Bite Size Comms

You can picture this scene from The Office. David Brent, the boss of Wernham Hogg, ordered an email to be sent to all staff about the company’s strategy and invited comments. Does the email reach, let alone engage, all staff? No. Not in the fictional BBC programme or real life. “The greatest problem with communication is the illusion it has been accomplished”, said George Bernard Shaw. There is an illusion that internal communication is easy. The audience is staff. They must be sitting at their desks waiting for that email to ping.

Many colleagues do not sit at desks with computers on. They might be maintaining equipment, building houses, or operating on patients, to give just a few examples. I call these mobile colleagues. They tend to be adverse to emails. Here is some good practice from my PR apprentices with CMC on successfully tackling the challenge of reaching and engaging mobile colleagues.

• The internal communication newsletter may be sent by email. But print off some copies and leave them where the mobile colleagues congregate. They will pick them up. 
• Use Viva Engage (formerly Yammer) and encourage all colleagues to download the app on their phones. Post news and encourage a conversation on the app, including stories originating from colleagues.
• If the internal newsletter isn’t performing well when looking at the read rates, replace it with a monthly internal podcast. Internal, not listed on Apple Podcasts or Spotify directories. We have seen an opening rate on the newsletter of 20% transformed into an 80% download rate on the internal podcast at one local authority. More work, but greater effect. Podcasts work well with colleagues who travel in their work.
• Although there is a need for management communication, balance it with stories from colleagues. The ‘Working day in a life’ article can be very popular. Encourage authentic communication.
• Have incentives. One organisation has a lovely new intranet. But no one was using it. So, on the 1 December they started an advent calendar. A quiz a day. It worked well as a device to encourage colleagues to use the channel.
• Use video. For internal comms, what one can shoot on a phone is fine in quality. Edit it (plenty of good free software for that task) and add subtitles. 
• Use animation. This can be more engaging than a ‘talking head’.

Thank you to my PR apprentices. Any good practice that you would add to the list on how to reach and engage mobile colleagues?

[Image: Unsplash]