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April 09, 2009

What are your challenges?

Yesterday I facilitated an in-house workshop with 15 communicators from different parts of a multi-national company. As I often do, I started the session by asking, “What are your challenges?” I thought you’d be interested in how the participants responded:

“We’re setting up small-group luncheons with a senior executive and we thought employees would be thrilled to be invited. So we were surprised when nobody responded! How can we increase interest and participation?”

“Employees are exhausted from all the turmoil. They’re apathetic and suspicious and feel uncertain. How can we engage them?”

“Late last year, our intranet got a a lot of traffic, but lately employees are just not visiting the site. Maybe the problem is news fatigue, but in any case, how do we increase traffic?”

“Our internal clients want to include the kitchen sink in every communication. How can we advise them to pare it down?”

“How do we cut through the clutter to encourage employees to read our communication?”

“How can I make my stories more catchy and compelling?”

“We’d like to include content from all parts of the organization, but some people just don’t provide information. How can I encourage them to participate?”

“We hold town halls, and people attend, but no one asks questions. How can we get employees more engaged during a town hall?”

“We need to keep leaders up to date with key issues—and, just as importantly, to translate what those issues mean to their people. How do we do so?”

It was interesting how similar these challenges were—but that even within one company, there were some significant differences.

How do these challenges compare to the ones you’re facing?

Posted by Alison Davis at April 9, 2009 01:05 PM