Internal Communications ? focus groups for free? - CCC VitalSigns

In an industry increasingly concerned with measurement and evaluation, internal communications is one aspect of our business where genuine metrics remain a relative rarity. Typically, success is viewed as the workforce having been informed of company news, delivered as easily as a company-wide email.

But is that what the workforce itself sees as success? After all, these are nervous times, and that makes for nervous people. The last few years have been difficult and put an end to the myth that the healthcare industry is somehow immune from recession. We are feeling the same pressures as other industries to do more with less, and employees are anxious to feel engaged in their roles and eager to see their contributions recognised.

Within this economic context, it?s surely a win-win to enhance our internal communications by incorporating more meaningful feedback mechanisms. We should reach beyond the usual ?please get in touch with any questions? postscript, and ask specific questions that can lead to fresh insights into how well we are communicating and, more importantly, how well our story works. In a market such as Europe, with so many languages and cultures within one business region, internal communication offers the canny marketeer an invaluable head-start in understanding the workforce and the marketplace.

After all, internal communications means engaging hundreds ? even thousands ? of people in different countries, who understand our market, our brands and our services. They can be engaged at an earlier stage than the public, and are motivated to share their opinions. In other words? they?re a free focus group on a massive scale.

So when we communicate internally, instead of just sharing news we should be asking for employees to share back. We could ask?

• Whether the creative elements work
• Whether the story is clear
• What aspects of the announcement resonate best culturally
• Whether they have any suggestions for how to make the story stronger.

The process can be as as easy as a link-through to an automated survey (the likes of which can be set up for free in ten minutes) or as involved as an orchestrated sequence of feedback seminars market-to-market. But whatever form it takes, it surely beats filling a dozen rooms with strangers and paying to watch them through a two-way mirror.

Now yes, there is of course still a need for focus testing, particularly when professional/customer-centric insights are required. Nonetheless, employees are in many instances a potential goldmine of insight, patiently waiting to be unearthed. With budgets tightening, this is surely the right time to search for those precious, untapped assets a little closer to home.

Source: http://www.cccvitalsigns.com/internal-communications/internal-communications-%E2%80%93-focus-groups-for-free/

ruben studdard ruben studdard black friday sales 2011 black friday sales 2011 whitney duncan bradley cooper roger craig