Lina Poa, Associate Director, Investigates:
The Internal Communications Debate in Asia

Lina Poa
Effective internal communications is proving to be just as vital to today’s businesses as a winning product. As GolinHarris puts it: "You can't engage employees to achieve corporate goals through osmosis. You need strategy, focus and a commitment to communicate and listen to feedback."

Most businesses know this, but whether they actually believe in it and want to take the step further to invest in it was something Lina Poa from GolinHarris in Singapore discovered at a recent industry event.

At the end of July, a two-day inaugural Internal Communications Asia 2005 conference was held in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Lina, associate director of GolinHarris in Singapore was invited to chair the conference. The event provided a great opportunity to learn about the views and attitudes toward internal communications in the Asia Pacific region. It was also a platform where GolinHarris could demonstrate to the delegates its commitment to the importance of investing in internal communications.

As chairperson, Lina’s role was not only to facilitate interactive sessions, but also to introduce speakers at every session as well as highlight and summarise salient points presented by those speakers.

Topics presented included:
driving employee motivation;
the use of open communications and effective feedback to foster an environment of continuous improvement;
using employee communication to avoid information overload;
and communication in a multicultural and global workspace.

Lina found the sessions interesting and the discussions following particularly informative.

"My main observation was that Internal Communications is in its infancy in this part of the world. In contrast to how it’s taking off in the US and the success of InsideEdge (GolinHarris’ specialized consulting group on internal communications), it seems that Asian companies are lagging behind in their recognition of the importance of internal communications and its importance as a vital part of the business plan.

"Put it this way: of the delegates in attendance, only a handful were actually in a dedicated internal communications function. The rest were either in human resources or like me, from the communications sector. The obvious question being: Whose job is it?" she explained.

This implies that either HR or the PR consultants should be responsible, when in fact it needs to be an all-in-one package that both HR and PR can work together to enhance.

Some of GolinHarris’ clients in Singapore are beginning to take a serious view of internal communications. In particular, the DHL Regional Office has an in-house internal communications team which oversees the development of its staff intranet and region-wide newsletter "AP Connect."

One of the main challenges Lina observed from the delegate discussions was that although everyone agreed it was important, many often struggled to get support from top management.

"You can think up the most ingenious internal communications campaign, but unless you have buy-in from management, it’s never going to be as effective as it could be," said Lina.

In addition, those in dedicated internal communications positions were often in the lower ranks, so getting in the ear of top management can sometimes be close to impossible.

"Various ways to target management were discussed…most importantly, they need to see the value before they will commit to it. Especially in financial terms i.e. ROI of the program," she added.

So is internal communications important?

"Yes, definitely" says Lina. "But the focus needs to expand beyond just retaining employees; rather, we need to be in the business of creating brand champions."

The equity, integrity and trust inherent in strong brands depend on employees who ultimately "deliver" on the brand promise. A brand cannot be credible unless it is translated from vision to reality through front-line employees.

Engaging employees is an important facet of the modern-day multinational organisation.

Jack Welch, the ex-CEO of GE, remarked in his recent book "Winning" on the success of its employee engagement program which sought to garner and implement ideas from staff to improve production and work process across GE. "I was approached one day by a retiring staff who told me,"It’s about time you asked us for our ideas on improving the work process. After all, who knows better how to improve efficiency than those that perform the job day in and day out….you paid me for my hands over the last 20 years when you could have my brain for free."

The Internal Communications Asia 2005 Conference was held in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, on 26-27 July. Lina Poa chaired the two-day event demonstrating GolinHarris’ commitment to the importance of investing in internal communications.


Moving with the times
By Mike Liew
Director, GolinHarris in Singapore

Mike Liew

Many years ago, when I first started out in the communications business in Malaysia, most of my local client appointments and remits were very focused on the domestic market.

Clients expected us to not just understand their products and services, but they also had an expectation that we have a deep understanding of the local market environment and are able to counsel them on developments that might impact on their business. As cliché as it may sound, many clients actually considered us as their partners - their Tonto, if you like.

To that end, we made it a point to ensure that we kept abreast of developments in practically every business and industry sector and every geo-political trend in the country. But those were the days where our clients’ businesses tended to be domestic in nature.

Today, we live in a world that is increasingly more competitive and "borderless." Domestic markets are getting more crowded and profit margins thinner. Companies realised that they had to expand beyond the borders of their home markets. Expansion into overseas markets became a necessity for companies to stay alive and to return value to their shareholders.

On the corporate front, a growing number of South East Asian companies are also conducting fund raising exercises in international markets. Sizes of initial public offerings (IPOs) are getting bigger, and often, the international capital markets are the only viable options that these companies have.

What does this mean for us in the PR industry? With the "internationalization" of businesses, there is now a growing demand for PR consultants who not only understand and are culturally sensitive of their local remits, but also have a working knowledge of the new markets that their clients are expanding into.

These companies require consultants who can be equally effective in providing strategic counsel to them, whether in the context of local regulatory requirements, or the way the media works in another market.

From a regional perspective, this development has benefited agencies located in hubs like Singapore and Hong Kong. In the last 12 months, there is growing anecdotal evidence that points to this direction.

At GolinHarris in Singapore, we have been engaged by several companies from Malaysia (and also Indonesia) to help them with their communications needs in their home and overseas markets. Almost inevitably, the main reason cited for our appointment was the fact that several of our senior executives in our office are Indonesian and Malaysian nationals who have demonstrated deep understanding of their home markets; regional hubs such as Singapore and Hong Kong; and international markets.

In a recent conversation that I had with a KL-based headhunter, he remarked that he too has been getting more briefs by Malaysian companies to recruit Malaysians who are currently living abroad or have worked in overseas markets before. The reason given to him was that as they (the companies) ramp up their overseas expansion plans, the need for executives who are equally efficient operating in the Malaysian domestic market and overseas markets is greater than ever.

Going forward, it is clear that being the "local expert" just does not cut it anymore. Our clients are already covering a wider geographical footprint and are well-versed with the operating conditions of multiple markets. As PR consultants, shouldn’t we be equally adept and keep pace with our clients in the way we operate? After all, we still want to be our clients’ Kemosabe, don’t we?

(This commentary was published in MEDIA on 20 May 2005.)

The Future of Employee Communications
By S. Keith Burton
President, Insidedge

Keith Burton

Last week came the news of an American mother fired by her Utah employer for criticizing the company and her manager in a web log. She and dozens like her are learning weekly about the power, reach and influence of personal blogs – and how corporate employers who take exception to their punditry, criticisms and attacks are adopting new policies and practices for electronic communications to control what they publish. One CEO of a leading software producer himself has adopted a blog to document his travels, convey the depth of his conversations with front-line employees, to underscore new truths and to dispel urban myths that pervade the company.

A meeting in Chicago brought together professionals who described themselves as "isolated" among larger employee populations because of how corporations communicate with them. "Employers communicate with us in ways that fail to recognize our cultural differences, our diversity, how we like to receive information, and what actions and words help to build greater levels of trust," said one individual. "We’re not talking in the same language. Is anybody listening?" Were these global employees acknowledging a U.S.-centric model for employee communications? No. The voices were those of African American employees of American iconic corporations – feeling estranged in their own work settings.

Human resources leaders at one of the world’s great airlines were mystified as to how union employees always had access to the "nitty-gritty" details of change initiatives affecting them before the company communicated with them. "It’s simple," said a union shop steward as he reached into his pocket. "Our grapevine is accurate 80 percent of the time and we have wireless devices the company gave us to keep up to speed on flight and gate information. We’ve adapted these devices to accelerate and broaden the reach of the grapevine – and to stay ahead of the company." Beating the company, every time, every day, has become the game.

Welcome to the brave new world of employee communications.

Through 14 years of leading specialized teams in employee communications, change has been the watchword. Corporate re-engineering, cultural transformation efforts, waves of mergers and acquisitions, economic growth and decline, the introduction of new technologies, periods of recession and inactivity, layoffs and downsizing, labor relations campaigns, the globalization of business – all have dramatically influenced employee communications.

Gone long ago are the days when employee communications practitioners were relegated to designing newsletters or video presentations. Our work is centered on providing strategic counsel in support of overarching business plans; creating information and tools to help align employee populations with business objectives; translating complex structural and organizational models so that front-line employees can deliver expected behaviors; and designing communications training programs in concert with performance management initiatives to better engage employees.

That’s today. What will tomorrow hold?

Our future, just like the past, will show a steady march of evolution, additional refinement and continued advancement of the discipline to help influence the performance of multinational companies. To that end, following are the key trends we expect will influence the work of those who lead organizations:

1. New technologies will change employee communications as we know it. Is your company ready for the digital boom that is speeding forward? AOL tells us it has more than 200 million registered users who send about 2 billion messages every day -- and the workplace is increasingly the realm of IM users who employ the technology to work "real-time" together, regardless of geography or time zone. The further proliferation of technology – from e-mail to wireless devices to Podcasting to blogging and other electronic forms of communication – will dramatically alter ways we communicate internally. Today, communication is instant. It comes so forcefully and in such volume that many liken it to "drinking information from a fire hose." The ways we use new technologies to better filter information flow and to reach key groups – sales and marketing professionals in the field, telecommuting employees and even the growing world of contract professionals who are offshored – will be essential to corporations. Doing so, however, will require rethinking our approach to content, customization and the adoption of new tools and electronic gateways to moderate and fine-tune information flow.
2. The age of specialization in employee communications is growing. A one-size-fits-all employee communicator is becoming a rarity. Today’s companies are increasingly seeking multi-disciplined professionals who can effectively leverage deep experience in employee communications with specialized knowledge gained from such areas as performance management, compensation and benefits, organizational design, labor relations and expertise in integrated marketing. Add secondment abroad, tours of duty in other cultures and you have the ideal employee communicator. As an example, a U.S. food producer recently asked for help in identifying an employee communications specialist with packaged goods experience, clear knowledge in how to work with a large union population, expertise with a recognized economic valuation model, and an ability to create new tools for leadership communications. Seeking this type of specialization and sophistication will continue as corporations increasingly leverage communications internally to achieve strategic business goals.
3. Diversity will remain front and center in our work. The true globalization of our economy is placing increased pressure on our discipline to finally solve its diversity challenges – both in terms of the professionals involved in these careers and in representing the true global nature of today’s multinational corporation. Takeda Pharmaceuticals has adopted inclusion policies that welcome applicants from a multi-faceted segment of the population. These new policies will also seed Takeda with employees who can better translate and communicate the company’s vision, culture, ideas and business plans. To effectively engage our global employees, we must ensure that our communications and communicators truly mirror the population and geographic locations of our people and can lead more customized programs for key internal audiences. As one client recently reminded us: "Just because our company is headquartered in the U.S. doesn’t mean we want a U.S.-centric employee communications program."
4. The outside will increasingly influence the inside. For the past several years the Internet has grown in its influence on employee populations. Message boards at Yahoo, AOL and other websites are creating communities of employees and observers who increasingly, in an unregulated fashion, discuss and influence business performance, cultural practices, the flow of rumors in the corporate grapevine and both official and unofficial activities. Although the future role of blogs and bloggers has yet to be determined as a key internal communications channel, the external presence of these pundits is increasingly shaping our national and international dialogue. Beyond this, truly progressive companies will seek out ways to better leverage the "inside" to influence the marketplace as corporations come to realize that employees truly are one of their greatest assets. Some refer to it as the new wave of internal marketing. Others refer to it as internal branding. We call it the power of "One Voice, One Look" that harmonizes internal communications with the external face of a company.
5. Labor organizations will seek out new populations to organize - around the world. Labor unions have been losing power in American society for some time, and a smaller percentage of workers are members of labor unions today than has been true in many decades. Some analysts see these changes as temporary, part of the ongoing back-and-forth shifting of power in the workplace, while others see them as permanent and as indicating a major change in the workplace of the future. In many industries and sectors, the role of organized labor has been minimized to levels never before seen. To bolster membership, we are witnessing – and will continue to see – labor reach out to new employee segments for membership. My prediction is that segments such as healthcare, professional services, software development and medical device manufacturers will experience increased organizing activity. Look for union growth, as well, in international markets such as Mexico, Iraq, Cambodia and Australia, to name several, as multinational companies -- Bechtel, Kellogg Brown & Root, Adidas, The Gap, J.C. Penney, Boeing, among others -- seek to offshore jobs or expand global operations. One such example is Wal-Mart – having failed to get a foothold in the U.S., representatives of organized labor recently met to discuss how best to organize its international employee base in Asia and South America.
6. The struggle to reach manufacturing employees will improve. Front-line manufacturing employees have long been one of the more difficult audiences to reach and engage in corporate and internal communications. The sheer job demands of production cycles, "third-shift" operations and other time- and labor-intensive activities often pushes communications to the backburner. While face-to-face communications remains the most effective, successful companies are increasingly finding ways to reach front-line workers through wall displays, visual "performance dashboards" and, in some cases, through electronic channels such as interactive kiosks. Through it all, managers remain as the key conduit, with studies showing more than 70 percent of all employees saying their workplace trust is predicated on what their supervisors tell them. The success that can be generated by increasing this audience’s engagement and reducing turnover is a key to improving margins. As internal communicators, we must continue experimenting and piloting new programs that effectively engage this critical audience.
7. Audience-specific communications will become more prominent. The advent of intranet-based managers’ communities -- many call them "managers’ portals" -- has heralded a new age for audience-specific communications that many companies will turn to in hopes of meeting increasingly specific needs. Managers, sales and marketing professionals and others need information and strategies customized for their work that are more direct and timely. Failure to do so will result in a blocking of message cascading and bolster an impenetrable "Concrete Middle" as the river of communication flows around, rather than through, intractable second-level executives. How pervasive are the new intranet communities? At one location of a leading Federal agency, we found more than 2,000 web sites directed to the interests of special work groups. Rather than eliminate these sites, we sought to re-align and harness them with a more authoritative voice and through a unified look and feel of a great organizational brand.
8. The age of the celebrity CEO is dead. The past five years have proven firsthand that the age of the celebrity CEO is over. What the rise of corporate governance, corporate scandals, a focus on business ethics, securities laws and the U.S. Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 could not kill altogether, time and a new generation of leaders have evolved. These new leaders are less "spotlight" and more "flood-light" in style. They are leading by consensus, focusing on performance, and listening more intently to their managers and front-line people. They have humility. They are less "I" and more "We" in style. They may have learned business under the Welches, Fiorinas, Gerstners and Eisners, but they practice leadership with a new style.
9. U.S.-centric versus global communications models to realign. For years, global companies based in the U.S. acted as domestic companies with international operations. This will no longer be the case, as companies –regardless of where they are domiciled – must learn to and adapt to their local market needs, differences and opportunities. Specifically, we are witnessing European and Asian markets prove resistant to employee communications messages and programs that are not sensitive or respectful of culture and operating differences.
10. Metrics to evaluate employee communications effectiveness will increase. Measuring employee behaviors and actions against employee communications activities still trails other key metrics for finance, human resources, sales and marketing. Our own model for Trust, Leadership and Preference is being adapted to demonstrate how specific actions that come as a result of employee communications practices will change performance in more measurable ways that translate in terms of quality, productivity and economic value. We’re now completing field research in the U.S. and U.K. that will show the critical link of effective employee communications with productivity and retention of key personnel.
11. "Real-time" communications will be increasingly pervasive. Grapevines now are electronic as well as traditional, and we cannot suppress or control them, try though companies do. They operate 24-7-365 and we must adopt a "real-time" view that ebbs and flows daily. Crisis communications efforts are predicated increasingly on being vigilant to discover rumors that spring to life in distant markets among employees -- and take wing on message boards that are scanned by critics and media who monitor the electronic gateways day and night.
12. Homegrown talent proves to be greater asset. Many companies are increasingly realizing that they cannot meet their growth objectives without fostering and developing leaders from within. For these companies, not only recruitment is important; equally critical is the practice of moving leaders through the ranks to best leverage their institutional knowledge and skill sets.

We have reached an important plateau in the practice of employee communications. Gains achieved in recent years through Best Practice models have been adopted by leading brands, and those slow to adapt will catch up in the next two to five years.

It’s time for new breakthroughs. These breakthroughs will come to us in the form of personalizing brands, evolving business models to better "include" employees and creating "micro" programs that can be dialed up or down dependent on the ever-changing business climate. Further, we will adopt – or be forced to adopt – communications and business models that align all issues, cultures and differences against a common platform for growth. All-the-while the information proliferation and overload will grow, potentially leading to what we have dubbed "The Clutter Bomb." We believe those companies that can effectively balance this clutter with the practice of employee communications will succeed in the new world order.

For more than two decades, Keith Burton has been one of the leading industry practitioners in employee communications and change management. As President of Insidedge, Keith leads a global group of counselors within GolinHarris and The Interpublic Group who are focused exclusively on improving organizational performance by building employee trust, improving internal communications and affecting overall change at many of the world’s leading corporations. During his 30-year professional career, Keith has served clients including NASA, The Federal Aviation Administration, Tyson Foods, Wm. Wrigley Jr. Company, Boston Scientific, Visa International, and American Airlines. In addition to his responsibilities with Insidedge, Keith also serves as GolinHarris’ regional managing director of the Central and Northeast regions, with management responsibilities for the firm’s offices in Chicago, Dallas, Houston and New York.