Internal Communication practices for an informed and engaged workplace.

Internal Communication is the effective communication between people within an organisation. Effective Internal communication creates an informed and engaged workplace, therefore better results can be produced.

I think that internal communication is important because it encourages people to connect and share their work and ideas. It ensures that all team members are on the same page, making projects more cohesive and consistent.

 

Photo credit: Ipsia Mishra from "Literally Communication"

 

I have focused on Internal Communication in this blog post because at Tourism WA it is the responsibility of the Corporate Communications department to improve and maintain it.

The Corporate Communications department puts together a internal communications newsletter every two months. The next newsletter is due to come out this month and I'm hoping to get the chance to work on it. The newsletter:
- informs employees of current news, activities and events,
- includes staff member photographs,
- includes updates from key individuals in the organisation;
- introduces new staff members through short bios.

Within the department, both Corporate Communications and Stakeholder Engagement team members communicate effectively through a series of practices, such as:
-weekly meetings, to discuss current and potential issues, monitor activities, present research findings, collaborate and delegate roles,
- office structure. The layout of the department allows for discussion and collaboration conveniently
- after discussing a project I have observed that it is common practice for staff members to confirm key points discussed via email;
-feedback on others performance through saving document edits and verbal discussion allows staff to evaluate what they need to improve. Majority of staff are open to feedback and give it when others want to check up on their performance.

Other examples of internal communication practices at Tourism WA is bulk emails from key figures of the organisation, such as the CEO Stephanie Buckland.
On my first day I had a direct experience with internal communication, my placement supervisor Kelly sent out an email to a majority of the organisation informing them that I had started my placement with them, my dates and intensions.

Internal communication assists in ensuring staff members are in a comfortable, enjoyable and rewarding environment. Workplace culture can be improved by focusing and improving internal communication. During my time at Tourism WA in the Corporate Communications department I have experienced a office culture that is:
- open and easily accepting environment. From day one I felt welcome,
- supportive The office has a strong sense of mateship, people seem to have mutual support for one another,
- respectful;
- flexible.

Tourism WA offices are located on Mill street in Perth CBD. Photo credit: realcommercial.com.au

 

If your interested...
Here is an example of a modern style of office structure in Singapore, known as an "agile workplace," I would like to one day work in an office with this structure.

If anyone is interested in reading more about workplace support, I've found a great article produced by Californian University-Berkeley's University Health services. The article is easy to understand for people wanting to improve their supportive skills. The article assists people through providing guidelines on how to be supportive to co-workers as well as friends and classmates.
 
 - Caitlyn :)
 
 

 

You Learn More When Things Don't Go Right.

Last week I had the opportunity to help plan for and set-up an event for one of Mesh Marketing's client's- Nespresso. They were going to run their own training booth at the first official Good Guys Expo. This expo involved key store members from all Good Guys stores coming to the Rendezvous Hotel Perth Scarborough and in a round-robin format they would move in their groups from booth to booth learning about different products that they have to sell in store.

Now, don't get me wrong, this event did have many positives but I found the things that didn't go right the most useful to learn from.

The main element that didn't go quite to plan was communication- internal communication within The Good Guys organisation and then external communication between The Good Guys and participating organisations like Nespresso.

As this was the first-ever event of its kind for The Good Guys, I don't think the participating stores knew how official the event was and hence didn't show up. I am unsure if this was due to confirmation issues between the organisers and the stores or if it was just not clear enough to the stores the nature of the event. Once the store managers heard how professional this event was the were all deeply regretful for not allowing their staff to attend. Many stores had just not wanted their staff to attend due to not wanting their staff to be out of the store for too long. This really reiterated to me in a real-life example of how important it is to look after your staff and put them first because they are your most important stakeholders.

After chatting to Western Australian Nespresso Sales Promoter Tim Williams, I learnt that when he was trying to organise the details of the event, communication between the event organisers and him was non-existent. They were not efficient at all in responding to him up until the day before. To me, this is unacceptable. Working on the day it was very clear that communication had been poor as everyone was quite unsure of what was happening.

I did learn that events management can be quite stressful if not planned within an inch of its life and it does incorporate A LOT of hard manual labour!


Below are some photos of the Nespresso booth at The Good Guys Expo at the Rendezvous Hotel Perth Scarborough (note how deserted it looks due to lack of attendance):

PR May Seem Invisible But It's Always There...

Implementing the skills I have learnt in a theoretical based environment into the real world always seemed like a very daunting proposition to me. For many years, I have had the luxury of learning about Public Relations in a very sheltered environment where if a mistake was made it didn't matter too much because it was all make-believe. Now I would be applying what I know into a real organisation where if a mistake was made it is very hard to just backspace your wrong answer from your essay. It is out in the real world for everyone to see.

However, I was very lucky with my placement. For four years, I have worked with Sydney-based marketing company Mesh Marketing. They specialise in representing high-end brands across Australia- some of which include Nespresso, Moet & Hennessy, Movenpick and SKII. I have worked as a sales demonstrator for Nespresso which involved me going to events or into stores to demonstrate their products with the aim of selling.

I had always thought of Mesh as more sales orientated and had never actually thought too much into the PR side. I began to think more about it though and realised that although this organisation is all about marketing, there is definitely PR present. As an employee of the company, I began to think about the PR tools that they have in place and how they affected me.

I realised that PR had seemed almost invisible for me in the organisation for two reasons- 1) They are a very efficient organisation who I have been working with my whole working life so good PR is all I've known a company to achieve, and 2) As I've learnt more, I've noticed some areas have been lacking because they have been struggling to implement strategies across the country without a PR representative based in Perth.

Very excited about the prospect of nurturing and changing my own work environment, I discussed with Managing Director Gayle Clark a few ways that I could use my internship to aid the organisation on a PR level from Perth.

These ideas included:

- Creating a company Intranet for employees based in Western Australia to boost morale and the sense of team environment.
- Helping with the set-up of all commercial events and also internal events such as staff training days.
- Writing a "bible" for staff at Nespresso demonstrations across shopping centres with all information compiled into the one document (sections such as issues management and media guidelines would be added from scratch).
- Creating a social media presence for the Western Australian side of the company.

I am very excited to start as not only will I be gaining invaluable on-the-job experience but I will also be working to create a better work environment for myself and my colleagues.

Together we achieve more!

I am having a great experience at PILS and as time goes by, I am learning new things. Through the internship, I understand how the organization works and how theories learnt in classes are reflected in real life events.

Good internal relationships: A must!

For an organization to operate well, the relation among the employer and the employees and among the employees themselves are essential factors. Through my experience, I noticed to what extent a good relationship among people working within the same organization is important and the impact it has on the motivation to produce good work. As an intern, seeing this kind of friendly atmosphere contributed to make my adaptation smoother and not being afraid to ask questions. This proximity and good relationship among the employees allow them to approach their colleagues to discuss about an idea or only to have their opinion about something. The relationship reflected that they value employees and made them feel useful. The good employment relationship promotes productivity, motivation, no superiority among the employees and reduce conflicts.  

Multi-talented

I learned that I cannot afford having only my PR knowledge to be able to cope with the work but I should be able to know how to do other things and also, if needed, do them simultaneously. While changing department, one day I was at the reception and I needed to answer calls. I was also working on an article and at first, it was disturbing because I could not concentrate on my article. Afterwards, I realized that to cope with the tasks, I should be able to do several work at the same time, maintain a good concentration and have a proper time management. It was difficult at the start, but I managed after a while.

Be positive!

To work within a communication department, it is not that easy, but I believed that with practice and as soon as the good rhythm of working is obtained, things will be good. These days working at this NGO has helped me to understand the importance of internal relationships within an organization since I have been able to experience it in real life and also how crucial it is to do several things at the same time. To fulfill the required tasks, keeping a positive attitude in every situation is the key to success. I have found some useful links about good internal relationships which can help you understand more about internal relationships and how it is important for an organization. 

http://www.business2community.com/strategy/strong-employeeemployer-relationship-important-achieve-0876781

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f0uh0P6_JEg

 

https://www.td.org/Publications/Blogs/Management-Blog/2014/04/Internal-Relationships-Lead-to-Success

 

Thank you for taking time to read my post. 

The current communication transformation shift

In the set text for this PR internship unit, “Career FAQS: Public Relations” written by Melanie James, it states that-

 “Communication channels are changing and targeting audiences is becoming more complex”.

Upon reading this, I felt a rush of relief. Thank goodness it’s not just me finding it hard to change the ways of an organisation which has been running for many years prior to my involvement.

I attended my first executive meeting the other day, and it was interesting to see everybody from the UNAAWA executive team (about 16 people in total but only around 10 were there) come together to discuss and report their concerns and monthly news updates. As it was pointed out to me before hand, the team is made up of quite an eclectic group of people who come from all walks of life and who are volunteering at this organisation for their own individual purposes.

For example, there is a politician, a geologist, an IT whiz, a South American, a law graduate…

It seems my intern experience with the UNAAWA has opened my eyes to the current transformation shift the area of communications is in, and though this has come up previously in my studies, I was never truly aware of the consequences.

Conversations with various executive members have also provided me with some background to the issues. For instance, because there are a number of different separate organisations which come under the UNAAWA, such as the UN women, UN youth, and UN young professionals’ network, it makes it harder for the UNAAWA as a parent body, to identify who they are communicating to. They have also lost a lot of their school sponsorships due to the establishment of the UN youth, and have noticed that their membership portfolio is ageing- there are far more senior members then there are young.

All of this has great impact on how the organisation should communicate and in what ways. Hopefully my communication audit will shed some light on what can be done to change this, and make clear to all members that something needs to be done in order for the organisation to prosper.

Communication … It’s all in the Planning

I have now completed 16 days of my placement at the City of Perth and even though it seems like an insignificant amount of days, I feel like I have gained an invaluable amount of experience up to this point.

I was planning on writing this blog after the first few days of my placement to discuss communication plans, however I thought it would be a better decision to wait and see what came out of the communication plans that I had developed.

A communication plan is an extremely useful document as you know what you have to do, when you have to do it and why you are doing it.

After years of University education in the field of Public Relations, I have had many chances to develop mainly hypothetical communication plans which are centred on creative and imaginative ideas. Developing communication plans at University is extremely beneficial; however it is important to remember that in the ‘real world’, organisations have different structures and requirements for communication plans. Transitioning from one method of structuring communication plans to another can take some getting used to as you have the original method committed to memory.

Public Relations campaigns require/should have a communication plan in order to maximise efficiency and effectiveness. Meyer (1982, 37) concurs that “plans are obviously a central component of the processes of communicating and understanding”. Ultimately the detail and ideas created in the communication plan can determine the success of the campaign.

Creating communication plans for the City of Perth has been an invaluable experience; it has enabled me to learn how to tailor my sometimes overly creative ideas into ideas that are feasible. I have been entrusted with developing around five communication plans for both internal and external purposes. I am now confident in producing well-structured and feasible communication plans.

In the past couple of days I have been actioning components of the communication plans I have developed. It is really rewarding and exciting to see your ideas coming to life. In my opinion the best aspect of a communication plan is when the plan is actioned and you can see your ideas being utilised and created.

My biggest tip when creating communication plans is to keep in mind that due dates will change and projects will sometimes be put on hold. Therefore, you may be required to alter the communication plan you had developed. Don’t let this be disheartening as it will happen quite often.

I would love to hear if anyone else has had the opportunity to devise communication plans at their placement and what they learnt from their experience of developing communication plans.

Keep an eye out for my next blog which will entail a debrief of the Woodside Ride 2 Work Breakfast. The City of Perth has sponsored the event and subsequently the City has been allocated a marquee at the event, which I have been responsible for organising. Fingers crossed all goes well.

Until next time, keep enjoying your placements!

Rachel.

 

Reference:

Meyer, Bonnie. 1982. “Reading Research and the Composition Teacher: The Importance of Plans.” College Composition and Communication 33 (1): 37 – 49. http://www.jstor.org.dbgw.lis.curtin.edu.au/stable/pdfplus/357843.pdf?acceptTC=true&acceptTC=true&jpdConfirm=true.

Internal and external are equally important

The more I work in a professional PR and marketing environment, the more I am realising the importance of internal public relations and communications. Through out my degree I have only really considered the external uses of PR for a company and the strategies used for stakeholders existing outside of the company. But in this position I am coming to see how imperative it is that staff are given just as much attention in the communication of internal messages as the external stakeholders.

This week I am tasked with the monthly "Highlights" news letter for all of our in-house guests. I am expected to produce content, select images, make the appropriate calls to action, design the letter according to brand standard in the program InDesign and then outsource it to a printing company, to be delivered to both our Hotel (Rendezvous Grand Hotel Perth Scarborough) and Rendezvous Studio  Hotel. Whilst going through all of the different content to be used in the newsletter, food and beverage promotions, Awards from the Australian Hotel Association Awards among them, I realised that if the staff didn't know about these promotions and stories then when our guests asked about them for more information they would not be able to respond to them. My manager emphasised how important it is that promotional briefs re sent out to ALL staff whenever there is something new in the pipeline. These promotions should also be communicated in the staff newsletter so that the entire staff body is clear on the messages being put out to the public and what direction the organisation is heading in.

Putting together the newsletter is incredibly fun for me. The content and images I get to place in the design program really make it look like a professional document, and considering that it is placed in 336 rooms for all of our guests to see, it makes me feel quite important :) As though I am really contributing.

Using the brand standard manual for the newsletter also emphasises to me the importance of streamlining your brand. Whilst creativity and originality is important in producing a PR image that stimulates interest and attention, a brand that communicates a clean, clear message that does not differentiate in different channels is even more important. Using a brand manual allows for a cleancut image of the brand to be perceived by the consumer audience so that there is never any confusion about what is associated with the brand and what is not. I believe that this stifles creativity slightly but is mart and parcel of working in a massive organisation like Rendezvous Hospitality Group.