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CIPR Internal Communications Conference

We recently attended the CIPR Internal Communications Conference which was a great session. We heard from a great variety of speakers and here are the nuggets we took away.

• Strong, visible, empowering leadership provides an authentic and engaging strategic narrative about the organisation, where it’s come from, where it is going and why.

• Staff are involved in developing this narrative – which is communicated constantly and clearly

• The story gives a line of sight between the individual job and the organisation’s vision

• Sunday Times ‘Top 100 Companies to Work For’ found that feeling listened to was the most important factor in determining how much respondents valued their organisation.

• Employees are involved in developing solutions early – not informed of the next initiative. Options for change are discussed.

• Recognition is a reward in itself.

• Schedule senior management to ‘Walk the Talk’

• Empower line managers to check understanding whilst cascading.

• Survey little and often as a year is a long time

VMA Group: Search, selection and interim management specialists offered their Top 10 Recession Skills

1. Influencing
2. Shoestring delivery
3. Commercial acumen
4. Writing
5. Proving worth
6. Stakeholder management
7. Budget management
8. Team management
9. Presentation skills
10. Pushing back

Internal Communication has a lot in common with the principles of marketing.
It’s about segmenting audiences, finding ‘selling points’ that resonate and address the issues and questions. You’re often asking employees to buy in to a corporate strategy after all.” Shell

Synergy in Berlin

The Synergy team had a fantastic trip to Berlin to celebrate a great year. One of the highlights included a teambuilding activity on Saturday at The Planet Drum – an international drum and percussion school. Mirko Schmitt hosted our session along with Fabian Schmiedel which was lively, entertaining and great fun. With some of the team never touching a drum before, by the end of it we were making great music together – or so we thought anyway! Check out our pictures of the team – rock stars in the making…
Thanks to the team at Planet Drum for helping make our trip a great success. If you’re visiting Berlin and fancy a fun team building activity, this is for you.
http://www.theplanetdrum.de/