Are You ‘Tunnel Visioning’ Your Employees?

With internal communicators struggling today to reduce information overload and help employees ‘get what they need’ there is a contrarian view at play! That of making information ‘self discovery’ a joy for your staff.
This thought was further cemented when I read an argument by a leading educationist fighting against the spread of ‘coaching institutes’ in [...]

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Helping Employees ‘Get’ Your Message Through Effective Writing

I recently ran a writing workshop for a group of internal communication ‘power’ users and came away with a lot of interesting insights.
As an internal communication professional I get to vet messages hitting large groups of people everyday. These range from simple office updates to complex change management roll-outs. With the speed at which communication [...]

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Are you Embracing ‘Employee-Led’ CSR and Communication?

‘A small favor’ said the subject line. An e-mail winged in from a motivated employee calling interested individuals to chip in aid of the victims of the worst floods South India has seen in decades. The mail goes on to articulate the project, the effort, the expectation, the plan and people involved. Right down to [...]

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Grassroot’ Employee Engagement Way Forward For Organizations

Over the last few months I have observed closely as employees took ownership to drive various engagement initiatives across the organization I work in. Unlike other organizations where dedicated teams are assigned to create a fun place, employees here leverage their ‘collective wisdom’ to uplift the mood in the offices.
What started as a ‘community event’ [...]

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Culture Deep Dives and Focus Group Facilitation Ideas

I recently sat in on a focus group session on ‘culture’ that sought employees’ perspectives on the organization’s traits and thoughts on how to retain or strengthen the organization’s DNA.  The forums held across the organization are an attempt to gauge the role ‘culture’ plays on engagement and align employees based on an action plan.
The [...]

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Can Effective Communication Create an ‘Entrepreneurial’ Workforce?

An article ‘Happier your folks, the better it works’ which points to Deloitte’s research, ‘Employee engagement in recessionary times – a changing talent perspective’ corroborates this thought.
The findings indicate that while the recession has brought about changes in ‘job roles’, ‘job competencies’ and ‘key performance indicators’, employees are asked to contribute more on ‘cost management’, [...]

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Communicators as Coaches to Build Your Organization’s Culture

“Coaching is for professionals”, “I am not qualified to coach”, “So much work – who has the time to coach?”, “I rather tell my team what to do rather than do this time consuming coaching bit”.
Heard these before? Sounds familiar?
The Times of India Ascent (September 2, 2009) front page story on mentorship and coaching highlighted [...]

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Sustainability and Communication – Fostering a Trusting Work Environment

How closely you engage your employees can be the difference between sustaining through tough times or sinking into insignificance.
Unlike ever before the barometer of engagement is been tested so intently by employees in organizations world over.
Sustainability means different things for different organizations – ranging from work-life balance to being a great place to work, from better opportunities [...]

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Calling Communicators – You Have a Responsibility As Educators Too!

As communicators, I believe we are truly honored to watch how communication gets created and experienced at close quarters – especially internal communications. Since internal communications is rarely discussed at external forums or shared due to company confidentiality issues it is by far a greater challenge blurring what students or newbie communicators get to learn.
From [...]

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Overcoming Swine Flu Pandemic Myths and Fears – Communicators Lead the Way

India has got the chills. The swine flu pandemic which was distant to our shores is now a national crisis.
While the government is taking measures to prevent the spread, there is inertia among most organizations in India in getting the message out to employees.
Some companies have been proactive – sending out mailers, placing posters, inviting [...]

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