Central Eastern Europe

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Internal Communications . An agent of
change Jock Mendoza-Wilson
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007 Agent of Change

• In a dynamic business environment where change is
  one of the few constants
• Internal communications has become the 007 of
  Public Relations
• LICENSED TO COMMUNICATE

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3 categories of change

• Takeover bid
• Layoff
• Site closure

Disruption
Creation

• Merger
• Restructuring
• Subsidiarisation
• Moving

Transformation

• Campaign
• Work organization
• Cultural evolution economic / service /
  management
• Privatisation

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Why does internal comms matter?

• IC makes a business difference
• Internal communications was
• HR driven,
• tactical with product/output focus
• Internal Communications is
• About focusing internal resources to deliver
  business strategy
• developing and maintain a competitive advantage
• Speed/agility
• Motivation
• Delivering real economic benefits and improving
  shareholder value

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The New Era

• In the new era of the role played by Internal
  Communications has changed.
• Incident Management is out
• influence without real corp change
• New Internal communications is now
• continuous change to match a continuously
  changing environment
• Business strategy focused

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Internal Comms Role

• In the transitioning organisation change
  management delivers.
• The economic benefits of the merger/acquisiation/p
  rivatisation
• The business objective by the fastest/ best fit
  route minimising disruption along the way
• Brings together the needs of the business and
  the workforce

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How are you employees feeling about change.
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Inside the Head of your Audiences
If I keep my head down and get on with my job
it Wont matter

• here comes
• another change,
• will it really matter

Does the leadership have a clue about this
business
ok so whats in it For me?
Skeptical at best possibly resistant to change
at worst
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What they want to know

• What does it mean for me?
• Three key questions to be answers
• What is planned
• Why is this happening
• What does it mean to me
• How can I benefit

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The Role of Leadership

• THE VISION THING
• Strong visionary management is consistently
  identified as being important particularly during
  change
• With visible CEO leadership during change
  employees feel more confident and engaged
• Driver of change
• Cheerleader
• Accountability/Credibility
• Leading a strong team with a clear vision

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Aligning Communications
Human Resources
Corp Comms
Leadership
Drive messages and understanding active feedback
loop Partnership is a Powerful Tool
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Alignment Communications

• Leadership team training and comms resourcing
• Sell the message
• Get the feedback
• Clear consistent simple messages -messaging
  handbook
• Be Factual!
• Understand both what people feel and what they
  know
• Measure comms performance in terms of impact not
  activity

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Cascade Path

• How do leaders ensure that comms aligns employees
  with delivering the benefits.
• Cascade Path
• Get the commitment and involvement of the
  leadership team and agreement that comms are core
  to success
• Communications leaders
• The Critical Middle management levels trained,
  supported with materials and involved in
  execution
• Implications of changed spelled out in practical
  terms

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Change Communications

• During change management must..
• Build Credibility
• Based on
• Dialogue
• Transparency
• Emotional connection
• Communications skills

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Tool kit

• Tools
• Message doc
• Skills Training
• Evaluation
• Delivery
• Face to face
• Intranet
• CEO hotline
• Newsletter
• Notice boards (real or virtual)

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Listening

• Two way Communication
• Discussion is not weakness or threat
• Both sides need to discuss and reach common
  ground
• Listening skills are vital
• Individual
• Organisation
• Persuasion is the key to success
• Multi channel comms with feedback

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Getting Commitment
Roadmap to commitment

• Acceptance
• Understanding implications
• Understanding details/specifics
• Support/ownership
• Involvement
• Commitment to making it work

BEING IN THE LOOP
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Communications loop
FACE TO FACE

SUPPORT MATERIALS
TRUSTED SOURCE
MESSAGE DEVELOPMENT/TRAINING
ASSESS CONCERNS
Communication Success
CORRECT MISSCONCEPTIONS
FEEDBACK TO CRAFT FUTURE COMMS
MINIMISE LEAKAGE
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Ispat Nova Hut (INH) / Czech Republic
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Ispat Nova Hut / Czech Republic

• Background situation
• Due to the INH trade unions refusal to accept new
  salary percentage increases for 2004, the trade
  unions started with one day strike preparation,
  threatening the management and the plant
  performance
• Mmd was briefed to develop internal communication
  concept for INH to prevent the 24hours strike
  and to upgrade internal comms

10 Manufacturing sites 12,000 staff
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Ispat Nova Hut / Czech Republic

• Objectives
• Short Term
• Prevent the 24hours strike
• Communicate INH management position to the
  employees media and gain fair media
  representation
• Communicate benefit of salary packages on offer
  to the workers (significantly higher compare to
  other Czech companies)
• Medium Term
• Highlight the necessity of funding future
  investments and continuous improvement in
  competitiveness of the plant

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Ispat Nova Hut / Czech Republic

• Key Issues
• Due to lack of communication with the employees,
  the trade unions were able to manipulate the
  situation and provide one sided information to
  the employees
• It was essential to communicate with the
  employees media to limit the trade unions
  ability to keep moving the goalposts
• INH management had not spoken to the employees
  during the discussions with the trade union
• INH employees were nervous and angry, talking to
  the local media

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Ispat Nova Hut / Czech Republic

• Activity
• First priority was to give strategic advice to
  the INH managers on the quickest way to prevent
  the 24hours strike
• Benchmark research was conducted among INH
  employees to understand information requirements
  issues
• Workshop was held with INH senior management to
  agree relevant and credible key messages to
  communicate
• Developed internal communication manual
  including key messages, list of official speakers
  QA document

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Ispat Nova Hut / Czech Republic (cont/d)

• Activity
• Organized regular production meetings with plant
  directors and
• Prepared a special issue of INH newsletter
  explaining long-term aims to all employees,
  including third party analysis
• Provided regular updates to the INH message
  boards (40), INH intranet established a special
  phone line 8888 for questions
• While the meetings with the trade unions took
  place, we held a series of intensive one-to-one
  interviews between the key spokesperson and local
  media to communicate INH long-term aims as well
  as comment on the desire to solve the immediate
  situation

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Ispat Nova Hut / Czech Republic

• Results
• The strategy for dealing with the INH employees,
  trade unions and media worked - the strike was
  called off
• Positive media coverage appeared in all local
  media (inc. radio and TV) explaining INHs
  long-term aims for the plant and counteracting
  the salary demands from the trade unions
• Good relationships formed with the INH employees
  - a good start for the ongoing internal
  communication programme

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In a nutshell

• Internal communications strategy supports
  business strategy it is not just happy talk
• The CEO must be a champion of communications
• Shared responsibility between leadership,
  management, HR and comms
• Words and actions must match
• Real two-way dialogue
• Emphasis on the content rich face-to-face comms
• Honesty! Tell the bad news as well as the good

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Internal Communications Licensed to
thrill. Thank You