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Catherine Park explores the nature and significance of effective internal communication in gaining employees’ commitment to quality management systems.
As we all know from our own workplace experiences, effective internal communication is very important in accomplishing a high proportion of tasks satisfactorily. However the stakes get higher, and the importance of a systematic, strategic approach grows, when managing significant change or seeking to achieve a lasting modification of attitudes and behaviour. Two of the key references to communication in ISO 9001:2008 are Top management shall ensure that responsibilities and authorities are defined and communicated within the organisation. (Clause 5.5.1) and Top management shall ensure that appropriate communication processes are established within the organisation and that communication takes place regarding the effectiveness of the quality management system. (Clause 5.5.3) However, what form should all this communication take? It could be argued that efficient preparation, dissemination and updating of relevant documentation providing standards and approved policies and procedures are the key. This also ties in with the fairly recent history of internal communication - certainly when the Institute of Internal Communication (IoIC) was founded as the British Association of Industrial Editors in 1949 and for several decades afterwards, communicating with employees was primarily about ‘telling’ people things and downloading decisions made by the senior management team. However, it is now generally accepted that effective internal communication is all about an ongoing, constructive two-way conversation between employer and employees, and indeed a multi-way dialogue across departments to support better understanding of each other and continuous improvement. So the internal communicator today will aim to facilitate this type of dialogue in a variety of ways, including employee surveys, meetings, suggestion boxes, feedback requests via in-house publications and intranet, workshops, brainstorming sessions and simple conversations. Some might feel that a discursive and ‘democratic’ approach in relation to quality brings some risks as, in the final analysis, you cannot get round the fact that quality systems are tightly defined and employees have to adhere to these correctly and consistently. However, it is clear that individuals show greater commitment when they have been consulted before plans and procedures are developed, and, very specifically, have been encouraged to contribute on their area of expertise - that is the challenges they face in their role and what could practically be done in their area to improve service for internal and external customers. After agreeing a way forward, it is also important that individuals have the opportunity to feedback on their experiences and suggest improvements or modifications. Employee engagement One of the main reasons for the raised profile of internal communication in recent years is all the debate and research that has taken place since the 1980s on what constitutes employee engagement and its role in ensuring that a business operates effectively. A growing body of evidence has shown that high levels of employee engagement are inextricably linked to traditional measures of business success such as profitability, commercial longevity and indeed quality. For example, talent management consultancy Development Dimension International reported in 2005 that, in a major US manufacturing company, quality errors were significantly higher for poorly engaged teams. (‘Employee engagement: the key to realising competitive advantage’ – R.S. Wellins, P Bernthal, M Phelps.) And PricewaterhouseCoopers, who use staff and customer engagement levels as one of their four key performance indicators, have found a strong correlation between highly engaged staff and client satisfaction. The UK Government-commissioned MacLeod Report, published in 2009, describes employee engagement as: ‘a workplace approach designed to ensure that employees are committed to their organisation’s goals and values, motivated to contribute to organisational success, and are able at the same time to enhance their own sense of well-being.’ This can be broken down into a number of key stages. Firstly, employees need to know what their organisation’s goals and values are, and understand them. They then need to understand their own role in achieving these goals. The final challenge is to ensure that employees are actually committed to these goals. The big picture One way to help employees feel engaged with future plans is to paint a compelling, big picture of the outcome of these actions rather than getting bogged down in abstract or technical words and jargon. It is very valuable to provide powerful, simple messages at the start of a major communication programme as these both get across the basics and create an immediate, stronger connection with the audience. A current, important concept in internal communication is ‘storytelling’. Compelling stories about real people in real situations are much more likely to motivate, persuade, inform, inspire and indeed change attitudes and beliefs than a lot of dry detail. One vital story to get across is that of the customer, as their needs lie at the heart of effective quality systems. Global insurance company AXA had a global strategy to become the world’s ‘preferred’ insurance company by 2012, and decided to develop a specific programme in the UK that involved all employees in this vision. A research programme revealed ‘trust’ as the most expected quality from an insurance company, and the key components of this for the customer were identified as ‘available’, ‘attentive’ and ‘reliable’. Over a period of three months, the chief executive and his team toured all AXA UK’s offices so that every one of the company’s 13,000 employees could have an opportunity to give input, ask questions and generally gain a solid understanding of company objectives. To embed the key principles further, an exercise was organised to plunge employees into an intense, live situation that would really help them to appreciate how their own behaviour could make or break trust in the customer relationship. Over the course of a day, they were gradually introduced to six typical AXA customers, played by actors, who were in a crisis situation – the challenge for employees was to make customers feel they could trust the company in these highly charged situations. Considering specific audiences Managers also took part in the exercise to experience at first-hand the challenges facing front-line staff. This illustrates a key point, namely the importance of managers and supervisors being fully engaged with goals in theory and practice. IoIC research has found that 70% of employees totally trust their immediate manager or supervisor, but it is a law of diminishing returns after that, and a GFK survey concluded that staff with an engaged manager typically have an employee engagement score of around 75%, while the score for a disengaged manager is around 40%. Consequently, the role of the line manager is pivotal in any communication programme. The IoiC regards team briefings and one-to-one meetings between a manager and their team as critical, regardless of other aspects of communication strategy. Any internal communication programme should consider the engagement levels of managers, and support them in communicating effectively with their teams. Internal communication should also factor in the specific requirements of different audiences within the organisation. A one-size fits all approach will not work, as some groups, for example, will be more automatically attuned to quality systems and the related terminology than others. The experiences of Nycomed Global pharmaceutical company Nycomed began to implement an internal communication plan in 2009 aimed at promoting quality and a broader awareness and understanding of the existing quality management system (QMS). Many areas of quality are mandatory and regulated within the pharmaceutical industry – the main thrust of this exercise was to engage with those areas where the QMS was not linked to legal requirements as these had a tendency to consider it not to be particularly relevant to them. At the heart of the plan lay the goal of equipping Nycomed employees with enough information to be able to answer the following questions:
The movement from awareness, to understanding, to commitment, is a process, and the Corporate Quality Assurance team (CQA) and Denmark-based communications consultancy Corporate Understanding agreed that the plan should follow the same sequence. A key aim was to build a community of stakeholders and champions beyond quality personnel and the Quality Forum. Phase 1 – Short term: creating critical mass This phase involved reviewing the existing QMS resources on the company intranet to ensure that they offered an effective, scalable structure of communication and reference tools, supported with complementary print materials, and that they worked effectively together. This included ensuring that the intranet was populated with:
A priority objective for this phase was the development of a few simple, strong, key messages for the communication programme:
Quality means fulfilling internal and external customers’ requirements and needs, at all times. We provide this by using processes, and delivering products and services, that meet or exceed customers’ expectations.
Quality is a vital part of our business. Through the Nycomed quality management system, we provide a set of tools for managing and improving the quality of everything the organisation does.
Quality concerns every employee and has been made a strategic priority by the leadership team. It means we follow international and local legislation and operate in an ethical and honest manner to meet or exceed the needs of colleagues and customers.
Every employee is expected to familiarise themselves with the quality management system. If you work in a regulated area, you will have experts around you who can tell you more. Otherwise, you can learn more at the dedicated portal area (with a link inserted where appropriate). This phase was also used to share plans with and gain input from the senior management team and the Quality Forum, and to give them a preview of print and online tools to be associated with the programme. Phase 2 – Medium-term: maximising key communication opportunities This period was used to present the key messages and the ‘big picture’ in a generic and visual way that was suitable for all internal audiences. A schedule for the communication of news and events was developed and implemented via the Nycomed Corporate News channel and local equivalents. The Nycomed Magazine carried a feature on the QMS and the QMS Survival Guide as an insert to all employees. Additionally, posters and room-drop materials were delivered at major internal meetings throughout the year. Methods used all linked back to reference and support material available via the QMS portal. Major emphasis was placed on providing evidence of the positive impact of an effective QMS system in terms of overall business success. Phase 3 – Longer-term: virtual communities This phase built on the previous work by drawing out key audiences with specific needs. Identifying them and targeting them with tailored materials and tools would play an important part in achieving buy-in and also making them ambassadors for the QMS. It included:
Resource constraints and evolving priorities were carefully considered in the formulation of the communication plan so that it was not overly ambitious, and that each of the individual phases made sense and brought benefits in its own right. The plan reflected that high levels of commitment already existed amongst senior and line managers, but they also benefited significantly from the associated material and events, and the way the programme explained the significance of the QMS to employees. CQA and Corporate Understanding were aware that quality as a subject may have a dull image for some of those who are not actively working in the field. For that reason, they were keen to inject a sense of surprise and fun into these activities which will be particularly in evidence in a new series of posters due for release this autumn. Even in measuring the effect and seeking to refine the communication approach, care has been taken to support the strategy’s theme – a global online survey, currently underway, asks questions targeted to uncover the answers to the questions that underpin the strategy. The incentive to participate – a pair of Bose noise-cancelling headphones, also epitomises quality and listening. Interesting comments and trends will be further investigated via 1:1 telephone interviews. Reinforcement This programme also reflects another key aspect of internal communication – that is, the importance of regular reinforcement as engagement is an ongoing process. The internal communication plan for 2010 includes articles and news items for corporate headquarters media; provision of syndicated articles for local and team newsletters; strengthening the ‘meeting in a box’ concept to facilitate different lengths of meeting and break-out sessions; further case studies illustrating how the QMS has supported business continuity and effectiveness; continued updates to the FAQ section of the QMS portal area; ensuring the QMS profile is raised at key meetings such as the Nycomed Leadership Conference. Careful audience segmentation and targeting with tailored messages remains a strong focus. As mentioned, a formal measurement exercise regarding the success of this internal communication work is underway, but there is already strong anecdotal evidence that it is achieving its objectives. In addition, many of the reference resources generated are being translated and reproduced by local markets at their own expense, because they see them as beneficial. Quality is a lot about important procedures and systems, and the challenges involved in getting people to conform to them can sometimes make it difficult to think beyond them. However investing in true engagement will reap real benefits in terms of understanding and consistent commitment. Thanks to Mark Watkins at Corporate Understanding and Nycomed for their assistance with this article. This article originally appeared in the November 2010 issue of Quality World.
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