Organizations all too often cascade their communications, pushing them down to front-line employees from the top. An alternative approach, suggests Linda Dulye in Essential techniques for employee engagement, is to create employee action teams.

L.M. Dulye & Co. helped Rolls-Royce Engine Services set up an action team after an enterprisewide survey revealed that employees ranked supervisors as poor communicators and stated that they felt left out of the decision-making process.

L. M. Dulye & Co. was called in to help the company develop a two-way communication system, based on a "bottom-up" approach, with employees taking the responsibility for developing and managing how information is conveyed. This new communication effort became part of their Winning Workplace employee engagement program and included these key elements:

1. Employee action teams that scheduled regular walkarounds for leaders to stroll around the plant to informally talk to employees.
   
   
2. Continuous learning and development programs for leaders.
   
   
3. "Meeting effectiveness" monitoring program to manage information distribution and measure its usefulness for employees.
   
   
4. Monday huddles that provided front-line employees and managers the opportunity to discuss job concerns, new work orders, customer visits, safety issues and suggestions for improvement.
   
   
5. "Voice of the customer" team that arranged and conducted customer visits to plants, to increase their awareness of the work performed there and to enhance relations between customers and employees.

Results of the initiative
Since introducing the initiative two years ago, the Rolls-Royce facility has seen a number of improvements. First, internal measurements of the Winning Workplace program’s success showed an 85 percent favorable response from front-line employees. Additionally, the plant has seen reductions in total labor hours and increases in efficiency.

"Improvements in productivity have led to a 19-percent decrease in labor hours in one department," says Dulye. "Every bit as important, employees now feel that they’re part of the big picture."

Enjoy the rest of this issue and see you next week.

P.S. Want to find out more about what your CEO expects from internal communication? Sign up for Melcrum's webinar sharing exclusive new research.
 

Communicating with a hard-to-reach workforce
Interviews with Robert Nuttall, Lee Ann Fernandez and John Clifford, Melcrum Podcast, December 5, 2007

Robert Nuttall, Head of internal communication at food and clothing retailer Marks and Spencer talks about communicating the new brand in a retail environment, and a chat with Leanne Fernandez and John Clifford from mailstream solution provider Pitney Bowes on how to communicate with a global audience.

Listen Now  

Leadership communication – the AstraZeneca way
Dominic Walters and David Norton, Strategic Communication Management, December 2007

A case study from the latest issue of SCM on how the Research & Development organization at pharmaceutical group AstraZeneca worked with communication consultancy Synopsis to coach, equip and support its leadership teams to engage employees during change.

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The most important speech?
Melissa Dark, Melcrum Blog, December 3, 2007

It's the start of the festive season, and our new guest blogger Melissa Dark, CEO of Melissa Dark & Associates, Australia shares advice on how to make sure your CEO's christmas speech presents them as a truly admirable leader.

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Extending the reach of the intranet at Boots and BA
Sam Marshall, KM Review, December 2007

In an article from KM Review, Sam Marshall explores the topic of intranets outside of a regular PC and desk environment and includes two case studies from retail chain Boots and airline British Airways.

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Everything in Moderation?
Alex Manchester, Melcrum's Social Media Newsletter, November 2007

Moderation – the process of keeping in check the various comment threads, online forums, bulletin boards and blogs your organization provides – can be a difficult and time-consuming task. But good moderation is vital to the success of these platforms. How can you ensure it's handled correctly?

Read more

The Source for Communicators is a free resource for corporate communicators from Melcrum Publishing.
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