17 September 2007

Experts share secrets to successful brand engagement

Gathering of communicators identifies internal communication as "the glue" of organizations.

Communicators, engagement experts and branding buffs gathered at an internal branding and employee engagement forum held in London earlier last week. Speakers from Virgin Mobile, online network Yahoo!, mobile telecoms group Vodafone, mobile media company 3, the UK Ministry of Defence and retail bank Barclays, shared their strategies for establishing a strong internal brand.

3's "gorgeous" workforce
Di McDonald, former director of culture, learning & development at 3, described how its employees are encouraged to "be gorgeous" in everything they do, as one of their key behaviors, in addition to being brave, creative, exuberant and simple.

One of McDonald's ideas as part of the strategy to transform 3's culture to be more employee driven was to let staff decide how they wanted the canteen to be redesigned, "You can't tell people they're working for a great company, they have to experience it," she said.

Although McDonald no longer works for 3, she continues to refer to the company as "us" rather than "them", and this, she said, is the key to successful internal branding and engagement: when employees leave but still feel passionate about the company.

Communicating the Virgin brand with DVDs and chocolate
Virgin Mobile's head of recruitment and culture, Richard Roberts (see Figure 1, below) shared Virgin's brand values:
We're Human.
We have Drive.
Our employees have Freedom.
We have Courage.
We're Fun.

Roberts believes engagement starts at the recruitment process and stressed the importance of hiring people for personality over experience, ensuring they possess the values to keep the company's internal brand alive.

When keeping present and prospective employees happy, Roberts thinks it's often the smaller things that count most. Before they come in for an interview Virgin sends candidates a recruitment pack, consisting of a DVD about the company, a tea bag and a chocolate bar, to say "We want you to get to know us. Why not do it over a cup of tea and ask your family and friends if we're right for you too?"

Another cheap but cheerful technique is to send good leavers a pack of forget-me-not flower seeds, encouraging them to return, reinforcing McDonald's idea of staying loyal to a company even after leaving.
Figure 1. Richard Roberts: Engagement begins with recruitment


Engagement doesn't happen overnight
Mike Thompson, head of the customer journey team at Barclays, explained how it rolled out an internal brand campaign to engage its 23,000 employees in 2,000 locations. The team developed a set of behaviors through customer research, brainstorming and using mystery shoppers.

Managers in all branches were provided with "Way Ahead" boxes which contained branded, practical tools such as a pack of playing cards with ideas for encouraging the behaviors written on them.

Thompson strongly believes that the key to an engaged workforce is giving reward and recognition where it's due. This is how Barclays brought attention to the brand program but it only gained momentum 12 months later. "Employee engagement is a journey," says Thompson. "You don't change hearts and minds overnight, you have to be patient."

Internal comms is "the glue" of an organization
Helen Love, (see Figure 2, below) who's held senior internal comms positions at Microsoft, Unisys and now Yahoo! Europe, as its head of internal communication, explained that despite these companies having a healthy budget for external comms and branding, the internal comms budget has often been low in comparison.

But Love says this shouldn't be a hindrance because the simple things are often the most effective. For example, "Say thanks to 3 people everyday, it costs nothing," she says.

In response to Richard Roberts' theory about internal communication being "the glue" of an organization, Love said: "Interal comms is not the sort of glue that you want to dry white, you want it to dry clear so that you provide employees with the picture, but they shouldn't realize what part internal comms has played – engagement should be part of your business, not a separate thing."

Figure 2. Helen Love says keep engagement techniques simple


Delegates concluded that employee engagement is a constant journey, and with company changes happening all the time you should never expect to reach a destination.

Love's advice for fellow communicators is "When you feel like you haven't acheived anything, just look back over time, and you'll realize how far you've come along the journey."


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