Supporting and engaging teams in difficult times

Supporting and engaging teams in difficult times Kevin Ruck, Founding Director, PR Academy

When the going gets tough where are your leaders and line managers?

Confused? What is engagement? How should we manage change?

What would you choose to do to engage people?
Give people a five per cent pay rise
Take your team out to a special event
Tell people what is going on
Introduce a new suggestion scheme
Say “well done” for a good piece of work
Give people a say in what the organisation does
Give people a bonus day’s holiday if they take less
than 5 days off sick a year

The secret to successful engagement There is no secret.

LIVE model of engagement Empathy

Leadership Understanding and living the business strategy, values, goals 60% understanding (TowersWatson) 54% senior manager involvement in communication (IABC) 48% senior managers have a clear vision (Truss et al.) 30% consistency in behaviour (IABC)

Managerial strategies for communicating about change Adapted from Clampitt, DeKoch and Cashman, in Miller, K (2009, p186) Strategy Definition Spray and pray Management showers employees with all kinds of information in the hope that employees will be able to sort out significant and insignificant information Tell and sell Management selects a limited set of messages regarding core organizational issues. Management “tells” employees about these issues and then “sells” employees on the wisdom of the chosen approach Underscore and explore Management focuses on fundamental issues related to change success and allows employees the creative freedom to explore various possibilities Identify and reply Management listens to and identifies key concerns of employees and then responds to those issues as they are brought up Withhold and uphold Management withholds information as much as possible. When management is confronted with questions or rumours they uphold the party line.

Leadership visibility Challenges Comfort with ambiguity Guide not god Saying I don’t know Supporting line managers

Information 49 per cent of employees feel fairly well informed about important organisational issues 29 per cent said they received only a limited amount of information 13 per cent reported they received not much at all Truss et al (2006) In general, satisfaction with organisational information ranges from 53% to 64%.

Information – getting the basics right Facts: How will the re-organisation be done? For example, job matching? What’s the process? Plan, plan, plan: day by day, even hour by hour to make sure everyone hears the right thing in the right order, regardless of where they are based and what shifts they work. Process: Always do what you say, if things change say why. Collaborate: Work with HR and Operations, and lead the communication.

Voice Give all employees opportunities to have a say, don’t just pay lip service to this. Make sure points raised are collated and then covered in regular updates. Trade Unions - ensure you are involved so that messages and timings are aligned. Leadership - walking the floor.

Empathy 30% performance not discussed (Truss et al.) 44% of managers rarely/never coach employees (CIPD) What is bothering staff is very often different to what managers think will bother them. Line manager has to step up to the coach role, training may be required for this.

Roles and skills for Internal Communication Extent of need Extent of solution Adapted from Quirke (2008: 304-6)

Examples Ultimately, our team is engaged because they get to do what they’re best at; like the people they work with; and personally connect with Innocent’s purpose. The other day I was in a Waitrose distribution centre that we’d acquired from a rival. I asked a driver the differences he’d noticed since we took over. Before, he said, he’d just been told what to do by his management and now he was asked. He liked the difference. Charlie Mayfield, Chairman, John Lewis Partnership Richard Reed, Co-founder, Innocent

Invest more time in communicating Successful change management communication does not have to cost a lot of money. It’s an investment in time. Communicating is not an add-on, it’s part of the job. Replace expensive surveys with support for actual communication. Mega surveys usually only tell you what you already know. Stop doing them and re-invest the money saved in internal communication actions.

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Supporting and engaging teams in difficult times

by The PR Academy on May 29, 2011

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