resources

The Communicator’s Guide to 30 June

Save the date! 30 June is a great time for communicating.

The end of financial year is a busy time for almost every type of organisation. For communicators, there are a few end of year activities that are useful for employees. For leadership communication, it is also a time to consider the messages for the second half of the year. Here are some of the top communication activities to incorporate into your June plans in order to be prepared.

Business Communication Activities

  • Is your employee data up to date? Correct, current employee data is essential for organisations, but it doesn’t take long for records to get out of date. The employee Payment Summaries generated for the financial year are a great trigger for tackling this. If your organisation uses employee self-service or e-HR, remind employees to update their details so their payment summaries can be sent to the right place. There is a strong ‘what’s in it for me’ (WIIFM) factor for employees to correct this information, so this can also be a good time to conduct a related campaign for other data such as emergency contact details or communication preferences such as mailing lists.
  • Be useful at tax time. Consider promoting external links to the ATO within the HR sections of your intranet highlighting anything that may be of particular interest to your employees.
  • Explain legislative change to your employees. In Australia, Paid Parental Leave provisions come into effect from 1 July. There are a range of support resources from the Department of Education, Employment and Workplace Relations
  • Not now, I’m accounting. Different professions have different peaks and troughs through the year. For your organisation’s accountants, financial services teams and payroll services areas, now is not the time to send an employee survey or long communications about benefits. Be thoughtful about what messages are important, and which ones can wait until the following month for these groups.

Leaders and Manager Communication

  • Celebrate the year to date. For those parts of the business who have a high workload in the lead up to end of financial year, remember to schedule some time or an event for celebration to recognise the effort when everything is over.
  • Set the course for the rest of the year. The leaders of the business should be considering the messages required for the second half of the year and begin incorporating them into their communication activities. The following questions can prompt leaders to think about what messages are required:
    • What has happened in your market or industry over the first half of the year
    • What is the most important thing from a customer perspective? From a competitor perspective? From an investor perspective?
    • What successes and challenges has the business faced so far?
    • What has worked well? Who should be celebrated and recognised?
    • What are the three ‘big things’ to focus on for the second half of the year?

Every organisation is different, so these tasks can vary. Choosing financial milestone dates can be an effective way to encourage even the most reticent managers to reflect on their communication needs.

A simple plan…

The simple guide to creating a communication plan I posted at WikiHow has notched up over 2000 visits.

How to Create a Communication Plan

from wikiHow – The How to Manual That You Can Edit

A communication plan is a road map for getting your message across to your audience. The plan is an essential tool of marketing, human resources, corporate affairs and public relations management. Spending time planning your approach will improve your ability to achieve your desired outcome.

Steps

  1. Know why you need to communicate. What do you want to be different as a result of communicating?
  2. Consider who you need to communicate with. Make a list of your potential audiences.
  3. What do these audiences think about the issue or topic now? How can you find out? Make a note of what you know or what you need to do to find out.
  4. Define. What do you want your audience to KNOW, THINK or DO as a result of the communication?
  5. Write your key messages for each audience. These may be the same for each audience, or you may have to consider addressing their differences. Remember the purpose of your communication.
  6. Decide when you need to deliver your messages. Your timing may determine how you need to communicate.
  7. Decide how to deliver your messages. If you are trying to generate awareness, written communication may be enough. If the message is complex, or controversial, you may need to plan for more interactive approaches including face to face communication.
    • Who will deliver the message? How will you prepare them?
    • What resources are required?
    • How will you enable feedback? How will you know that your audience has received the communication?
    • How will you know if they have understood, acted on or changed as a result of the communication?
    • How will you follow up if additional communication is required?

Tips

  • Be really clear about why you need to communicate. This will be important planning the who, how and when.
  • To help capture the information, you can use a table with the following columns:
  • Audience | Outcome | Message | Approach | Timing | Delivery | Measure/Follow Up | Resource
  • Know your audience. The better you understand their priorities, concerns, issues and environment, the greater your ability to target your messages to them.
  • Know your messages back to front.
  • Be creative in how you access your audience. Go where the fish are – if your audience are online, communicate online. If they are working on the same floor as you – gather together and talk.
  • Focus on what your audiences need. It will help you identify and develop your messages.
  • Remember that you are communicating all the time – a communication plan needs to be consistent with your usual activity.

Warnings

  • Be candid, open and honest in your communications.
  • If you are unsure of something, do not bluff – clarify and commit to following up the information.
  • Don’t use the ‘scattergun’ approach and send a whole lot of communications in the hope that some will stick.

Article provided by wikiHow, a wiki how-to manual. Please edit this article and find author credits at the original wikiHow article on How to Create a Communication Plan. All content on wikiHow can be shared under a Creative Commons license.

Authentic leadership when it counts

In her final show as guest host of Radio Nation Life Matters, Angela Catterns convenes an excellent program about leadership.

Using the recent example of Queensland Premier Anna Bligh’s performance during the Queensland catastrophes as a springboard for discussion, Angela is joined by studio guests Rosemary Howard Director of AGSM Executive Programs and  Catherine Harris from UNSW.  The session includes an interview with former Prime Minister Malcolm Fraser, and thoughful talkback comments. Covering social, political and business leadership, the discussion summarises a number of the themes and challenges for authentic leadership. Definitely worth a listen.

Podcast and transcript
http://www.abc.net.au/rn/lifematters/stories/2011/3146774.htm
Facebook
http://www.facebook.com/RNLifeMatters?ref=ts&v=wall#!/RNLifeMatters

Anna Bligh’s authentic leadership during the January crises set a benchmark for authentic communication. IABCNSW is hosting a professional development lunch  on Crisis Communication with guest speaker Brisbane City Councillor David McLachlan on 30 March.  Details here: http://www.iabcnsw.com/calendar/15/41-Crisis-Communication-in-the-digital-age.html

IABC communication resources for disaster management

In addition to all the residents, businesses and travellers impacted by the catastrophe, my thoughts are with the communication teams working through the current situation in Queensland and northern NSW.  So many of you will be working through your crisis communication plans and business continuity programs.

If you are managing communications during a crisis for the first time, there are a number of IABC resources that may assist.

The February 2010 CW Online featured Social Media for Crisis Communication:http://www.iabc.com/cwb/archive/2010/0210/

A prior CW Online edition on spokesperson training includes links to some disaster & crisis related resources. Includes links to reactive messaging. http://www.iabc.com/cwb/archive/2009/1109/RelatedResources.htm

If you are an IABC Discovery subscriber, there are a number of case studies that may be useful for the recovery phase. http://discovery.iabc.com/phrase.php?phrase=crisis+communication

Google has established a single landing page for the key official information sources (Government, emergency services, donations).

http://www.google.com/crisisresponse/queensland_floods.html