1

No.10

Sponsored by

SMILE GuideThe changing role

of internal communication

2

IntroductionToday, the world is being reshaped by the convergence of social and mobile technology, profoundly transforming the way people live and work. Every aspect of people’s lives are affected by these networks, and with it we are experiencing new ways of communicating with people.

In the networking era, employees have a new powerful voice, with social media allowing them to express themselves only as unique human beings with specific traits and needs. They want and expect relationships with others to be based on equal terms. Distributed networks, free flow of information, and accelerated speed of business. Innovative companies have understood they have to listen to, engage and earn the trust of their stakeholders on a daily basis if they want to remain competitive in this transparent world. To do so, they have to be where their people are, on the network.

New types of organisations are already emerging, disrupting existing traditional institutions through the intelligent use of technology. They allow people to connect, transact directly with each other and move faster. Advances in wearable computers are also expected to become part of everyday life. They “not only add a hands-free ability but also can become assistants and coaches.1”

Like any dynamic movement, adapting to this evolution is what enables organisations to survive and thrive in an ever-evolving world. The big questions for many companies is how to adapt and communicate internally to progress in this more agile and fluid competitive landscape.

1 Gloria Lombardi (2014): Working in the Age of Context, available at simply-communicate

3

Gloria is the Editor, Reporter and Community Manager of simply-communicate, and Co-Chair of SMiLE London.

Gloria’s responsibilities combine researching, writing, and publishing content on internal communications, employee engagement and social business. She curates the publication of the weekly magazine and manages the on-line community of internal communicators throughout all the publisher’s digital channels. She frequently interviews companies and professionals in the field, writes case studies, products and book reviews, and report from internal communications and social business events.

She works on Social Media inside the Large Enterprise (SMiLE), developing products and presenting on issues around introducing Social Media in the Large Enterprise.

Gloria is Co-author of the new edition of ‘Exploring Internal Communication. Towards Informed Employee Voice’ edited by Kevin Ruck, with a Chapter on ‘Social media inside the Enterprise’.

Gloria’s keen interest in the relationship between social technologies, employee communications, and the future of work is also reflected in her writing on Marginalia on Engagement, her personal blog.

You can find her on Twitter at @LOMBARDI_GLORIA

SMiLE Guide Author: Gloria Lombardi

4

“Internal communicators have had their heads down for too long; they were perhaps too internal facing” Michelle Morgan

Not just internal communication anymore Today, organisations are requiring digital experts who have a background in both internal and external communications. “Internal communicators have had their heads down for too long; they were perhaps too internal facing,” claims Michelle Morgan2, the Lead Consultant in Digital Communications at VMA Group. One of the best-known Communications recruiters in the UK, Morgan told us that there is more and more demand for internal communicators with journalistic skills. This means communicators who are able to spot a story, whether this is from inside the organisation or from the external market, and quickly come up with robust and accurate copy that aligns to the overarching business strategy and for that content to be compelling.

“Storytelling is also key not just to help create context for the corporate narrative, but as a way of bringing new information and ideas into the business, bringing the best and most interesting stories to your people. And, those can come from any and everywhere. This is the thing: it is about mind-sets. We need to be looking outside our own discipline and organisations for inspiration. That way we can become the catalysts for positive change inside the business.”

Equally, Strategist for Communication and Collaboration at Jive Software Kathryn Everest, believes that “there is so much that can be learned from external communications.” Her best advice to internal communicators is to “Think like a marketer. Look at all the new digital trends that are happening outside - from understanding the audience at deep level to measure the impact of communications on engagement. Think how you can bring those insights inside your organisation.”

2 Gloria Lombardi (2015): Internal Communications - new digital skills required, available at simply-communicate

5

“The days of the old intranet are dying. Internal Communicators need to be relevant in the new era of social business. It is very important for them to really understand and apply those skills exceptionally well. If they can do that, then they will go over,” says Everest.

Similarly, Russell Grossman, the Group Director of Communications at the UK Department for Business, Innovation & Skills (BIS), told us3: “In Government we believe that a rounded communicator is someone who has done some of Public Affairs, some Marketing, a some Media Relations, some Internal Communications, and so on. People who are only practising internal communications throughout their career are not maximising their potential.

“At the end of the day there is no real difference between Media Relations and Internal Communications, professionally. Only the audience is different. The basic questions remain the same: Where is your audience? What insights do we have about them? What are the objectives that we are trying to achieve? How do we influence them? What’s the implementation? How do we know that we have done it? Those questions are the same whichever your audience is. That is why I don’t like the term internal communicator - it gives the impression that that person only understands internal communications.”

Also, at BIS, everyone has a digital objective in addition to his or her own goals. This differs from role to role. In internal communications it may be to maximise not only your own personal use but also to encourage staff use the enterprise social networks (ESN). Or, it may be to encourage people to have the confidence to tweet in a way, which is responsible and sound. It would also, certainly, include developing the skills to use new measurement tools and analytics, all of which would help communicators understand their audience better. It may also extend to managing aspects of the intranet.

3 Gloria Lombardi (2015): Internal communications in the UK Government, available at simply-communicate

Kathryn Everest

Russell Grossman

6

A socially enabled organisation Using social technologies within an organisation’s daily operations, first appeared on the scene more than ten years ago. During this early period, the business case was unproven; early adopters like Euan Semple at the BBC believed that in the end the benefits would emerge. As the use of social media expanded, a growing awareness came to light that organisations needed “to embrace the two-way interactions and relationships these tools facilitated, becoming a socially enabled enterprise.4”

Organisations have been experiencing the rise of enterprise social networks (ESNs) where their employees deploy the best elements of public external social networks to the specific needs of their organisations. However, ESNs such us Jive5 are “not simply the Facebook behind a firewall.6” They are very different because of the special context of being part of the workplace. This requires taking into consideration the organisation’s distinct cultures, structures of teams, projects and pre-existing reporting relationships. At the same time enterprise social networks create the opportunity to form new working relationships which impact on the existing culture and structure of the organisation.

Jive’s Everest says: “In the past, practitioners were used to think of how to deliver information. Once their message was published, they moved on to the next job.

“But now, the ‘publish’ button is just the beginning of a potential dialogue. To make the most of an ESN, internal communications people have to be comfortable with that dialogue.”

4 Social Media Today (2013): The Socially Enabled Enterprise, United States: Social Media Today.5 www.jivesoftware.com6 Li, C., Cifuentes, J. and Webber, A. (2012): Making the Business Case for Enterprise Social Networking: Focus on Relationships to Drive Value, 22 February, San Matteo, California: Altimeter Group.

7

Networks of communities Looking at social media in the enterprise from a cultural and behavioural perspective, implies looking at organisations as networks of communities. The original notion of an online community is that of “a group of people who use online communication systems to pursue mutual interests7”. Today, being a member of an online community is an everyday experience for the majority of web users. Whether it is for collaboratively editing content (e.g. Wikipedia), photos, videos, articles sharing (e.g. Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, etc.), online gaming, personal exchanging, and so on, different communities serve different purposes. However, the participation, activity and behaviours of the users change over time and such changes also model and reflect the way communities evolve and are being used for.

Online communities inside the enterprise are usually created around certain topics to meet some organisational purposes, while representing “a significant investment in social capital.8” Today, they have become an essential tool for knowledge workers to collaborate and share information. How people interact depend on the purpose and topic of each community as well as the identity of its users. Employees may initiate content by producing blog posts, forum threads, or adding a page to a wiki. They may also contribute by commenting on blog posts, replying to forum threads or editing wiki pages.

Co-creation Internal social media has drastically revolutionised the way communication is created and consumed in the workplace. Replacing the linear, and controlled forms of communications typical of the 20th century, they are amplifying the benefits of co-creation of content. Employees are not passive recipients of disseminated information any more. Information is shared, commented, discussed and developed by everyone at any time from any part of the organisation. People can transfer their own expertise, have their say on relevant information, and crowd-source ideas. With that, the meaning of the messages becomes a collaborative practice. Employees decide what is significant and which relationships are important. “Social communication makes distribution the starting point and then invites company audiences to co-create and contextualise content to create new meaning.9”

With all of this happening, the role of internal communications is changed. Not only it is easier for employees to provide content, but sometimes their content is the only news, posts or comments that can deal with the speed of change. “The official opinion on a certain topic is giving way to individual opinions. Even our perception of the legitimacy of these individual opinions is changing. Now that it’s possible to see many perspectives, we realise that what we thought were authoritative sources had their own biases.

When individuals can easily comment when information is inaccurate, collective knowledge becomes increasingly self-regulating.10”

Hence, communicators become curators, empowering the process of crowdsourcing the content generated by employees.

Social communication makes distribution the starting point.

7 The Open University and IBM Research study (2012): Behaviour analysis across different types of enterprise online communities.8 See footnote 79 Deiser, R. and Newton S. (2013): Six social-media skills every leader needs. McKinsey Quarterly10 Gaviser Leslie, S. and Morace, C. (2014) Transform: How Leading Companies Are Winning with Disruptive Social Technology, McGraw-Hill Education.

8

The value of relationships According to Li et al.11 the relationships created by ESNs are the source of value creation inside the organisation. As they put it, “it’s about relationships, not technology.”

Li et al. suggest four ways that relationships create value through ESNs: encouraging sharing, capturing knowledge, enabling action and empowering employees (Table 1). Below we look at each of these elements and their sub-elements.

Encouraging sharing Creating two-way dialog Employees can share their thoughts, activities and expertise through a number of ways, such us blogs and forums. Through activity streams and notifications, ESNs make the use of the shared content fast and customised. As a consequence, time and energy can be spent on the dialog. The effectiveness of ESNs comes from the conversational back-and-forth that happen without interruption.

Making business personal While organisations may want to make sure that the content shared on their ESNs is strictly about work, Li et al. suggest that, “the organisation should encourage “personal” postings because social networks are a representation of who you already are.”

Reduces power distance to leaders ESNs bring the opportunity to reduce internal hierarchies by increasing the flow of information between organisational levels. Leaders may want to align employees around a strategic initiative, stay in touch with a specific project, or get real-time employees feedback.

Connecting globally, person by person A colleague in an office on the other side of the globe can come to life when his or her daily working life is shared on the ESN. Having that context lowers the barriers that exist with time zones, cultures and languages.

Forming private groups To prevent losing the context of work in specific situations (e.g. a distinct temporary project), colleagues may need to form groups that by nature do not share information outside of that group. Li et al. note: “Hence an interesting dichotomy develops – greater openness eventually ends up creating what on surface looks like more silos.” However, they also emphasise that these groups focus on work that has to be done, not rigid hierarchies. Table 1 Four Ways Enterprise Social Networks

Drive Business Value (source: Li et al., 2012: 13).

11 See footnote 6

Encourage Sharing

Enable Action

Capture Knowledge

Empower People

Creates two-way dialog Makes business personal Reduces power distance to leaders Connects globally, person to person Forms private groups

Solve problems faster and better Bring outsiders in Streamline processes

Identify expertise Avoid duplication and have better coordination Transfer knowledge Streamline processes

Give employees a voice Make meaningful contributions and innovations Increase engagement, satisfaction and retention

9

Capturing knowledge Identifying expertise. At its most elemental level, expertise can be found through people’s profiles, which indicate what projects employees are working on, their educational background, their prior work history, etc. All of these are searchable data ease to find on the ESN. However, often it is the day-to-day interactions that colleagues have that better reflects their expertise, the depth and freshness of their knowledge. A study conducted by Professor Paul Leonardi at Northwestern University emphasises12 that, different from emails, an ESN make communications between others visible for anyone to see. In an interview with simply-communicate, Leonardi comments that: “any networking site can be quite useful in helping people to learn about what other people know.

That is due in large part to the fact that everyday work-related communications are filled with cues that signal what it is we know and who we know. And as the cues become accessible to others, people can make more accurate inferences about our knowledge.”

Avoiding duplication and have better coordination. Knowing what other parts of the business are doing and working on has a huge benefit, especially for large and distributed organisations. Rather than duplicating practices and methods that have been already created by others, organisations can now identify work already done and decide if it can be suitable for new uses.

Grossman introduced BIS’s ESN nearly four years ago now. The worry at the time was that people would say certain things that as a government organisation you would expect to be kept secret. “But, that has never happened. People are intelligent, sensitive and articulate.

The employee social network (ESN) is an easy way to promote dialogue, demonstrate listening and provide feedback. BIS use theirs for removing the burden on the management of lower level stuff. Grossman gives us a small example.

“Lift 12 of this building has been out of service for 4 weeks now. So, I wanted to know when it is going to be in service again. Before having Yammer I’d probably send an email. Yesterday, I went on Yammer and found that someone else had already asked that question. And indeed, the facilities staff had also already answered that - lift 12 will be in operation by next week.”

The grammar of ESNs is by necessity more informal as Grossman concedes: “sometimes you can spot grammatical mistakes. While I don’t like them, I also say that they don’t matter in that context. The typo doesn’t diminish the meaning of the message, which was given in real-time - hence, was not polished. Of the contrary, it increases authenticity.”

Transferring knowledge. With an ESN, a new employee or someone who has just joined a project already in progress, can quickly understand what is happening by looking at the activities shared on the platform.

Improving best practices. It is important not only to capture knowledge, but also to make sure it evolves and improves accordingly with the evolution of the organisation and business’ needs. This is especially true with best practices, which need periodic updates. Innovative organisations have developed the habit of contributing knowledge.

One example is Bosch13. On its ESN, the company has created a specific community called Experience City, which has become the de facto group for posting and discovering all the ESN experiences, use cases, support issues and FAQ. Everything that employees learn about working on the platform goes there. Inside Experience City there is also a list of success stories that the E2.0 team like to highlight above others.

12 Gloria Lombardi: Northwestern University proves value in social knowledge management, available at simply-communicate13 Gloria Lombardi (2015): Bosch – when use cases support connections, available at simply-communicate

“everyday work-related communications are filled with cues that signal what it is we know and who we know.”

10

Enabling action Solving problem faster and better. Because of its intrinsic nature an ESN can enable new behaviours, which close the gaps preventing some actions to be taken. With the way knowledge is captured, colleagues can easily find answers to their questions by anyone in the organisation. With this knowledge readily available people can solve issues faster and better.

Bringing outsiders in. Being able to bring outsiders into the ESN is enabling new ways of working and interacting with external clients. Third parties can start collaborating with a team on a particular internal project. This can be done through the creation of a specific private group, while the rest of the organisations can remain – if the company wanted to - inaccessible to them. That is what 24 Care Group , an international mHealth company based in Netherlands, wanted to provide through their Jive-based social collaboration platform.

Called Empower, the tool was launched three years ago to “self-empower chronic heart failure patients to take the lead in their treatment,” says Joop Wallenburg, Advisor to the Board at 24 Care Group. Together with Cardiologist Dr. Asselbergs from the University Medical Hospital in Utrecht, he tested Jive initially with a small number of users from three different hospitals. “The platform met all our requirements. Plus, it was very flexible. We could easily integrate it with our healthcare system, with sensor-enabled medical devices and with other tools such as Vidyo to allow video-consultancy.” In fact, it didn’t take time for the network to grow. “More and more patients were connecting everyday to interact with caregivers such as dieticians and sports therapists.”

Streamlining processes. Often, in highly changing environments, operations do not go as expected. In order to handle them, an endless practice of sending cc’d emails can start generating. ESNs have proved to be useful in streamlining these processes, keeping these operations the main focus of an activity stream. All the interested parties can see the full activity stream, and all the back and forths can be easily avoided. Not only does this save time, but it also ensures that everyone is very well informed.

14 Gloria Lombardi (2014): 24 Care uses Jive to connect with patients, available at simply-communicate

11

Empowering people Giving employees a voice. Perhaps one of main value of ESNs is that they are giving every employee the opportunity to have a say as never before. They can express their ideas, which can be heard by everyone else in the company, including leadership. Jive’s Everest notes: “What a social platform does from an employee perspective is that it offers choice - the choice of how I receive communications as well as what I do with those messages. Rather than being a passive receiver of information, the employee becomes an active participant who can voice their opinions”.

At Grant Thornton, one of the main ways people participate on the company’s Jive-based ESN called Jam15, is through blogging, using their posts as a means to amplify their voice or share a message. Anyone can start a blog, creating their own content and publishing it on a dedicated area on the ESN. And all leadership blogs are visible on the homepage of Jam so that employees can easily find and read them. Not surprisingly, this is an area of the site with a lot of traffic.

Communications Lead Paul Thomas points out how the phenomenon of leadership blogging has started to change the role of traditional internal communications. “Our CEO’s blog has always been popular, and now everyone has the opportunity to say something in their own blog. With our leaders particularly, the opportunity for timely and authentic communication with their teams is being taken up and our people are asking for more with their comments, ratings and likes.”

But what does it mean to give everyone in your organisation a voice? “We are talking about disruptive technology. Jam is breaking down barriers and challenging existing processes and channels. It presents teams such as Communications and Marketing with new ways to communicate with the business and with each other. It also helps us listen better than ever before – better understanding of what’s on people’s minds, what’s important to them and what they’d like to know more about. What that means for the evolution of our own roles, we haven’t fully determined. It’s exciting though. New skills such as community management, content curation and stronger peer-to-peer networking are all opportunities to be even more effective communicators.”

While Paul understands that it can sometimes be hard for people to figure out how they will use Jam, he absolutely believes: “Jam can help enrich the work that we do and the relationships we build while doing it. Who wouldn’t want to be part of that?”

Making meaningful contributions and innovations. An ESN allows employees to make meaningful contributions and generate innovative ideas potentially every day. This can be achieved by simply strengthening the power of conversations At Humana, their ESN includes a group called Humana Suggestion Box, where any worker who has “any ideas about improving a product, policy, process or whatever it might be, is encouraged to shares those ideas,” comments Ross16. While not all those ideas can be acted on, many are. “It may be an internal process change, or something that has changed in the quarterly statements that go out to the millions of the people who Humana insures.”

Increasing engagement, satisfaction and retention. ESNs can help people to connect to the heart of the business and humanise the way people work. The transparency allowed by the tool seems to help employees be better workers but also better people and colleagues.

15 Gloria Lombardi (2014) Grant Thornton spreads internal collaboration with Jam, available at simply-communicate 16 Gloria Lombardi (2013): Buzzing in healthcare: Humana’s ESN story, available at simply-communicate

12

Overcoming resistanceAdopting social media in the enterprise requires changing the organisation’s communication habits. Evaluating the cultural readiness, how the social platform will connect to the culture, involves understanding employees at all level of the organisation. While learning how to use the technology can be easy for people, the biggest challenge for them may be to start working and communicating differently. Employees will have to move from one way to another one, a change that can be resisted.

Companies that have successfully deployed internal social media usually have had a focus on behaviour change for specific use cases that mattered to the individual or the team. For example, The City of London Corporation, which looks after the City of London since 1067, has been using its enterprise social network 2011. Their Head of Internal Communications, Christine Brown told us17: “For many of our colleagues working socially is very exciting, a welcome and natural extension of how they live and connect and they are jumping at the opportunity to do more. But for others it can be intimidating, alienating and highlight deeper cultural issues going on. Many staff have spoken openly to me about fearing they

will be judged if they participate on social media. So we are turning our attention to addressing some of the issues it raises alongside educating staff through ‘social media surgeries,’ which take place once a week. It’s also allowed us to uncover a lot of fantastic work going on that may go unrecognised in other ways – such as staff volunteering, informal networks, and what staff are comfortable sharing. Building confidence is key. We’ve noticed a real interest from staff wanting to share insights about conferences they’ve attended, or online resources and external communities they’ve found useful for their professional development and day-to-day work.”

17 Gloria Lombardi (2013): Working ‘socially’ at the City Corporation, available at simply-communicate

“Building confidence is key..”

13

Role modelsThe involvement of role models is a common attribute of those enterprises that have been successfully using internal social networks, where they have been employed at all levels:

Leadership. While every story is unique and specific to each organisation, many companies that deliver the most business value through internal social media, have leadership support. While the CEO may not be involved in day-to-day activities, their participation in the community sends a strong message that the social network is important to the company. One way of doing this is through leadership blogging.

Inside Bosch, among the leadership there are some great supporters and active users who are promoting the platform and becoming a role model for their teams. This can take the form of blogging and can be very powerful to create awareness on topics with strategic relevance. For example, management blogs allow direct exchange and dialogue between management and associates. They help to establish feedback channels in all directions and to serve as a barometer for important topics. The result is a better understanding of strategic and key issues on all levels.

ESNs have been encouraging a new type of leadership communication. Hay Group18 call it “a ‘post-heroic’ leadership style,” which means being highly collaborative, and manage “through informal influence across functional and organisational boundaries - rather than authority.” Leaders are advised “to learn to lead remotely,” as well as role modelling and fostering high levels of openness. They encourage innovation and collaboration and act as orchestrators of expertise.

Advocates They are avid supporters of working socially who subsequently go out to their networks and encourage others. Advocates demonstrate to their colleagues the benefits of using social media. They will ask people to talk about specific topics, ask and answer questions to the community, encourage colleagues to give their opinions, express their voice and share their experiences. Advocates are usually strategic planning business partners who agree to volunteer and get involved in the community program to help build awareness and business use of the platform. They seed content, spread word of mouth about how to get real work done, welcome members and provide employees support. “Think of advocates as individuals who set the tone for and model best practices in using and engaging in a community.19”

Post heroic leadership style

18 Hay Group (2011): Building the new leader. Leadership challenges of the future revealed, Hay Group. 19 See footnote 10

14

The Swiss fragrance and flavour house, Firminech uses ‘Firmenich Wave20, their Jive-based employee social network, to improve internal collaboration and innovate. Xavier Singy, Senior Digital Project Manager, told us that it took almost one year to gather full support from the top. His team relentlessly worked on building a library of use cases to show senior management the value of an ESN.

“Originally, we shared with them good stories from suppliers, customers and peers who were already successfully adopting the tool. We also used stories made available by Jive itself and that resonated the most with our company and needs.”

Once the platform took off and communities were forming, more stories could be collected inside Firmenich. A network of influencers was, and still is, instrumental in identifying internal use cases.

The company invites employees to share their personal stories through videos around the value of using Wave encouraging colleagues to give concrete examples from their daily work.

This has been invaluable in building trust. “It is not the usual IT guy telling the rest of the organisation why they should be using the social network. These narratives come from our peers who are recommending Wave because they really have experienced a better way of working.”

Enterprise Community Manager. Regarded as the “face of the community21”, the community manager leads and grows the overall community to deliver value to employees and the business. They do not manage people but look after the networks of relationships. They are responsible for the daily activities and conversations, including training, posting information, answering member questions, and dealing with inappropriate behaviours. They oversee working groups activities, build programs to drive staff engagement, analyse practices, and establish metrics.

With over 10,000 employees in 37 countries, BNP Paribas Cardif rolled out its first collaborative workspace in 200822, starting to focus strategically on online community management to improve internal communications. For Judith Will, the Head of Knowledge Management, one of the most important aspects of community management is never to forget that the members are human beings, as simple as that might sounds. “The employees you are approaching are confronted with masses of information on a daily basis. Often they are part of several communities and are overwhelmed by work. Also, they neither speak the same language nor share the same culture.” Hence, it is very important to imagine what it is like to be in their position. “Always put yourself in the shoes of a member.”

20 Gloria Lombardi (2014): Firmenich rides a social wave, available at simply-communicate21 HSee footnote 1022 Gloria Lombardi (2014): How BNP Paribas Cardif manages communities, available at simply-communicate

15

Will admits that it is a challenge to motivate those employees who consider being involved in a community as having extra work to do on top of their job. “Some don’t see the added value right away. Others, still need to be convinced that sharing is valuable to their colleagues.” Soliciting community principles can help. “Often we integrate a ‘How to be a good member’ or ‘What the community can bring you’ and ‘Why the community needs you’ guides in our facilitation initiatives.”

Yet, she believes there are also many rewards. “From the positive feedback of staff who find the information they need, to the sharing of experiences that enhances the collective learning and the human connections that happen all over the world daily.”

In fact, an important component is the Community of Community Managers. This is the hub for all the internal community managers of the company. It started several years ago with the premise that “being a community manager was a new mission for them all.” Members share their experiences, challenges, learning as well as discuss new creative ideas and nurture their skills together. Most importantly, “it lets them seeing a community from a member’s perspective.” This is instrumental in understanding what employees may feel and need when participating in an online group.

Subject matter experts Subject matter experts are employees with deep knowledge on specific topics who play a role in the community in a way that often complement and extends their primary job function in their area of expertise. They provide high-value content, answer questions directly, mentor and guide community members.

“Never to forget that the members are human beings..”

Others, still need to be convinced that sharing is valuable to their colleagues.”

16

Choosing the right platformWhile the technology does not determine success, it still is relevant which social platform the organisation decides to adopt. Ensuring that the chosen social technology meets both the particular cultural and functional needs of the business is important. Also, with the time passing, the changes imposed on organisations require them to evolve and review the technology used inside the company.

Groupon, a leader of local and national commerce, operates in more than 500 markets globally. With 12,000 employees across the world it serves over 53 million active customers.

Back in 2012, Global Social Business Strategist Andrew Mishalove was hired to create a new digital workplace presence.

“The company had acquired many businesses around the world. It was like having almost 40 different organisations, each one with their own intranet. There wasn’t one single repository for HR policies, internal communications or collaboration efforts.”

23 Gloria Lombardi (2014) A great deal for Groupon’s internal communications, available at simply-communicate

ESN Case study – Jive inside Groupon

A great deal for Groupon’s internal communications23

17

Start with a visionThe idea was to start building something universal for the entire workforce.

From the beginning, he had three clearly defined strategic goals: building one corporate directory; creating a single corporate news and communications channel; and developing an HR Resource Centre with each geographical area having access to their own policy and information.

Do your homework when choosing the platformWhen he joined the company, Mishalove still had a mind-set of the past: “the traditional portal where administrators create content for a rather passive audience.”

Yet, he made his homework and quickly learned about new ways of working. “I did my research. I found out about companies using internal networks such as Yammer, Socialcast, Moxie or Jive, to boost collaborative efforts among a global workforce.“

While contemplating the idea of launching a similar platform inside Groupon, he ended up sitting with a variety of analysts in the field. Plus, he attended portals, collaboration and social business conferences, as well as seminars and demos around the world.

“I finally figured out that Jive was the right solution for our specific goals.”

Focus on experience at individual levelThe platform was highly customisable. This was particularly important for building adoption inside a complex business like Groupon. “To build a robust social enterprise, we needed to be able to tailor the tool to our individuals’ needs.”

His initial work focused on user interface and design, as well as the creation of a customised experience at a personal level. Now, when staff log into Jive they have immediately access to what is relevant to them, such as the contacts and material that are very specific to their own job. Rich user profiles provide everything employees need to know about a colleague all in one place. Plus, the ability to search for information in different ways - via people, content, and places – to make faster decisions.

“That incentivizes people to come back and use it frequently.”

“..using internal networks such as Yammer, Socialcast, Moxie or Jive, to boost collaborative efforts among a global workforce.”

18

Collaboration… not a dream any more Today, the vast majority of employees are logging into the system to consume information daily. As far as making contributions is concerned, the percentage of active users has reached 84%.

What seems to drive such a high level of engagement from the bottom-up is “compelling editorial material”. Plus, the fact that even small teams have the opportunity to formulate and share their own ideas regularly, often impacting on official business implementations.

There are hundred of use cases around collaboration. “For example, the Sales Teams generate reports on a daily basis together. The same is for the Editorial teams.” The entire global editorial manual is now available on the platform. Editors and writers are required to enter their community every day to see the latest changes and updates to the style and generation of content.

Customer Service teams also use their own group to post questions, and get feedback from experts very quickly. “They now have one place to go in order to find all the material on call centres services, the information necessary for dealing with clients complaints, latest news, training, and changes to policies.”

“They now have one place to go..”

84%

19

Integration While transitioning from Jive 6 to Jive 7, Mishalove is looking at integrating third parties applications. One of these is Salesforce, currently used by employees in charge of highly complicated deals.

The complex nature of their work, often require them to get feedback and input from different teams (e.g. customer service, call centre, editorial and PR).

“Narrowing the integration between the two platforms means agents working on Salesforce can view cases’ information in the context of the community discussion that generated them.” They would be able to track down all the history of interactions happened around a customer enquiry, and make more informed and better decisions when managing important business deals.

A vision for employee engagementPart of Mishalove’s original vision was also to increase the level of employee engagement. “For staff operating across more than 45 countries it can be easy to feel disconnected with the HQ or the rest of the company. And, if employees don’t feel united to the organisation, it’s difficult to cultivate loyalty, productivity and ownership.”

He believes that if you can increase connectivity and activity within the global network, you can boost engagement and people retention. He gives the example of a colleague working from Japan lamenting of not having any insight on what the HQ in North America was working on. “That was upsetting for her, as it was for many others. But, now there is a single place to get access to all that information. We can communicate beyond borders and understand how we work in each country.”

Aligned with the idea of having a global working culture, the leadership team has established a global strategy. It focuses on the entire company operating from one single playbook, defining how the work done at the HQ ties up with every other geographical area of the business. “It is one of the initiatives we are implementing on the network to build a consistent experience for our people, making them feel connected to the overall performance of the company.”

Engagement is not very easily measurable. “Yet, there are some clues we can use to say that something has moved.” He refers to friendly comments made by people who once were very passive, the lot of sharing happening across geographies, new relationships unfolding, and teams becoming more productive.

20

Leadership…are you with us? Adoption and engagement from management is essential in establishing a meaningful intranet system. “It’s definitely something we’re constantly working to improve”.

Before there was mass adoption of the intranet, leadership were communicating predominantly through emails, even for global company announcements and important notes to the whole employee-base. But, Mishalove is working on getting them more involved on the platform. For example, “we started to do executives’ interviews and post the videos exclusively on Jive.”

Executives meeting are also organised on the platform, with the communications department helping leaders with their content and presentations.

Next on the agenda, is the creation of an area “where all the executives’ blogs will be aggregated into one space,” a channel where senior managers can share day-to-day thoughts on the company’s direction.”

Walking the talk There are good examples of why getting leaders on board is critical. One of these comes from the Global Director of Information Technology, who uses the social network regularly and very actively to build personal connections with her people.

She writes her own blog and posts weekly. When traveling she ensures to communicate very openly on everything happening during the business trip. The entire team is following her posts, and commenting on them.

“Morale has improved since she came on board and strategically utilized the platform to communicate with team members. Now, everyone has embraced it enthusiastically. It comes down to her leadership style of transparency and walking the talk.”

“The entire team is following her posts, and commenting.” on them.

21

SummaryThe networked organisation has transformed dramatically the way communications and relationships are created and consumed at work. As companies fight for agility the growth of internal social media seems essential and inevitable. Organisations that have been embracing these new forms of communications have an adaptive culture, which allows their employees to experiment, to be empowered, to contribute, and to innovate.

As we started investigating social networks in the enterprise we quickly saw that we are just at the beginning of an evolution that is going to change forever the practice of the internal communication industry. All the indications seem to suggest that the speed of social technology will continue to occur faster and faster. However, it seems important to share what we have been seeing happening so far, as well as continue exploring new emerging practices, trying to understand the multiple issues impacting on internal communications.

Whatever happens it is clear that the arrival of social in business has changed the role of the IC professional forever.

22

About JiveJive is the leading provider of modern communication and collaboration solutions for business. Our products apply powerful technology that helps employees, partners and customers work better together.

Inside companies, Jive-powered enterprise networks dramatically improve employee productivity, alignment and innovation. Externally, Jive supports vibrant customer and partner communities that drive higher sales, better service.

www.jivesoftware.com

23