Last Thursday and Friday (9th and 10th May) was the highlight of any internal communicators' calendar: IoIC Live. A two-day conference with speakers from British Airways, Department for Transport, IBM and Nestlé to name a few, IoIC Live 2019 brought over 160 internal communicators from across the industry (and indeed the world!) together in Bath to learn, share and connect. Here are our top five takeaways for FutureNet members.
1. The power of storytelling is as strong as ever
Whether it was British Airways talking about training managers as storytellers to help build pride around their 100th anniversary, employee engagement guru Nita Clarke explaining the importance of using employee voice to let your people tell their stories, or Department of Transport saying storytelling was crucial in their bid to make people have fun at work (to get across 'serious' messages), storytelling was a component in every speaker's presentation.
Unleashing the story in your communications is bound to make them more relatable, understandable and interesting to employees. As Matt Batten, FutureNet committee member and Employee Engagement and Organisational Development at the Royal College of Nursing, said: "Fact sheets don't change the world, people's stories change the world."
2. We must bring the outside in
Speaking of stories, it isn't just employee stories that internal communicators need to be thinking about. Sarah Meurer, Head of Internal Communications at Nestlé, explained how sharing customer stories at the beginning of meetings helped employees connect even the smallest, most seemingly mundane tasks to the company's impact and wider purpose.
And Matt Batten explained how bringing in external experts for a wellbeing campaign gave it a real gravitas and relevance, showing employees that wellbeing was more than a workplace 'gimmick'. This campaign's messages should stretch beyond work into their everyday lives.
3. We matter at work
The topic of this year's conference was 'We matter at work', which linked to another prominent theme of the sessions: wellbeing. It was clear from the number of conversations around wellbeing – both on and off stage – that it is becoming an increasingly important considerations for businesses and internal communication. And as the driving force behind our work is the people we want to engage and connect at work, it makes sense that we'd want to support their wellbeing.
Nita Clarke even pointed out that a strong relationship between employees and line managers had been shown to reduce workplace illness. So helping our employees feel supported and safe at work makes good business sense, as well as just being the right thing to do.
4. IC is heading into the unknown
If you want to be a writer, you're in the wrong profession. Just one of the (unpopular?) opinions put forwards during a session which argued that internal communication as we know it won't exist in 20 years.
Elsewhere there were talks on the growing capabilities of AI and the advancement of bots, as well as discussions around how we define work now and in future. What will flexible working mean for internal communicators? Or co-working spaces? Or five generations in the workplace? Lots of questions, with no definitive answers yet, promise an exciting – if not unsettling – period ahead for internal communication and the world of work.
5. IoIC may be 70, but there's nothing old hat about us!
This year's conference coincided with the IoIC's 70th birthday (many happy returns!) and while we celebrated our heritage and experience, we aren't slowing down in our old age!
From immersive experiences at Twickenham Stadium, to carrying a replica Florence Nightingale lamp across the UK and Ireland, to holding a Dragon's Den to find the organisation's next big idea, internal communicators are still coming up with creative – and sometimes even a little crazy – ideas to engage employees and create opportunities for connection and conversations.
Want to know more? Catch up with IoIC Live 19 as it happened on the live blogs here.
