It was a real treat today to be back face-to-face at one of our breakfast sessions after more than two years of running them virtually. It was a reminder to everyone just how important it is to meet ‘IRL’ (in real life) and was a living example of the benefits of face-to-face communication!

Today’s workshop had two presentations – both looking at insight and how you can use it to best effect – but coming from slightly different perspectives.

Den Carter has huge experience in internal communication, working for a variety of brands including easyjet, FlyBe and Virgin Trains and, most recently for British Airways where he spent four years as their Head of Channels & Content, Colleague Communications & Culture.  Den is an advocate for developing strategies to measure communication in a meaningful way; asking questions and taking the right approach so that measurement is insightful and offers you direction in terms of how to make things ‘better’.

“Measurement is easy,” says Den, “but insight is much more complicated.”  Most of us can measure our click rates, but do we know the reasons why some content is more popular than others, and do we understand how that content makes people feel? 

Den used analytics from internal information sources and compared them to the staff engagement survey. This comparison has shown that departments whose members report higher levels of satisfaction engage more frequently with content. But which comes first? Without delving deeper and asking more questions you can’t possibly hope to know the answer to that.

Den believes you have to identify your most engaged employees and find out why they are more engaged.  Ask people what works for them, and probe to find out why it works for them and not for others?  As he said, one size fits all approaches don’t work. Finding employee influencers, engaging with them, and working out what they might be able to help with is a key part of Den’s strategy to create action from insight.  At BA, Den was able to harness influencers by asking them to host a podcast, used both internally and externally, talking about important issues such as Sustainability, Pride Month and International Women’s Day. 

Insight is what Den builds his communications strategy on, or as he’d say: ‘A strategy without insight is like a stab in the dark’.

Sue Solomons, our second presenter, has been the Head of IC for Greene King for the last two years, and has held senior communications roles in a diverse range of organisations – including Anglo American, BP, Diageo and Standard Chartered.

As context, Sue mentioned that everyone in hospitality has had a very turbulent ride with the pandemic, which they’re still feeling impact of it today, with staff shortages across the sector adding a further level of complexity to a sector which traditionally has experienced a high rate of turnover.   

With 95% of their staff furloughed during the pandemic, a crisis comms approach served Greene King well and staff valued hearing from their senior leaders on a weekly basis.Prior to the pandemic the new Chief Executive had launched a culture change programme, putting the customer experience rather than cost management at the heart of decision-making, bringing more autonomy for pub leadership teams.A new purpose (to Pour happiness into Lives); vision and values; along with a transformation programme were delivered during lockdown, and culminated in the ‘Unleashed Festival’ for 3,000 staff in October 2021. (An event that was postponed several times).

This considerable achievement has delivered a more empowered workforce, who are able to deploy a values-based decision-making model, which will be all important as recession looms and customers become much more discerning about where they spend their ever more limited disposable incomes.  From a communication perspective, whilst much of the ‘heavy lifting’ has been done, Sue and her team are finding they need to re-set their comms approach – leaning into the empowered workforce approach and moving away from a top-down communications model.  They’re now having to reconsider what good engagement looks like, and how they can measure it effectively, a valuable reminder that our approach to measurement needs to evolve to match our strategy and our culture.  

With grateful thanks to Sue and Den for sharing their case studies.

As a business that undertakes measurement and provides insight for a range of clients, from large-scale reviews to pulse measures it was wonderful to hear how measurement can help drive culture change and provide valuable insights to leaders. We discussed today that it’s not enough just to measure, and that there’s a critical role for IC professionals in helping their organisations become listening organisations as we continue to adapt in a post pandemic world.

We’d be interested to hear your views on insight and what’s worked in your organisations, and if you’re looking for support do get in touch. 

Published by Nicky

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