Saskia Jones' presentation, Engaging remote audiences in conversations with leadership, from CIPR Inside's conference on 13 October 2015

1. ENGAGING REMOTE AUDIENCES
IN CONVERSATIONS
WITH LEADERSHIP
A programme of work with Oxfam’s Leadership Team
Saskia Jones, Head of Communications Engagement, Oxfam

2. OXFAM: Who we are
We won’t live with poverty
Credit: EPA / NARENDRA SHRESTHA.

3. Who WORKS FOR OXFAM?
• 5,000staff
• 30,000volunteers
• 50 countries

4. WHAT’s MY ROLE?
Head of Communications Engagement: managing Oxfam’s brand,
communications strategy, internal communications and translations teams.

5. Page 5
Our challenge
A recent staff survey found that while
staff were passionate about Oxfam,
they were feeling disengaged with
leadership.
The CEO asked us to provide a
communications solution to help
address this problem.

6. Our communications
challenge
• Hard to reach audiences
• Huge range of diverse
communication channels
• 3 business languages
• Siloed working culture
• No global channel that allows
dialogue with
staff, apart from
email
We needed to break down barriers and open up communication between
leaders and 5000 employees in 50 countries.

7. Page 7
Strategy &
implementation
We’re moving from cascade to
conversation
We want to foster global conversations
amongst staff
Specifically, we want to give staff an
authentic connection with our leaders

8. Page 8
Research & planning
We researched game-changing ways of
engaging staff with leaders.
We tested ideas with a representative sample
of staff
We know staff want authenticity, and leaders
want inspired employees.
Based on our research there were two key
ways to achieve this:
•enabling a conversational approach
•allowing it to be unscripted
And the best way to reach our diverse global
workforce was to do this through a digital
platform.

9. Page 9
THE ANSWER
The answer was an
unscripted online platform
called ‘Ask me Anything’.
It was about shunning the
simplicity of monologue and
embracing the unpredictable
liveliness of dialogue.
It was real and transparent –
no sugar coating, no script.

10. Page 10
How it worked
Ask me anything
Based on the popular Ask Me
Anything on reddit.com. Leaders
invited anyone to ask them anything.
Vote for your favourite
Staff could also vote for the questions
they most wanted to see answered.
Global relevance
Because the forum was online,
people could take part right around
the clock. And the site was run in 3
languages.

11. Page 11
Ask me anything: aims
Our objective was to empower the Leadership Team to connect with staff on
a more informal level, answer their questions and learn what’s important to
them.
We set ourselves an ambitious target – to get 500 staff online in under 3
weeks – which is 10% of staff globally.
Mark Goldring Olga Ghazaryan Tim Hunter

12. Page 12
Strategy &
implementation
Small budget - we got the platform at a very low price and ran it
ourselves
Fast response – we went from initial idea to launch in a month
Reaching our target audiences – champions made all the difference
Creative promotion – from straight adverts to blogs

13. Page 13
How it worked
Short videos
The site was open for 3
weeks, and then the top 5
voted questions were
answered in short videos by
the directors.
These were a huge hit!

14. Page 14
How it worked
Unscripted live sessions
There were then 3 on-line ‘live
Q&A’ sessions with directors,
where they answered questions
for 30 minutes flat with no warning
and no prep.

15. Page 15
HOME PAGE

16. ‘ASK ME ANYTHING’ RESULTS
We monitored the site daily and sent top-line stats to the Leadership Team
each week, spurring them on to keep participating. Using Google Analytics,
we were able to tell how many people were online for the live Q and As.
Ask me anything: results

17. Page 17
“Just a quick note to give my support
for the AMA sessions. I would guess
that what they symbolise
(approachable leadership) is of greater
value than the actual content of the
conversations, on a personal level I
appreciated the opportunity to ask
Mark a question and would like to see
Andrew Horton in the hot seat!”
Holly, Shop Manager
“Love the fact that Mark and the
directors were up for this. It's a new
way to have a conversation. I feel like
Mark is now more approachable.”
Ben, IS staff.
Ask me anything: results
Staff submitted a huge range of
questions for the directors, from ‘What
is our audience segmentation strategy?’
to ‘Do you have a pair of lucky pants?’.

18. Page 18
‘ASK ME ANYTHING’ RESULTSAsk me anything:
Key learnings
What we learnt:
• Be brave, try out new things
• Don't control conversations
• Make leaders part of the
crowd

19. Page 19
THANK YOU

20. Page 20
CONTACT
Saskia Jones,
Head of Communications Engagement
Oxfam GB
Twitter: @saskiahjones1