Volunteerism a Win-Win in a Downturn

I attended the Volunteer Fairfax Service Awards last week, and it was clear there are many amazing people still out there volunteering their time, and worthy of significant recognition.  But trends show that volunteerism is down across the country.  Perhaps as we all work harder to try to sustain our jobs and support our families, we feel we have no room left for volunteerism.  

With a lot of organizations and individuals needing more support than ever right now, consider thinking of volunteerism as an opportunity.  Here are a few ways to do just that: 

Free Training - if you're an employer and cutting costs across your company, employee volunteerism can serve as an excellent supplement or substitute for expensive training sessions.  A good fitting volunteerism placement for your staff can give them new skills or help them refine their existing ones by exercising them in a different environment.  You can even work it into your training programs or performance metrics to encourage it more.  If you yourself are looking to grow your skills, volunteerism is a great place to do that, from food banks to nonprofit boards, each offers an opportunity to bring your skills to bear and to acquire new ones.

Great Free PR - Not only is volunteerism a great chance to build skills for your workforce, it can also be fantastic public relations for your organization.  Many consumers and clients hope to do work with organizations with value systems that connect with their own, and in a down economy, volunteerism is a great story.  You may inspire other companies or individuals to follow your lead, as well.

 

Job Hunting - if you're one of the many individuals that has lost your job in this tough economy, consider adding volunteerism to your repetoire while you search for you next opportunity.  Pair your volunteer efforts with your passions, and you'll find opportunities to demonstrate your skills to the organization, as well as to other volunteers and sponsors. Nonprofit organizations are often looking for people with business skills to support them, and could be a place where you can shine, network and land leads for your next job!  Volunteerism is also a great way to fill a gap in your resume with meaningful contributions.

Think about how you can integrate volunteerism into your plans or your business!

Check Out the Feds Leading the Way...

Three cheers for the Obama administration's open campaign and new approach to transparent, technology savvy outreach and now governance.  With the ease of social networks and the accessibility and low cost of emerging communication tools, businesses would be smart to follow suit, especially given the current economic climate.  This promise of transparency in government is no longer just a promise, but a reality.  We literally get emails direct to our in-boxes from the President now (if you don't, sign up!).  Messaging from the top - a practice we've advised businesses of for quite some time, gets attention and action.  We saw it with Obama's campaign outreach not only through email but through Facebook, LinkedIn, YouTube, Twitter, MySpace, text messaging and a whole host of other channels.  If government can make this kind of hyperleap into the digital age (surely you saw the boss is keeping his super secure blackberry), what are you and your organization waiting for?  Even if it's a baby step, consider increasing your organization's transparency and easing your messaging at the same time.  Creating a limited-audience blog to which your employees can subscribe is one easy way to get started.  Check out Blogger or Wordpress for ideas.

Salary Transparency Goes Market

Businesses have discussed and some even have tried on and off for years to share salary information with their workforce.  Most companies take the privatization approach, keeping salary info behind closed HR doors and strictly with management.  While this gives them the flexibility to make adjustments to stimulate an individual employee's work, in today's digital age, it will become harder to maximize the benefits on a case-by-case basis.  

With new digital offerings online like GlassDoor.com, Salary.com, PayScale.com, and SalaryScout.com, employees are taking it into their own hands and seeking negotiating information that was once once reserved for the Compensation specialists at big companies alone.  Now people are publishing their salaries in self-propelled salary surveys thatare slowly building steam and credibility, and could end up backfiring on companies who operate in a close-hold salary environment and might have major imbalances.  

Thinking about it, sharing salary information is prevalent at the executive levels, particularly in public companies where it's required by the SEC and shareholders, but what about the rest of the company, or in private business? Some companies, like Whole Foods Markets, share salary information at multiple levels and use the transparency to drive expectations and teamwork.  It does demand a high level of communication and authenticity in why changes are made.  Check out John Mackey's blog (CEO Whole Foods) as a great example of a CEO explaining changes to a salary cap.  This type of exposure and consistency in communication supports their policy, keeps employees in the know, and provides a sort of corporate social responsibility in declaring it to the public as well.  

Bringing on a New CEO

Change is normal, but never feels right when you're at the receiving end of it.  It's the same for your employees when inheriting new leadership. You've conducted an intense search to find the right fit for your company, perhaps with key shareholders and your board of directors involved. Now you need to introduce your decision to other leadership and employees in a way that helps them embrace the change.

Undoubtedly with a new CEO comes a fresh, new vision for the company and the opportunity, or challenge, of launching it internally.  We consistently see companies hold that vision tight, script a very intense release of a new strategy, and then wonder why retention rates suffer and productivity decreases.  Some key objectives when you're introducing a new leader and his/her vision are to make changes clear, get employee input and buy-in, and be consistent and frequent with your communication. Think constant drumbeat here.

So, easier said than done, right?  As usually is the case, with a new CEO comes other new leadership and sometimes the departure of some trusted individuals with a good bit of history at the company.  This doesn't make the job of getting buy-in easier, but it does create an opportunity for engagement.  

Having helped companies through this process, the one thing that is clear is that attention is heightened during a time of transition. Employees, clients, analysts, consumers -- either rooting for your company or not -- want to know what will happen, and in most cases, want to have some influence.  Setting the tone with your communications and with engagement opportunities will help them feel a part of the process, understand your vision and be willing to support and contribute to its success.

With all of that in mind, consider the following for welcoming a new CEO to your company:

Be as open as possible during the search process

Explain the process for finding a new CEO to your staff, and where you are with that process.  Short of divulging who is on the list, there are many things you can share with the company to help people understand that the company's future is secure.  For example: who is on the search committee (board members, shareholders, search firm, HR, other leadership, etc.); what traits are you searching for in a leader; how many people are being seriously considered; what is the planned timing for making a decision.  Including an outlet for questions and submission of ideas to the search firm creates an open forum for conversation and builds trust in the process.  

Do initial outreach

We've seen new CEOs do some terrific outreach, even before their first day leading the company.  Personal phone calls and lunches/meetings with existing leadership demonstrate the desire to build trust, understand existing state of the business from a variety of perspectives.  Doing these one-on-one gives each of the existing managers a chance to shine and share information.  Whether the CEO is coming from inside the company or outside of it, this is a great step to getting your leadership on board and to leverage their experience to solidify your direction for the company. Once you've heard them, it's much easier to sell your vision.  The best cases of initial outreach include as many levels of leadership and management as possible, individually or in small groups. 

Brand the change process

Part of the battle to making a change accessible is to help people identify with it.  We've seen companies brand change internally to draw attention to opportunities to influence it and have an open dialogue.  Good practices with branding this type of change include:  keep it positive, indicate that every employee owns the change to come, respect the company's history.  

Here are a couple of examples:

• Discovery Communications - Reaching New Heights - this one is positive, shows where the company can go, respects where it has been, implies that everyone needs to do it together.
  
• PG&E - Transformation@Work - this one indicates that change is happening and employees are a key part of it, also that it's a process, not something just done to them.

Develop clear messages and provide access to real information

You're getting the idea that more information is better than less information.  So, consider your company's platforms for getting the word out.  Do you have a robust intranet?  Do you have an e-newsletter or do regular webcasts?  Do you have a corporate blog?  To keep the drumbeat consistent, leverage your most frequented communications channels to push your messages about the new leadership.  

A best practice includes creating an online hub for news and resources surrounding the introduction of new leadership.  The hub should reinforce the new vision of the company, include any and all internal and external news (we'll get to that in a sec), and offer resources to support employee success during the process pointing to engagement opportunities (see below).  We've built them before with these types of sections:

• Get to know the CEO - include bio, photos, video message, blog/personal q&a, testimonials, an opportunity to send him/her a message
  
• A New Vision for the Company - info about the introduction of the new vision, visioning meeting schedule
  
• Organizational News and Information  - include internal and external news about the transition you're going through.  Including both positive and negative news that may evolve externally builds your credibility with employees (acknowledging that you know they see this stuff anyway).
  
• Resources for Success - Training courses (leading during times of change, for example), reference library, access to change ambassadors, flexibility and work-life resources available at your company.
  
• Get Involved!  - here's a spot for your key engagement opportunities...discussion boards, recognition program links, idea campaigns 
  

So, back to the "real" part of the message.  The critical aspect of introducing a new leader is to be as genuine as possible and to deliver a consistent and real message platform to employees.  Your workforce is smart, right?  Otherwise you wouldn't have hired them.  Keep that in mind as you share information.  This builds confidence in the new leader and shows integrity.  Past IABC surveys show that topics that employees want to know from CEOs include:  the future of the organization, overall corporate strategy, top-line financial results, major changes and restructurings, board feedback, major stakeholder issues and responses to media attention.  Don't forget, you have their attention during the transition. (Incidentally, IABC is a great resource for information about employee communication).

Create engagement opportunities

Last, but certainly not the least of concepts when introducing a new CEO, creating avenues for employees to participate in the change process enhances its success.  If you traditionally haven't asked for input, you might be surprised that employees have been waiting for a chance to offer opinions, but want to do it in a low risk way.  We've done great town hall meetings, sharing tons of information and providing visibility and access to new CEOs, but with few live questions from employees.  Really, who wants to be the one of the first to question the new CEO in front of the entire company?  (That's why those small groups are so much better at the onset of the CEO's tenure - and are smart to continue).  Here are some other techniques to give employees a way to interact:

• Change Ambassadors - look for individuals in your organization that are natural opinion leaders in their area of the company.  Often your HR group can help you identify them.  Bring them together to share their ideas on how to get employees on board and develop a grass-roots engagement plan.  Give them the tools to share information (department blogs, videocasts, meeting budgets, etc.).
• Transition Stunts - depending upon the culture of your company, it can help to introduce a light, fun engagement activity to get people thinking about what it would be like to be the new CEO.  Whether a photo contest, story submission series, or employee-generated video stunt, ask employees to share their perspectives with the rest of the company and develop energy, excitement, empathy and engagement.
• Idea Sharing Program - If you have one, perfect, if not, a CEO transition is a great time to launch one.  You're employees are closest to the business on a day-to-day basis.  Give them an outlet to share solid business concept ideas that relate to the new vision and watch your business begin to solve long-time issues.
• Recognition Program - During transitions is the best time to acknowledge important contributions.  It shows you're paying attention and appreciate the challenge associated with embracing a new vision.  Leverage your existing program or develop a special transition recognition for those change ambassadors or others that shine during the introduction of your new vision.
• Employee Survey - Whether a full-on survey of your company or spot survey, asking for feedback about how the transition is going will help you understand your effectiveness maintaining consistency with asking for input.

Set expectations

Once you've got people smart about who the new leader is and embracing the new vision, there will always be those that just can't get on board.  The importance of clearly setting your expectations in line with your vision can't be underestimated. Consider communications expectations, performance and productivity expectations, respect in the workplace, and anything else that supports your mission, then communicate them through your mission, values and strategy with which you expect everyone to align.

There are many ways to roll out a new CEO or other leader, so share your thoughts with us!  If you need assistance introducing new leadership in your organization, Vivazu Communications can help.

Talking UP the RIF?

So you have come to the conclusion that you need to have a reduction in force. Hopefully, you've considered alternatives (everything from work-sharing to voluntary separations to early retirement), and have met with your labor and employment attorneys.  Next, you've gotten your HR folks involved and started alerting business units, and the rumors start spreading from the chatter.  Did you know that talking up your RIF actually can help?  No, seriously...you just need some tools.

Smart communication planning can help ease the RIF process.  

We keep hearing that it's hard to find really great tools to help companies through communicating during a RIF and manage rumors and other side effects.  Lots of information is available about the legal aspects of what needs to be done (thank goodness), but we find companies tend to reinvent the wheel when it comes to telling people about it.  

While we do agree there is pretty much always need to customize message and timing, having a basic toolkit for a RIF can be a huge support for participants in the process.  Here are some communications needs to consider in the process:

Know the State of Your Company, Industry, Market and Your RIF Situation.

Consider the state of your company and the factors in your company's RIF situation (which you should have gone through with your legal counsel) that inform your communications strategy.  For example:

• What is the reason for the RIF?  (staff redundancies following an acquisition or merger, loss of clients or contracts, new technology creates increased efficiencies, something else?)
• How did you determine who was included in it? 
• How open have you been with information that a RIF might be on its way?
• How many people are affected and at what level?
• What is the current state of your industry?
• Have you had successful or challenging RIFs in the past?
• What's going on with recruiting efforts in your organization?
• What are your competitors and partners doing?
• What are your clients or consumers saying about your company?

Identify Participants - Who Needs to Know?

These factors and many, many more should be evaluated first.  The next step is to figure out who needs to be involved in the process, and who doesn't need to be involved (HR, Legal, Finance, IT, Admin, Managers, Employees, Press, Analysts, Consumers).  In the interest of managing the rumor mill, our experience has shown that transparency in the process supports a smoother RIF with lower risk and less loss of productivity.

Develop Key Messages and Delivery Mechanisms

Develop your key messages to important audiences involved in the process, and determine how they are delivered. This is a critical step as what you say and how you say it sets the stage for the success of the action. Consider that streamlining for business effectiveness and profitability might sit well with Wall Street, but smack of insensitivity to remaining employees who have lost respected colleagues in the process. Being clear with your message and delivering them through the proper channels is key.

This could include some of the following concepts, but something very different depending upon the culture of the company and the circumstances you've considered above. 

• Human Resources staff meet with managers and deliver notification training
• Managers notify departing employees one-on-one and discuss with remaining staff in small-group meetings
• Company leadership addresses the larger workforce in a town meeting
• Sales staff mentions with customers in their regular business connections
• Communications staff issues a release and makes/manages calls from trade, business, and consumer media
• Investor Relations and Communications groups manage analyst community and shareholder inquiries

Develop a Communication Rollout Plan (Timing)

Once you have your audiences that need to know, and your key points you need to address, you need to be smart about the timing of notifications through the delivery mechanisms you've chosen.  Does your need for compliance require particular timing with shareholders?  Do you want to 

Create a Notification Manager's Toolkit

Having a toolkit as a guide for the rollout of a RIF has proven effective for parties involved (at least with our experience).  Toolkits should include the information a manager needs to know about the RIF in order to conduct notifications in concert with your business interests identified earlier.  Here's what we've included in RIF toolkits:

• Schedule of Events - notification timing for various groups or individuals, when messaging will go out to various parties, timing of meetings and events with leadership
• Internal Talking Points - key points that should be leveraged in conversations with employees during the process
• Notifying Departing Employees - manager notification scripts, HR notification scripts, severance plan guidelines, talking points around benefits, compensation and termination of special plans, manager & HR FAQ
• Notification Training Materials - include training materials related to how to handle the notification process
• Points of Contact - who the manager can contact for more information, HR, legal, security contacts, etc.
• Media Relations Information - contacts of Communications staff and/or company spokespeople on the RIF or related issues, plus information about what to say if the media, analysts or shareholders contact you about it.
• Additional Resources - including related organizational announcements, business plans, strategy documents

Identify or Create Spaces to Share Information Internally

To support the remaining workforce and those in transition, provide access to as much information as possible through an online hub or intranet, or via your company's most-frequented internal network.  Include resources for managing change, idea-sharing points, a place to ask questions and contact someone to get them answered.  As always, consider that anything you publish internally to the company can make its way outside the company with ease.

That last statement really means be cautious, but don't be afraid to be transparent.  If you're prepared and you have started with a solid reason for the RIF, being clear, consistent and transparent about it is the best thing you can do. It gives you the opportunity to manage perceptions about why you're doing it and the intended effects on your company.

Need support with communicating a RIF?  We can help...Vivazu Communications.