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April 20, 2006

Why am I receiving this publication?

Imagine that you’re a new employee in your company. It’s your first week. You’re getting acclimated, figuring stuff out, when a newsletter appears in your in box. It’s something from the company, that’s clear, so you pick it up, but you can’t figure the darn thing out. What’s the focus of this publication? Why are you receiving it? What’s in it for you?

Unfortunately, this is a common experience for employees—even those with long tenure. An electronic or print publication arrives unbidden. Its purpose is not explicitly stated. Employees can’t distinguish between this publication (corporate?) and others they receive from the division, HR, the safety department or IT.

The result is that employees don’t know what the publication is for, and what they’re should do with it. So they respond the way people always do when communication doesn’t make sense—they delete it, recycle it, get rid of it.

I was reminded of this phenomenon by the mysterious appearance of a newspaper in my driveway: The New York Sun. (Haven’t heard of it? You’re in good company.)

One morning, when I went out to get the newspapers, there was The Sun. No note, no explanation: Just this strange newspaper in a pink wrapper.

Next day, the same thing. And the next. I got a little break because the weekend came (The Sun doesn’t appear to be published on Saturdays or Sundays), but then on Monday, there it was again. And every weekday since.

If the The Sun’s strategy is to intrigue me, it’s not working. I don’t need another publication. It's not clear why The Sun exists. I refuse to Google The Sun to see if the paper has a web site that would shed light on the mystery of why they’re delivering it to me everyday. (Oh, okay, I broke down: www.nysun.com The tag line: “At last, there is a daily newspaper with a fresh perspective on the local, national, and international events that shape your life.” But still no hint about why they’re sending it to me.)

I tell you about The Sun to encourage you to promote your vehicle, Don’t assume employees know why your publication exists—and why they should read it. As a marketing guru once told me, “If you don’t sell it, busy people won’t buy it.”

I’d cancel The Sun, but I don’t even have a number to call. So every morning, I open the pink bag and throw the newspaper right into the recycling bin.

Don’t let this happen to the publication you’re working so hard to produce.

Posted by Alison Davis at 02:12 PM

April 12, 2006

What can you learn from All You

Can a magazine that sells for $1.97 in Wal-Mart teach us how to improve our employee communication vehicles? I think so because, like all effective consumer magazines, All You exemplifies service journalism—its purpose is to help the audience solve a problem or accomplish an objective.

Unfortunately, too many internal publications (and intranet sites and other vehicles) aren’t designed to help employees do anything. They exist to give executives a channel to communicate their perspectives—so the vehicles are all about what senior management wants to say, not what employees want to hear or know. At their worst, these vehicles are nothing more than vanity press for top execs.

Contrast that with All You’s mission to “speak directly to value-conscious American women like you. In each issue, you'll get helpful articles on taking care of yourself, healthy and fast ways to feed your family, clothes you can wear and afford, do-it-yourself home repair projects, relationship advice from real women, and easy-to-make decorating ideas. And you'll get all this in a beautiful, affordable magazine that truly speaks your language.” (See this and more at www.allyou.com)

Isn’t that great? As if that weren’t service-oriented enough, in the May 2006 issue, Editor Bella Price features the “All You pledge”: “We’re dedicated to making your life easier and more enjoyable every single day. So we promise that each issue of All You will give you:

Before you say, “But we don’t publish diet and fitness advice,” think about this: How service-oriented is your publications or employee communication vehicle? Are you helping employees find out what they need to navigate the company or do their jobs better? Is your vehicle giving the information they want to know? Are you confident that employees want to pick up your publication because it relates to what they care about?

If not, take a trip to Wal-Mart, spend $1.97 and learn from the masters at All You.

Posted by Alison Davis at 11:17 AM

April 11, 2006

French fight and French fries

Virtually everywhere you look, you can see seismic shifts in employment policies and practices—so significant, in fact, that they will require dramatic changes in how we communicate with employees.

For instance, today’s New York Times (www.nytimes.com) has two front-page articles on workplace issues:

Article #1
“Chirac Will Rescind Labor Law That Caused Wide French Riots”
The issue is job security, and it’s caused more than 10 days of protests and unrest in France. It all started on April 2, when French President Jacques Chirac signed a new law which was “intended to give employers a simpler way of hiring workers under 26 on a trial basis without immediately exposing companies to the cumbersome and costly benefits that make hiring and firing such a daunting enterprise. Opposition to the law reflects the deep-rooted fear among the French of losing their labor and social protection in a globalized world.”

Here’s what it means
Companies are trying to gain more flexibility to hire and fire workers at will, and, in turn, employees in nearly every developed country are increasingly nervous about their economic security, whether the issue is jobs, pensions or health insurance. Watch how this plays out in labor relations, and its impact on employee morale and retention.

Communication implication
My firm is increasingly being asked to advise companies how to reassure employees without promising them anything. At one very stable Fortune 500 corporation, employees are expressing anxiety that their pensions will disappear, even though the company does not have plans to change its pension program. “People are reading the headlines and wondering when these issues will affect us,” said my client. “We’d like to allay their fears, but we can’t make guarantees because we can’t predict that we won’t make changes in the future.”

Article #2
“The Long-Distance Journey of a Fast-Food Order”
McDonald’s and other fast-food restaurants are experimenting with using call centers to handle its drive-through window orders: When the customer asks for fries, instead of speaking to an employee, he or she deals with a call-center contractor many miles away who enters the order into a computer to be filled by employees back at the restaurant.

“Taking advantage of ever-cheaper communications technology, companies are creating centralized staffs of specially trained order-takers, even for situations where old-fashioned physical proximity has been the norm,” says the article. Cost-cutting is not necessarily the main goal—the focus is on improving customer service.

Here's what it means
Remote, contract and temp workers are becoming the norm. There are many people working for your company who aren’t technically employees, yet they’re dealing with customers, employees and other stakeholders every day.

Communication implication
Most communicators are only concerned with communicating with on-the-payroll employees. But if nontraditional workers are so important, shouldn't they be as informed and engaged as those who receive an official paycheck?

Food for thought . . .

Posted by Alison Davis at 04:53 PM