7 ways internal communications can help create a great place to work
Kim Darnofall (@KimDarnofall), Internal Communications Project Manager, SAS
SAS has been the Number 1 best company to work for, as rated by Forbes magazine several times in the last few years. They are a technology company, so their audience is very techno-centric, and they have great IT support. Their company has 12,000 people and their internal communication team is made up of 11 people (Senior Director, Social Media & Technology Manager (3), Managing Editor (6), International Liaison, Admin Asst.).
They deliver news from the SAS Wide Web, the company’s intranet portal, as well as to other country’s mirror portal sites. Some countries adopt this, others don’t, it’s not forced to pull corporate content.
They focus on engaging employees through:
Customization – They utilize RSS feeds to deliver customized content to the portal page.
Inclusion – They handle the SAS Family Site, which provides information externally to spouses/families of the employees.
Participation – They allow comments on every story they post, as well as lots of blogs (from individuals and groups/departments). They also engage employees through photos and videos – asking employees to submit them.
Contests – Conducted a photo contest among employees, and got over 25,000 submissions (that’s more than 2 per employee). They had employees vote on the best.
Polls & Quizzes – Give people a chance to give you their thoughts, and quizzes to see if communication or training has been effective.
Report it! – Borrowed idea from CNN and other news outlets, it lets employees can submit stories and articles to the internal communication team.
Connect employees to Leadership – Conversations over coffee (like a town hall format), executive update webcasts (deliver message and answer questions in town hall format, and in addition, have live interactions via chat stream on their social hub during webcast), executive blogs, Leadership Live (one-on-one conversation with a leader), Meals (managers met with employees over breakfast, and the CEO might just show up and participate like any other employee). Also got execs to participate in employee programs – like “Leanest Loser,” a corporate flash mob, and “Camp Chill” (an event where they brought in snow and road down the hill with their kids).
Connect employees to each other – This includes different kinds of profiles of employees on their news site, post responses to questions with names attached.
Stay on the cutting edge – They have invested in equipment to shoot their own video, and have found better success with engagement and viewership than they have with print articles (see photo to right).
Keep the Corporate Culture – Internal communications is the voice of the company to show everything the company does, who the people are, and the values they hold.
Have fun – Highlighted things like “Talk Like a Pirate Day” and “Pi” Day with executive involvement.
Results – Regularly ranked in top 3 of best places to work, and employee surveys rate communications and satisfaction highly.
