Matt Eastley and Rahul Joglekar sat down with Drew McMillan, Director of Communications and Engagement at Deloitte, to chat about the top trends in employee communications, measuring success in getting messages across to the workforce, and responding to a crisis.
Q: Drew, can you tell us about the top trends in the colleague communications space?
The first trend is about the type of content: consumers now prefer shorter and more impactful content. The second trend is the emergence of AI. [Drew talks about how AI is being used at Deloitte to make lives easier]. And the third trend is about trust. And that’s why the drive for authenticity, transparency and meaning will remain extremely important to communicators and leaders. Watch the clip for the details:
Q: Can you demystify channels and the so called “channel mix”
A channel is essentially a route to connect a message to the audience. Some of the most effective ones are two-way channels – where we aren’t just communicating to an audience but we’re giving the audience a chance to share their feedback. Any communications strategy would have a broad channel mix – depending on the outcome that you want to achieve. Maybe you want to broadcast a piece of communication where you don’t want to hear feedback – crisis communication is one example – where you want to give people some information directly. You aren’t really starting a conversation with them. Another example of a different type of channel is internal social media – where you do want to start a conversation. Broadcast channels are a lot like a town hall – where you are speaking at an audience, whereas internal social media channels are like a village square – where lots of views are being exchanged and there’s a lot of hustle and bustle. Watch this clip for more:
Q: How do you measure success in colleague communication?
We still fall back on click rates/ views [that content we publish are registering]. But what I am really interested in is sentiment analysis – that’s using machine learning, not AI per se. The other thing is data visualisation. When I talk to stakeholders about impact and outcomes from internal communications the ability to visualise the data in an impactful way is a game changer. Watch the clip for more:
Q: What’s the business case for colleague communication?
The role that internal employee comms teams play is to enable the business to achieve its business outcomes – commercial or societal. Some specific functions of the teams are:
- Internal comms teams helps colleagues understand what is expected of them.
- The goals that the organisation is trying to achieve and the story of the organisation.
- For colleagues to hear the explanation when things don’t go right.
- Providing a conduit for leaders to connect with the organisation.Watch the clip for more:
Q: What is crisis communication and can you share a few tips on how to deal with it?
A crisis in a business usually arrives unannounced. It requires a very specific type of communication. It must be factual, accurate, timely and above all – sensitive. There is no room for creativity. It is a remarkable field and some people excel at it. All communicators must have some training in this area. Watch the clip for more: