presentation came from Lyndsay Curry from the NatWest Group and Suzanne Nash from AMS who discussed how using data and technology helped to develop NatWest’s “always-on” recruitment strategy. NatWest Group found that their hiring campaigns were more reactive and too short-lived to be effective. On top of this, they were looking to break into a new hiring market in India, a country that they had no major presence in.
They knew that global consistency came out of one messaging framework applied globally, rather than costly stop-start campaigns. So they built on the impressive persona work they already had in place and identified individuals in existing segmentation groups to understand how they engaged with channels and what those channels should be supplied with.
They also made the distinction to invest in buying audiences rather than ads to ensure their work reached the right people. This made the basis of key content pillars before launching into an “explore and learn” phase where they found space to explore user-generated content that told the peoples perspective of NatWest. This programmatic campaign proved hugely successful as they had a 110% increase in content creation in India and a click-through rate of 71%. NatWest Group crafted an agile programme to reach new talent, built for new markets and easy repurposing. More than this, they should deft ways to operate within budget limitations.
Keeping with the international vision, Nathalie Plavonil and Ben Read from TUI took to the stage, presenting their case study on how they unified and inspired 60,000 colleagues. As many of us did, TUI took stock of their operations after the hardships of COVID. For their communicators, it was a wake-up call to the reality of their colleagues. This led to a meticulous process to build a new EVP, which included one on one stakeholder interviews, internal/external focus groups, and toolkit generation.
What stood them out from their existing processes was that they gave colleagues the options of staying involved in the development as part of their surveys, building authentic engagement and idea generation. They wrote and released the tagline Let’s TUI it, which spoke to the can-do positive attitudes of their people.
This made the bones of their omnichannel strategy, which captured a day in the life of their workforce, made up of over 500 personal submissions. This gained 20k views across 40 countries, giving them the desired impact. It was a great campaign that showcased the real spark and charisma of the TUI workforce, with great results far outside of their initial purview. It was heartening to see how well the people of TUI bought into their EVP for greater fulfilment and job satisfaction.
Next up was a panel discussion on Keeping the employer brand electric, which featured Mark Crampton from Air Bus, Nimai Swaroop from Shell, and Alexandra Bairstow of JLR. It was a far-reaching discussion on why employer brands are important and the unique opportunities to embody them in pragmatic ways. One of the main insights I took from it was the constant recalibration to keep alignment and staying aware of new talent drivers.
Afterwards, in our roundtables we discussed how to activate global EVPs with increased localisation. In our group, it became clear that respecting certain channels and operations was crucial in establishing shared trust and ownership.
Following that, it was time for a one-on-one profile on Nina Goswani on aligning your employer brand. She was an incredibly personable and knowledgeable figure, having worked as the BBC Creative Diversity Lead for years, with a background in journalism. Again, the main focus was on how speaking up for greater inclusivity in the workplace was an opportunity not a threat to the status quo. Good discussions around these kinds of topics are a great test of a good employer brand as it created the psychological safety to have real conversations about the business. It also featured an interesting look at how technological biases can be nipped in the bud and harnessed for the organisational brands we want to forge.
As we wrapped up lunch, it was time for Sian Dutton and Caroline Winder from AXA Insurance to walk us through how they build their inclusive and inspiring workplace identity. They began by explaining that they had found only 4% of millennials wanted to work in insurance, due to the ongoing misconceptions around what insurance involves. This meant an entire cultural transformation for the 21st century, and one that engaged an entrepreneurial spirit.
To do this, AXA’s comms team wanted to shape the potential of their employees and seeing it as a personalised responsibility. They launched internally with a unique interpretation of the AXA logo with the concept “Don’t touch the switch.” Through a four phase execution, they were able to embed their employer brand in the workforce with 30 global ambassadors that captured attention and reintroduced insurance for a modern workforce.
After that, we were lucky enough to be treated to an award-winning case study from Romanian food provider Kaufman and how making their hiring more inclusive became the defining aspect of their employer brand. This was one of the most impressive executions we heard from and proof of how impactful employer brands can be on policy and inclusivity.
By and large, the project was designed to integrate people with disabilities into the workforce, both physical and mental. This was spearheaded by an open communication channel to externals, including 7 hiring events that targeted people in wheelchairs and even a multichannel campaign on TikTok and beyond. This even incorporate sign language with hashtags. In Kaufman stores, trolleys were painted unique colours to show the company commitment.
The results were that there were 1500 interviews conducted so far with 500 jobs available for a range of neurodivergent people in at least 180 stores. There are 450 employees with disabilities and a wider comprehension of the struggles of people with dyslexia and other neurodivergent activation alongside it. For communicators, it was proof of being ambitious in your transformational campaigns and not to push the envelope for real change.
To round out the day, Julia Randall and Sabrina Rossetti walked us through how Mimecast strengthened their employer brand. As a cybersecurity company, they needed to have a brand that could keep up with the fast pace and regular growth and transformation. After structural changes and changes in leaderships, they needed to redefine their EVP and ensure business return.
This began with a reinterpretation of the existing data points that supported their original brand identity. At the time, they identified as a scrappy start-up whereas now, as a private business, they were more of an agile enterprise. The founders believed they should have a humble mindset when they began but with growth they wanted to take more pride in their work now that they had reached some substantial achievements.
This new research was carried out through five one to one interviews with existing leadership, an audit of nine existing research document, and two leadership workshops. This was translated into comms through their Give and Get model, which explored their values through the interplay between the organisation and employees. For example, if you give your expertise you will get meaningful and worthwhile work. The main challenge was in the visual language of their new employer brand, trying to cut through the noise of existing tech narratives. For Julia and Sabrina, keeping momentum and involvement with key stakeholders vital in keeping pressure on these concepts and fostering unity of vision.
One of the throughlines of the day was shaping frameworks around the work you do today. In a time where corporate channels and ways of operating are in total flux, there’s no reason to limit your options in how you spark excitement and elevate the positives in your work.

EBM Live 2024 Write-Up

An under-discussed aspect of working for a global company is knowing the nuances and habits of different cultures&#8217; working environments. Luckily, last Thursday afternoon, Simply presents had an online webinar about just that and the work that <a href="https://www.medtronic.com/uk-en/index.html">Medtronic</a> had conducted in building cross-cultural awareness for a more inclusive workspace.
Logging on with a cup of coffee, I was excited to hear what Medtronic’s Xeniya Shilina, Senior Manager of Internal Change Communication, and Lisa Emilie Fritzboeger, Communications Manager, had learned. It certainly wasn’t surprising that the company ran such a session with 95,000 employees across 150 countries and 78 manufacturing sites.
Medtronic’s culture was all over the globe; Latin American countries, across Asia and North America, but their communications team was still about 80% US-based. They set out to build greater cultural awareness between these siloed departments to equip their people with the emotional intelligence and people skills they needed to create great global output.
As much as this was an initiative led by the two, huge parts of it were made possible through the grassroots efforts of volunteers at Medtronic, who put the time and effort in to develop the programme in earnest. This was made up of a series of learning formats and activities to help take a check of people’s current cultural understanding and test them.
The initial framework was based on the work of <a href="https://erinmeyer.com/#:~:text=Author%2C%20Speaker%2C%20and%20Cultural%20Expert,differences%20in%20a%20multicultural%20environment.">Erin Meyer</a>, author, speaker, and cultural expert. More specifically, her concept of <a href="https://erinmeyer.com/books/the-culture-map/">The Culture Map</a>, which ostensibly were cut between two communication styles, direct and implicit. These ranked national cultures on a scale of eight, which included communicating, evaluating, leading, and more. This would provide a framework to navigate different working styles across the planet and gave the know how to apply yourself when faced with one that is distinct from your own.
This framework was delivered to the workforce through four activities to drive engagement and meet different learning styles. These ranged from interactive polls, self-paced learning, live sessions with Erin Meyers herself, and finally a feedback team session where colleagues could practice what they learned and ask more questions.
One of the crucial drivers of this project was stakeholders found in leadership positions who were able to vouch for the merits of the project and bring its full potential to their colleagues. More than this, their acuity to understanding the need to fold in all learning styles proved to be hugely successful and helped them achieve a 90% participation rate in the project.
Another interesting element was that culture understanding was revealed to be a competency must, alongside the likes of business acumen and AI. As companies become only more and more disparate and diffuse, people skills and cross-cultural understanding can’t be forgotten as a means of streamlining communications and gaming out strategy.
The fact that this project was such a labour of love, from the team of volunteers to executive stakeholders, shows how much all teams wanted to connect with their international colleagues and valued this skillset. To give the chance to learn tangible communications skills that go far beyond the remits of their positions was a unique addition to the upskilling and employee journeys of places like Medtronic.
More than this, it was putting in the vital work to forge the cohesive global workforce that people want to see. No matter what size, a company like Medtronic can go back to basics and enable confident, proactive, and meaningful communications, no matter their background.

Internal
Communications

We help organisations to engage and connect colleagues, share knowledge and grow capability.

Case studies

BATTERY POWERED

LITTLE THINGS MATTER

CATALYST

LEADER IN YOU

INTRANET ROLLOUT

EIGHT

Insight

Are you a truly digital workplace?

Event

COP26 and the opportunity for organisations

Recent Posts

IC LEADERS’ BREAKFAST: DEVELOPING A CULTURE FOR SUCCESS

THE IMPACT OF EVP MISALIGNMENT ON CHANGE AND HOW TO GET IT RIGHT: POPPULO WEBINAR WRITE-UP

WHEN TWO TRIBES GO TO MERGE

SHOULD INTERNAL COMMUNICATORS THINK LIKE MARKETERS?

EBM LIVE 2024 WRITE-UP

SIMPLYPRESENTS WEBINAR: MEDTRONIC’S CROSS-CULTURAL BRIDGE BUILDING

We help organisations to engage and connect colleagues, share knowledge and grow capability.

Case studies

BATTERY POWERED

LITTLE THINGS MATTER

CATALYST

LEADER IN YOU

INTRANET ROLLOUT

EIGHT

Insight

.css-1xu3tth{color:black;}.css-1io7a6i{box-sizing:border-box;margin:0;min-width:0;color:#ff3366;color:black;}.css-1io7a6i:hover{color:#ff3366;}Are you a truly digital workplace?

Event

COP26 and the opportunity for organisations

Recent Posts

IC LEADERS’ BREAKFAST: DEVELOPING A CULTURE FOR SUCCESS

THE IMPACT OF EVP MISALIGNMENT ON CHANGE AND HOW TO GET IT RIGHT: POPPULO WEBINAR WRITE-UP

WHEN TWO TRIBES GO TO MERGE

SHOULD INTERNAL COMMUNICATORS THINK LIKE MARKETERS?

EBM LIVE 2024 WRITE-UP

SIMPLYPRESENTS WEBINAR: MEDTRONIC’S CROSS-CULTURAL BRIDGE BUILDING

Are you a truly digital workplace?