Employer branding has made the cut on the list of strategic business priorities for many…
We were thrilled to be part of the Internal Communications Conference which took place in London last week. Our own Joe Hoppard shared a vision for how IC might become a nexus of collaboration between HR, Marketing, and Technology – an idea which was echoed in other presentations through the day.
Here are a few themes that stuck with us and some thoughts on how we might react.
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Foster Strategic Collaboration
Jessica Tompkinson from Unilever inspired us with her story of strategic partnership between internal communications and the Chief Technology Officer’s team. We were in awe of how they have leveraged technology to deliver truly impactful comms and experiences for hard-to-reach colleagues.
This idea is central to how we see the future of internal communications. Our people have become accustomed to beautiful, frictionless experiences and communications from consumer brands in the world outside work.
There’s so much more we can do to harness the innovations and capabilities from other departments to deliver consumer-grade internal comms and experiences.
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Engage With Technology
Fiona Passantino shared a vision for the impact of AI on internal communications. In what was the most thought-provoking speech of the day Fiona urged us to engage with emerging technologies and drive the agenda of how and where they’re applied to our discipline.
This rang loud and true for us. We mustn’t let technology be something that happens to us.
Instead, we must lean-in and determine how and when emerging tech is applied. For example, it’s critical that IC professionals make the case against using AI to rapidly increase the volume of useless ‘stuff’ flying around our organisations, and instead explore more valuable applications like driving individualisation of comms and experiences.
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Embrace Blurred Boundaries
Tracey Foy at Expedia Group shared the awesome success they’ve had in allowing brand advertising campaigns and internal communications campaigns to inform one another. Recognising the power of employee voices in consumer spaces, Tracey and team have enabled and amplified the blurring of these boundaries, and driven engagement and impact in the process.
This ‘one-brand thinking’ is an approach we’ve also adopted with great success. As part of the McCann Worldgroup of advertising agencies, we’re often called on to consider how a consumer brand platform or campaign might be adapted for an internal audience. Experience tells us that when all expressions of a brand sing in harmony everything is more impactful.
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Leverage culture and gamification
Finally, we were energised by the fantastic work of Jasmine Rose Chartered MCIPD at Apprentice Nation to inspire and engage young people. Their work leveraging culture and gamification to help get young people career ready is a lesson for us all.
The day was full of optimism with stories of innovation and success. Meeting people, sharing ideas, and feeling part of this community of IC practitioners was a special experience.
If you’d like to find out more about Joe’s point of view on the future of IC don’t hesitate to get in touch.
Joe Hoppard, Head of Strategy
Joe is driven by a fundamental belief that business is better for everyone when people are happy, healthy, and engaged. With a focus on effectiveness, Joe’s short-term goal is to help improve measurement across all client work to better demonstrate return on investment, whilst inspiring teams towards delivering highly effective solutions.
