Looking back, aiming forward
How communicators are learning lessons from 2020 and helping to build organisational resilience in 2021
Winter was brightened this week by an online gathering of our community for a hugely enjoyable workshop. We were delighted to be joined by senior communicators from two very different organisations: Aoife Reynolds, Head of External and Internal Communications, EMEA for Nomura and Donna Dew, UK Head of Internal Communications and Engagement at William Hill. Both explained their 2020 experiences and direction this year based on what they’d learned.
Nomura is a global financial services group with over 27,000 employees in 30 countries and is Japan’s largest retail and investment bank. Aoife explained that Japanese firms hadn’t embraced flexible working so when the pandemic hit Nomura faced huge technical, logistical and communication challenges. The UK-based EMEA team had to rip up their comms plans and start again, thinking through how to help get people up and running on new technology and how to communicate now that everyone was locked down at home.
Clearly the old channels were no longer sufficient; the team had to convince leaders to experiment. After a stressful start creating how-to guides, working around existing technology and helping leaders to record video for the first time, the team now regularly delivers video, voice casts and more recently, virtual townhalls. Another early priority was supporting colleague mental health, developing lots of global resources including a Covid-19 site detailing counselling and GP services. They also explored bringing people together for fun events, holding their first virtual Christmas party and a carol service. Aoife said no-one noticed her swan-like flapping under the surface while she made sure that delivery was seamless!
The main learning was that investment in new tech and comms channels was needed to move on and find new ways to engage with employees. Emerging from 2020 with working from home successfully established, the focus is now workplace transformation and digital IQ. To support new tech rollouts and office redesign, Comms will be helping people to get the most out of the tech and work more efficiently. They will also continue to prioritise mental health for those feeling the brunt of lockdown this year, signposting people to a dedicated intranet site featuring videos of people talking about their experiences to encourage others to access support. A junior mentoring programme has also been kicked off to help new starters who’ve missed out on face to face induction to the company and culture. Aoife finished with a tribute to her many Bank colleagues who have shown real resilience and gone above and beyond to keep services running smoothly for their clients.
Donna followed by explaining that she was also a pandemic new starter, joining William Hill in August 2020. Her audiences are very different to Aoife’s; the international betting and gaming company employs over 8,000 people, has three head offices and in the UK operates 1,414 retail shops.
Donna shared this picture of her “William Hill world”, a reminder of how different starting a new job is now. She found that when you’re only working online you don’t have to do anything differently, but that everything takes extra effort, and you have to really focus on listening rather than make assumptions about the business.
Last year her challenges were two-fold – firstly Covid-19, which meant furloughing 7,000 people, closing all shops, and pivoting the online business with the closure of professional sports. Belarusian football and table tennis quickly came to the fore! Rewriting comms plans several times a week was the norm as changes in restrictions created 15 different lockdown scenarios. Messaging was challenging with Head Office colleagues working from home while furloughed colleagues felt very uncertain about the future. Donna explained that company support was amazing, topping up furlough pay to 100% and providing regular updates. The eNPS score rose by 32 points over the year which reflected the commitment and great comms that people were seeing from William Hill.
The second challenge was a successful bid from US-based Caesars in Q4, bringing a complex deal process and uncertainty as the company plans to sell on the UK and rest of the world business. Donna’s big lesson about managing through uncertainty is listening. The business has lots of great channels including a national colleague forum, Yammer and Peakon. Insights from these have been an invaluable guide for decision-making, e.g. resulting in the introduction of a new homeworking policy ready for the return to offices, and “power hours” blocked into diaries giving people space to do something different, whether that’s home schooling or watching Bridgerton!
Donna’s focus this year is also digital IQ, saying that whilst it may not be her first love, it’s now essential to understand new tools and how they can engage employees. Like Aoife, she successfully delivered a big Christmas event virtually, despite having to get to grips with the new technology at speed. She stressed the importance of communicators investing time in understanding digital tools so that they’re able to pass on their knowledge to colleagues and use the tools to best effect.
Looking ahead, Donna says they’re facing the unknown so flexibility is key. She’s created a “Maslow hierarchy” of messages to guide conversations with leaders, a reminder of how people are feeling and what to focus on. For her, getting messaging right is critical to building trust in the leadership team. Her other priority, and linked to that trust, is creating hope for the future. Cascading a new strategy last year created a lot of energy and a real sense of the future beyond Covid-19. A printed strategy newspaper is now sent to people at home, which she says might feel old school but has gone down really well.
Donna’s last point echoed Aoife’s, that being creative and having fun should not be under-estimated. Yammer conversations about what people are binge watching, sharing photos of your walks, quizzes and word searches all encourage people away from Covid-19 and towards a different conversation.
A lively discussion followed where people share issues and learning, including:
the positive impact of video on leadership visibility
the growing importance of partnership between IC and IT
questions around planning communication for truly hybrid working, integrating virtual with face to face engagement
how to shift leaders to meet people on channels they actually use
supporting line managers to help teams adjusting to this new environment
the challenges of managing expectations of young new starters and supporting them when they struggle with their wholly ‘virtual’ job.
We could have gone on for hours! A massive thanks to our very generous and talented speakers. We’re buzzing with ideas and buoyed by feedback describing the session as ‘insightful’ and ‘therapeutic!’. The neuroscientists are right about the relationship between the ‘social’ and ‘personal’ self – we humans just don’t fare well living solitary lives. Coming together with our community feels like a wake up and a tonic – we hope you can join us for yours next time!
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